nd now for the inevitable end result of all this food.  Obesity.  This page collects items from various news posts that relate to food, in a "you can stop eating now, sir" sort of way.  Overweight airplane passengers requiring two seats, fat Atkins doctors dying of heart attacks, Wal-Mart shopping heifers who need two carts to fit all of the frozen hams in... yes, America is a nation of lard butts.

Despite that fact, you'll sometimes see news about fat people in other countries too.

More recent updates are added on top of this page.

January 24, 2004

An article I found pretty amusing.  Some guy eats only McDonald's food for a month, and damn near dies from it.

LAST February, Morgan Spurlock decided to become a gastronomical guinea pig. His mission: To eat three meals a day for 30 days at McDonald's and document the impact on his health. Scores of cheeseburgers, hundreds of fries and dozens of chocolate shakes later, the formerly strapping 6-foot-2 New Yorker - who started out at a healthy 185 pounds - had packed on 25 pounds. But his supersized shape was the least of his problems.

Within a few days of beginning his drive-through diet, Spurlock, 33, was vomiting out the window of his car, and doctors who examined him were shocked at how rapidly Spurlock's entire body deteriorated.

"It was really crazy - my body basically fell apart over the course of 30 days," Spurlock told The Post. His liver became toxic, his cholesterol shot up from a low 165 to 230, his libido flagged and he suffered headaches and depression.

The guy did it as a research project, and also filmed himself during the process, all to edit it into a documentary that he's shopping around to try and get a movie deal.  I'm not exactly going to be first in line to see the film, but it's an interesting premise.

A spokeswoman for McDonald's told The Post yesterday that no representatives from the corporation had seen "Super Size Me."

"Consumers can achieve balance in their daily dining decisions by choosing from our array of quality offerings and range of portion sizes to meet their taste and nutrition goals," McDonald's said in a statement.

Over the course of the film, Spurlock is regularly examined by a gastroenterologist, a cardiologist and SoHo-based general practitioner Dr. Daryl Isaacs.

"He was an extremely healthy person who got very sick eating this McDonald's diet," Dr. Isaacs told The Post.

"None of us imagined he could deteriorate this badly - he looked terrible. The liver test was the most shocking thing - it became very, very abnormal."

Spurlock has since returned to normal health. "The treatment was to just stop doing what he was doing," Dr. Isaacs says.

The only thing I was really surprised by about this one was that the NY Post (tabloid) would print it, with the name of the restaurant attached.  McD's newspaper ad budget must have severely dried up in recent years.

And speaking of newspaper ads and media coverage, Wal-Mart famously boycotts all newspaper advertising (they use TV commercials to flood a new market).  The effect of this in small towns is often to drive the local paper out of business, since Wal-Mart kills off all the local hardware stores, garden stores, video rental stores, grocery stores, drug stores, etc.  All businesses who used to advertise in the paper, and it's compounded by Wal-Mart never advertising there themselves.

Anyway, my point is that that's probably a major reason that so many newspapers are willing to run so many nasty (but true) articles about Wal-Mart.  They ain't got no ad money to lose by doing it, and they're taking on a sworn enemy.

January 5, 2004

Detroit is the new fattest city in America, moving past two-time defending champion, Houston.  As you might guess by looking at the average American, the competition for this award is fierce.

Men's Fitness uses 14 categories to determine the fattest cities, including the number of health clubs and sporting goods stores and the number of fast food and ice cream and doughnut shops per capita, air quality, climate, television viewing trends and availability of health care.

Texas had five of the 10 fattest cities, including Dallas, San Antonio, Fort Worth and Arlington. Others in the top 10 were Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Columbus.

I like the quote by the Detroit mayor though.

Told of Detroit's designation, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick ventured an explanation.

"Our city is the automotive capital of the world," he told television station WXYZ. "The culture here is you walk out of your house, you get in your car or you take a bus and you go where you're going."

Kilpatrick, a former college offensive lineman with about 300 pounds on his 6-foot-4 frame, said he "will lead by example" to encourage city residents to lose weight. He plans to run a marathon in the coming year.

I'd say if tubby there actually runs a whole marathon, the deputy mayor will be sworn in on the steps of the hospital the next day, but hey, at least he's setting reasonable, realistic goals he'll be able to stick to and see real progress in his life-long struggle to shed the 100 extra pounds he's carrying around like a rented piano.

November 18, 2003

American style fast food, instant meals, and fatty snacks are catching on throughout Europe.  The result?

