Let's Face It: You're Fat

It's hard not to think you're fat, especially when almost everything you see and hear says you're fat, or you're going to be fat, or simply that your neighbour is skinny while leaving you to draw the obvious conclusions. Regardless, you eat too many Twinkies, corn dogs, steaks, pies, cakes, and jumbo bags of Fritos to ever make Health Canada's list of healthy eaters, and probably outgrew your prom dress so long ago that the poor thing has more moth holes than memories.

You were supposed to be able to wear them forever ladies, didn't anyone tell you? It's in the contract, along with some very important fine print that says all men should be able to zip up their high school grad jacket until they're fifty-five.

Yes, while they wear it.

Needless to say, no one ever reads the fine print, which is unfortunate, because undertakers across North America are increasingly faced with the difficulty of having to tell people that their dear departed loved ones are too bloody big to fit into anything but a double-decker sized casket, and that there is a good chance they'll be doing more than competing with the Joneses; they might be knocking them out of the adjacent plot.

This is no joke. North America is getting fatter by the day, and the funeral homes of this world are running out of ways of saying that Aunt Martha "might not be comfortable in the standard 24-inch-wide mahogany," while suggesting the need for a more accommodating receptacle (yes, they talk like this).

As Julane Davis from Goliath Casket of Lynn, Indiana says: "people are getting wider and they're getting thicker."

Indeed. And you merely thought you left your jeans in the dryer too long.

No, we're all too big, and despite the onslaught of reports, studies, diet aids and enough exercise hardware to have us looking like Arnold "Gloria Steinem is my best friend, really" Schwarzenegger if we could only keep using them past that final easy credit card payment, somehow we"re still bigger than Jackie Gleason on a hoagie binge, and the amazing thing is, we don't know it.

In a recent study published by the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, parents were twice as likely to acknowledge that their children were over-weight when sent an official report card from the child's school that told them such. One can only assume that they originally thought the school board was sending home pint-sized Michelin Men instead of their children as part of a tire safety ad campaign.

We apparently need official documentation to tell us we're fat, as if the triple-sized jolly jumper wasn't the first clue.

Yet Big Macs continue to sell (though there are a number of nutritious, heart-healthy salad options, assuming lard and lettuce is the path to cardiovascular bliss), donut chains are proliferating faster than a gang of randy jackrabbits, and poutine is slowly becoming the national dish of Canada instead of the federally controlled form of toxic waste that it should be.

Even Harvey's has clued into the fact that the Canadian populace is not only illiterate, but suffers from a peculiar and specific form of dementia that only occurs when standing in front of a mirror or stepping on a scale. While doctors plead with their patients to do more than eat one less Boston Crème in the afternoons, and other fast-food chains make cosmetic attempts at removing that oil-soaked, saturated hyphen that joins "fast" with "food," the good folks at Harvey's have come up with the "Big Harv," six ounces of artery hardening heaven that's sure to pop the seams of your underwear after only a few bites.

We seem to like being fat. Aside from the odd sprout-eating freak jogging past your house while you lie in bed dreaming of Eggs Benedict and a side of honey-smoked sausage on a Sunday morning, most of us view a double-double as a good source of carbs. Who cares if your neighbour's wife has the proportions of a darning needle, and the personality to match? It's obvious that the doctors have lost, and full-figured Speedos will soon be back and causing premature blindness across the country by next summer.

Like I said, as long as you can put on those grad clothes, you'll be fine. Just give the moths some time to "let out" the waste a little.