The Finch Formerly Known As Gold

24 October 2006

My shadow weighs 42 pounds

Andrea Harris, on the Chubbening of America:

I've been thinking lately, though, of the strangeness of how there seems to be so many more fat people, people who are really, really fat, around than there were when I was a kid. I am sure that the food of past decades was even fattier and greasier and calorie-laden than it is in these days of low-carb this and diet that, but people seem to just be growing wider and wider. I thought humanity was supposed to grow taller as we ate better, not fatter. But I don't see any more seven-footers around than I ever did. Maybe it's a gravity thing and all these fat people would really be eight feet tall if it weren't for the pull of the earth.

We are become our own cities: we grow outward rather than upward. I see more seven-footers than I used to, but this is because we now have an NBA team on loan. (And actually, Tyson Chandler is the only one who checks in at 84 inches or above.)

Maybe it's just that people who once never dared venture out of the house, for fear of public mockery, have grown a spine. Not that I'd want to look for it, particularly.

But then:

Or another, more horrid thought has been occurring to me lately ... maybe we are being fattened up for something.

Think about it. The environmental movement and all those other leftist movements have been getting very odd lately. Then there are all those "animal rights" and meat-is-murder proponents. A vegetarian diet is necessarily high-carb, which we are told causes more people to become fat. Has anyone gotten close enough to Al Gore to see if that's really a mask concealing a ravenous alien visage of meat- and bone-crunching mandibles? All I know is, I am going to keep on eating meat, so as to at least render my fatty flesh unpleasant tasting to any cannibal looking for a sweet ruminant human on which to feast.

The secret, I suspect, died with Dr Atkins. And really, I don't know any fat vegetarians, carbs notwithstanding. Perhaps not even they could stand to eat that many greens.

If you ask me, the entire philosophy of the animal-rights movement boils down (45 minutes at high heat, add many grains of salt) to "Animals, unlike men, do not wage war," granting the critters the sort of moral standing they would never bestow upon humans — except, of course, themselves. It is, of course, possible, even desirable, to extend kindness to animals, though we should never delude ourselves that we and they can live in perfect harmony so long as no one ever goes to Burger King. And rapidly moving up my Fondest Dreams chart is a vision of Peter Singer being eaten by shrews.

The idea of leftist groups getting odd, of course, is about as remarkable as the idea of Seattle getting rain.

Posted at 8:08 AM to Almost Yogurt


And rapidly moving up my Fondest Dreams chart is a vision of Peter Singer being eaten by shrews.

Put him in an orange parka with the hood tied up tight around his face, and it could happen.

As for why America is getting fatter, I blame corn.

All our meat is corn-fed. All our foods seem to contain either corn syrup or corn starch, if they're not, you know, actual corn.

It's the VADMC, the Vast Archer-Daniels-Midland Conspracy -- which has the added benefit, might I point out, of not being a newly invented bogeyman.

Posted by: McGehee at 10:28 AM on 24 October 2006

There are fat vegetarians, says a friend of mine:

"We call them 'French fry vegetarians.' They eat more donuts and frozen cheese pizza than any human should. Just because someone chooses a certain diet does not mean they have researched the healthy balance of foods and nutrients required to support the human body in the best way possible."

I'm inclined to take her word for it.

Posted by: CGHill at 8:21 PM on 24 October 2006

Geez, when Andrea talks about people getting "wider and wider", it's like she knows me or something.

This is one of those trends that is both anecdotally and scientifically true. You see fat people by the gross (haha) on the streets, and the scientific types who study these things say they're multipying like rabbits.

Posted by: John Salmon at 11:25 PM on 24 October 2006

What would we ever do without scientific types!

I'm actually talking about me. I always thought I'd get taller some day, but the doctors told me 5'4" was it. My increasing pants size isn't much of a consolation.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at 5:02 AM on 25 October 2006