American fashions always arrive here 10 years later, and now this fashion is arriving," says Amleto D'Amicis, a leading government nutritionist who helped write the latest report on obesity in Italy. Among the findings: 25% of Italian children are now overweight or obese making them the heaviest in Europe.

Of children ages 6 through 10, 36% are overweight, the Italian Ministry of Health reported last month.

And it's not just here. Throughout Europe, the scales are bouncing upward. In many countries, more than half of adults are now overweight and up to 30% obese.

In Britain, 21% of men and nearly 24% of women are now considered obese, a three-fold increase in 20 years, according to the International Obesity Task Force, a London-based consumer group that collaborates with the World Health Organization. This month, the task force warned that without urgent action, obesity levels in Britain will soar 40% or more within a single generation. A 2001 study showed over 11% of adults in Finland were obese.

In the United States, 65% of adults are either overweight or obese, and 31% qualify as obese; 6.3% of women and 3.1% of men are morbidly obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nor is the problem limited to Western countries. There are surprisingly high levels of obesity in the Middle East; 40% of women in Kuwait, for example, are considered obese. Obesity is defined in terms of body mass index, a formula that divides weight by height. A body mass index of 30 or higher qualifies as obese; above 40 a person is considered morbidly obese.

"We are static. We don't move anymore," agrees Luca Biagi, 28, who lives in Rome. Like most Italians, he holds the United States largely responsible for his country's increasingly sedentary and overweight population. Eating at McDonalds, he points out, is "fashionable" among young Romans, even though it costs more than a pizza and is not as healthy.

"It makes no sense, of course," Biagi says. "But everything comes from America: clothes, music, fat."

April 13, 2003

This little essay isn't meant to be insulting to anyone.  If you start to feel that way, keep in mind that I mean those other fat people.  Not you.  You are different and special.

The disclaimer dispensed with, one thing I've really been noticing at work this year is how fat everyone is.

Not that this is a big change, I mean Americans are fat and getting fatter, as countless news items and surveys have discussed. Fat, religious, SUV-driving, and war mongering.  There's an essay there.  But I'm not writing it today.

As for the fatness, or overweightness at least, I think this year more guys are pudgy than I've ever before seen.  I'm not counting or anything, but it's to the point now that I'm almost surprised when I see an adult male at the stadium who isn't carrying around a big ass, or at least a bit of a beer gut. And the number of men who really are obese, I mean 30lbs or more overweight, is ridiculously high.

Now admittedly, it's March (or possibly April) and not exactly summer swimsuit season. But hey, this is San Diego (or possibly La Mesa), it's not as if it's snowing outside.  It's 70 or more almost every single day, and I've had to put a fan in the window to cool down my apartment every other day for months; and have felt quite warm out riding my bike in shorts and a t-shirt.  So it's not like it's been too cold to get out and exercise.

Also, it's been chilly at work most nights, so people are bundling up or freezing.  Lots of people in San Diego basically wear shorts and a t-shirt every day, all year.  Which is fine in the day time almost always, but when you go to a Padres game at 6, and by 8:30 it's 60º and breezy, you're going to look pretty stupid sitting there shivering with your arms tucked into your shirt and your legs crossed, while the guy next to you who had the sense to wear a heavy coat is eating ice cream and laughing.  Plan ahead a bit, Snappy.

But I'm not mistaking two sweaters and a coat for fat; my judgment is only falling on people who are obviously rotund, or downright obese, in most cases.

The interesting thing is that it's mostly guys.  The women I see there aren't any more heavy or light than usual, and in fact the vast majority are pretty near slim, either over or under that a bit.  It depends on age a lot also, most of the girls are slim, a lot of the women under 40ish are also, with most over that age looking aren't pudgy.  But that's just how it goes with female humans.

I'm mostly basing my "everyone is fat now" on men, the gender that's vastly in the majority at baseball games, and they are fatter than ever.  Trust me.  Even most of the younger guys, the 18-24 types with their pants falling down and their boxers pulled up in the "amazingly-still trendy prison bitch look" have guts. (God but white people so do not have a fashion clue.) Guts which are displayed with unpleasant clarity bulging over their plaid underwear due to their ratty and too-short t-shirts. As I said a moment before, white people shouldn't be allowed to dress themselves. Especially the men.  I saw a guy at work Saturday night wearing green sweat pants inside out, paint-splattered white sneakers, no socks, a threadbare radio station giveaway t-shirt with holes along the neck, with a light red denim jacket.  He's either single, or his wife is blind.

Anyway, I don't have any great sociological opinions on the increasing obesity of men, though I'd say that cheap fast food, beer, and sloth are the primary factors. Plus men just don't really care, for the most part.  It's so easy to get overweight once you aren't 24 any longer (and you can manage it before then with concerted eating/non-exercising) and your metabolism slows down.

I always thought the whole "slower metabolism" thing was bullshit, when I was 16 and 18 and 20 and 24 and eating everything in sight and never gaining a pound over 150, even when I wanted to.  And now at thir... twenty-nine, I eat far less than I used to, eat far lower calorie crap than I used to, get just as much or more exercise, and still can't quite shed the little bit of fat around my waist.  How exactly I can eat less and do more at 29 than I did at 25, and yet weight more, is perplexing.  And everyone reading this who is under 24 or 25, this is you in a few years.  Just accept it.  If you keep doing what you are doing now once you get into your late 20's and beyond, you will quickly grow fat.  Plan accordingly.

That aside, how can men work on slimming down some? Well first of all, they have to want to.  Most change in humans is not through some idealistic self-improvement, but through peer-pressure, force, or sex drive. Yes, men can blame women.

You caring, sensitive, understanding bitches!  You do this to us on purpose!  With your, "Oh honey, I don't care if you are a little chubby. I love you just the same."

And the man, suitably encouraged, plows through the rest of a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, while his wife gags and runs off to diet and sigh over the male perfume and Calvin Klein underwear ads in Cosmo.

Also, and perhaps more notably, women in Western society are brainwashed from about the age of 8 to think that thinner is always better, largely by photos like the one I've inserted here.  And Barbie dolls, and fashion magazines, and movie stars, and TV shows, and every other damn thing you can think of.

Also, women are far more aware of how they look, and are more self-critical, and don't buy one pair of oversized jeans intending to wear them every day for the next decade. Realizing that you can no longer fit into one of your favorite outfits is always quite a kick in the "damn, I'm actually getting fat" area.  Men just loosen the belt another notch, and have another Budweiser.

And yes, I'm grossly generalizing here.  Some guys drink Miller.

Anyway, societal and potential mate pressure is a great push to stay in shape.  It's one reason that most people in their teens and early 20's are in shape, since they have the metabolism going for them, plus active life styles, and are trying to hook up with hot guys/girls. Most people as they get older worry less about appearance, but also many are in relationships, and a caring partner is not real likely to complain overtly about his/her mate getting a bit chubby.  Of course this means that women don't, and men do, since we know which gender is caring.

However, judging by the amount of fat young guys I see, you women are letting too much slide.

"But," you ask, "what about homosexuals?"

I'm not commenting on lesbians, since I don't have any feel for that situation, and there's quite often a big feminist/anti-society's expectations thing going, which results in shaved heads or ugly spiky haircuts like Rosie's, combat boots or other ugly clothing, and very much wanting to not look like the male ideal fashion model female. And that skews the results.

But gay men are an interesting study, since in my evaluation they are more often fit, lean, work out buffs than straight guys.  There are three possible reasons, as I see it.

• Gay men are much more concerned with their appearance, in terms of facial hair grooming, weight, body size, clothing, etc.  Just like the stereotype says.
• Gay men are dating... other gay men, and men are pigs, even if they are gay.  Straight men unrealistically expect hot skinny girlfriends, and gay men do the same thing. 
• The old stories guys tell their gagging dates about semen doubling as a diet drink are true.

For all people, gay or straight, I think we can pretty safely cross out the whole, "eating lightly and exercising is good for your health" angle, since people obviously don't give a shit about their health.  People don't exercise, they smoke, they drink beer and double caramel frappaccinos, and they eat bacon cheeseburgers every day.  Is this you?  Hell, you might as well just pencil in the heart attack for your 43th birthday right now, just to be sure you don't have to deal with rescheduling anything important while you're preparing for your triple bypass surgery.

So men are fatter than ever before, men don't care how they look, current trends in clothing are towards ever more casual and roomy (all the better to hide your gut in, my dear) shirts and pants, and women don't break balls and withhold sex from their swelling partner.  There is plenty of blame to go around.

And if as soon as you read me say, "I don't have any great sociological opinions on the increasing obesity of men" you knew this would become exactly that, you get a cookie.  I almost expected it myself, as my fingers typed that particular bit of nonsense. My quick comments always turn into allegorical essays. Long ones.

I started this off with a thought of mentioning how more guys than ever seemed to be overweight at work, and especially my co-workers. And I didn't even mention the co-worker part!

I will now, briefly.

In the past we've had to wear black slacks and a white button up shirt. Short or long sleeved, but it had to be button up, so they were always the sort of slick-feeling cotton, like a dress shirt.  This year, for no known reason, the uniform changed to Polo style shirts, which are a knit blend and have buttons just at the V-neck. Also, instead of wearing an apron type thing with pockets for change, we're just wearing money belts.  And they're issuing written warnings at the drop of a hat (literally) for anyone out of uniform.  Which includes no hat on, and also untucked shirts. 

The net result is that all of the vendors have no aprons to cover their bellies, and stretchy shirts tucked into straining belts.  This emphasizes any gut issues you might have, and I'm constantly surprised to see guys I've known for years, guys I thought were slim, or maybe slightly overweight, who now look like they're smuggling an innertube.

Lucky thing none of the very few male customers I think are slim are in similar outfits, or I'd be even more pessimistic about the general level of male fitness these days.

March 21, 2003

Interesting article that starts off talking about various search engines banning pro-bulimia sites (Are there such things? Apparently.), and then goes into a larger discussion about body image and average sizes of humans vs ideal sizes. Some interesting stuff in it, and it's a pity that it's disconcertingly-singles spaced throughout, and harder to read because of it.

The association reports that low self-esteem, tendencies for perfectionism, depression, anxiety, anger and loneliness are examples of psychological factors that can trigger anorexia or bulimia.

"I've always felt like an ugly person," said senior, "Sara," who has been diagnosed with anorexia for five years. "I've felt alone for most of my life."

The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders also reported that 86 percent of people afflicted with an eating disorder report onset by age 20, 43 percent ages 16 through 20, 33 percent ages 11 through 15 and 10 percent by age 10 and younger.

What do women think?

A study held through the Eating Disorder Referral and Information Center reported that in a survey of eighth-and ninth-grade girls, the perfect woman was described as 5 foot 7 inches tall and weighing between 100 and 110 pounds. In America, the average woman is 5 foot 4 inches tall and weighs 140 pounds. The average American woman model is 5 foot 11 inches tall, weighs 117 pounds and is thinner than 98 percent of American women.

The irony is that you could probably look and find five articles the same day about how the "average American" is substantially over weight and out of shape.  The dilemma for the anti-anorexia forces is that many/most people actually do need to lose weight, to get down to a healthier size.  So they are torn between two dogs; one worrying about anorexic girls starving themselves and thinking they still need to be thinner, and the other intruding with the reality that most people could use a diet every now and then.

.....

Here's an email from Samantha about yesterday's tapeworm diet comcept.

However the bright side of that is that the parasites actually eat up some of the food they consume, and help keep them thin. Given what some people will do to diet, I wonder what the market would be in America for a parasite that would live in your intestines, but help you lose 10 lbs a year?

Have a Google on tapeworm diet... One of those things that you *wish* was an urban legend. One almost suspects that some of the things that are being marketed as tapeworms *aren't* really, so gullible is the typical consumer... rather an odd concept to be selling *fake* tapeworms, the mind boggles. :)

I did have a Google on "tapeworm diet" and there are about a billion hits, but I didn't see any that were actually selling the pills.  Just a bunch of sites mentioning the phrase or talking about pills that used to be sold saying they were that.  And might actually have been.

There was, perhaps inevitably, a Snopes page on the topic. It doesn't really shed much light though, other than saying maybe they sold them in the 1920's.

It occurs to me that you wouldn't lose any weight with a tape worm, since whether you or the worm are eating the food, it's still inside of you and still weighs the same.  The weight loss would come about once you *ahem* "removed" the worm.  Which would basically mean taking some sort of poison to kill it, and then crapping it out.  And tape worms can grow to um, feet in length, and weigh many pounds.  Be sure you get a picture to show the kids.

March 18, 2003

For decades, Asians have been slim and much healthier than most people in Western countries, especially the US, largely due to the white man's diet being so full of junk food and fat and such.  Times are changing.

Known in Chinese as "xiao pangzi," or "little fatties," these roly-poly children seem to be everywhere, the pampered victims of cultures that prize them as emblems of affluence and well-being.

"We spoil him," said Warisa Waid, a Thai teacher in Bangkok, of her 11-year-old son, Saharat, whose father is an ethnic Thai-Chinese. "Whatever he wants, we give it to him. We don't care if it is good or bad, we just feed him whatever he wants.

"Plus his lifestyle," she added. "He spends most of his time in front of the TV, playing video games and watching cartoons."

"He loves deep-fried stuff, and very minimal vegetables," she said. "Almost, I could say, he doesn't eat vegetables at all. They give him whatever he wants — KFC and McDonald's and pizza and all that."

In other words, a typical Asian city boy.

I love that they have a term for it, and such an insulting one too.  How long until there are fat advocacy groups demanding a less offensive name for the little sausage-eaters?

The World Health Organization now reports that 6 out of 10 deaths in the region are due to diseases that may be linked to obesity — heart attacks, stroke, diabetes, hypertension, gallbladder disease and some forms of cancer.

While obesity can be a crucial factor in all these ailments, it is the direct cause of two-thirds of diabetes cases and one-fifth of all heart disease. In most Asian countries, these diseases now take more lives than do malaria, tuberculosis, pneumonia, malnutrition, accidents and other more familiar causes of death.

The spread of obesity may prove more deadly here than in the West. For the most part, these are not developed nations. Their health care systems cannot cope with such complex diseases and their expensive, long-term treatments.

Classically Darwinian.  Those with a lack of self control will eat themselves to death.

I was talking to my dad the other day (over dinner of fish and chips) and he said he'd read some recent articles about adult Japanese, and that something like 75% of them had intestinal parasites.  Tapeworms, or the like.  Which sounds horrible, but it's due to eating so much raw fish and getting the living creatures from it.

However the bright side of that is that the parasites actually eat up some of the food they consume, and help keep them thin.  Given what some people will do to diet, I wonder what the market would be in America for a parasite that would live in your intestines, but help you lose 10 lbs a year?

January 11, 2003

I wonder if this will prove a set back for the various "fat and proud" type advocate groups?

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Obesity is a well-known risk factor for heart disease, diabetes and other chronic diseases that can cause premature death. Now, two national studies reveal that obesity can, on average, cut more than a decade from a person's life. For black men it can shorten life by up to 20 years.

The findings support the notion that excess body weight is more than a cosmetic problem, and may spur individuals, doctors and public health officials to redouble efforts to keep weight in check.

The article really has some surprising findings.

According to both studies, obesity is particularly dangerous for younger adults, or those in their 20s and 30s. Severely obese white men aged 20 to 30 years live about 13 fewer years than they would be expected to based on estimates from national data. Severely obese white women, or those with a body mass index (BMI) over 45, can expect to live eight fewer years, report researchers in the January 8th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Obesity also had a profound effect on the lifespan of younger blacks. Obese black men aged 20 to 30 lose about 20 years and obese black women lose about 5 years of life, even after accounting for smoking.

And let's just move past that old, "Yeah, but it's the 5 years at the end of your life!" joke.  You still spend the last 5 years on machines and gasping for breath and unable to get out of bed.  You just start that at 60, instead of 80.

The article doesn't hint at why fat people die sooner.  I would assume it's not because they are fat, exactly.  It's because of their lifestyle choices that cause them to be fat.  Unhealthy sugary diet, fatty fried foods, lack of exercise, etc.  So you're more likely to have high blood pressure and a stroke and a heart attack, etc.  Then again, a lot of people get hit by buses while jogging to the health food store.  Right?

January 1, 2003

In news that every foreigner full of hate/jealously/chip on shoulderism towards America will roll about in like a dog with a freshly-tipped garbage can, there are more fat drunk Americans than ever before.

More than one in five American adults could be classified as obese in 2001, up almost 6 percent from the year before. And more than one in four Americans engage in bouts of binge drinking -- defined as five or more drinks at one sitting with the goal of getting drunk -- up 35 percent from 1995.

"I guess you could say we're fat and drunk," said Timothy Naimi, a researcher at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Fortunately we're still the best, most important, powerful, and beloved country on earth.  All of which you'll find much easier to believe if you're full of a 42 ounce steak and a six pack.

July 8, 2002

The past 18 months, his office has had to deal with seven deceased people each weighing in at more than 500 pounds.

The heaviest tipped the scales at 700 pounds.

West is ordering hydraulic lifts and larger storage facilities. The equipment will be paid for with two state grants totaling $55,000, he said.

Imagine needing livestock equipment to embalm someone, or having to carry out an autopsy on a body that size?  It makes me sort of queasy just to think about it.  Amazingly-unhealthy diet and an enormous appetite is required to get that fat, but fortunately neither are in short supply in America.

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