Tuesday, October 07, 2003
A Note From A Fan:
Dear Anna Bloviations,
"At K-Mart I flipped thru some costumes with my daughter the other day -- very tacky but just to feign interest in Halloween... They have 'chubby size princess costumes' that I thought you'd like to research along with those new bigger, SUV-size caskets!!!" (see Anna's Sept. 28 blog).
Dear Fan,
No wonder K-Mart is going bankrupt. Most of the bigger retailers have long recognized the growing trend towards plus sizes and have simply incorporated bigger sizes into their regular departments thus avoiding having to use adjectives that might demean the customer e.g. chubby or husky. Here's More (no pun intended).
Regards, Anna
This 'chubby' trend is one that more and more often I come in direct contact with i.e. on whom do you think a heavy person is going to spill his or her extra poundage when choosing a spot to sit on the train? The other big guy already spilling, or all 125 lbs. of me? Ever notice how often passengers on planes request a seatbelt extender these days? Or how about all of that annoying crunching at the movie theater as patrons munch loudly through their XXL barrels of buttered popcorn? Or why does a Size 4 fit me fine in the States but when I bring a bunch of Size 4 outfits into my dressing room in Europe they are usually way-too-small-for-me?
Experts today have yet to identify what exactly the cause is other than to say, "The reasons aren't fully understood, though the likely causes include high-calorie diets and insufficient exercise." Hmmm. How illuminating.
I've no problem with a little overweight. It's obesity that confounds me. I again go back to the analogy of the 5lb. bag of sugar. Strap 20 of those bags onto your body for a day and see what it's like to be 100 pounds overweight. Now try sixty of those bags to see what it's like being 300 pounds overweight. It is just heartbreaking to see a sixteen-year-old girl with this kind of weight waddling down the street, and unfortunately she now represents 15% of children ages 6-18 in the US.
Well to my snobby and critical European friends and family, I can at least account for about twenty of those extra pounds American adults carry around with them. Put cigarettes back into every American mouth like the rest of the world and I'd bet you'd see a drop of between ten and twenty pounds right there. I would also tell them that Russian women still beat Americans hand's down in the extremely-obese-department. Da! Da! Look At The Chart
OK but how to account for the additional 300-plus pounds...Socio-economically those pounds are predominantly to be found at the lower end. Well if a society constantly barraged you with media messages that happiness was just an Abercrombie-sweater, BMW, trip-to-the-Bahamas, Tiffany's necklace, new dishwasher, and big house away, but you had no chance in hell of ever affording any of that glitter and in fact weren't sure how you were going to scrap together your next rent check, where would you go to get comfort? What gives you instant gratification and doesn't cost a lot? 99 cents at McDonalds, that's what. For the more affluent there's Prozac.
PAY NOW OR PAY LATER. Insurance companies aren't yet picking up the tab for stomach stapling, a procedure more and more obese Americans are having done but they might end up doing so given the astronomical back-end costs associated with diseases linked to obesity. Heh Mr. Insurance, Will You Reimburse me $40,000?
Dear Anna Bloviations,
"At K-Mart I flipped thru some costumes with my daughter the other day -- very tacky but just to feign interest in Halloween... They have 'chubby size princess costumes' that I thought you'd like to research along with those new bigger, SUV-size caskets!!!" (see Anna's Sept. 28 blog).
Dear Fan,
No wonder K-Mart is going bankrupt. Most of the bigger retailers have long recognized the growing trend towards plus sizes and have simply incorporated bigger sizes into their regular departments thus avoiding having to use adjectives that might demean the customer e.g. chubby or husky. Here's More (no pun intended).
Regards, Anna
This 'chubby' trend is one that more and more often I come in direct contact with i.e. on whom do you think a heavy person is going to spill his or her extra poundage when choosing a spot to sit on the train? The other big guy already spilling, or all 125 lbs. of me? Ever notice how often passengers on planes request a seatbelt extender these days? Or how about all of that annoying crunching at the movie theater as patrons munch loudly through their XXL barrels of buttered popcorn? Or why does a Size 4 fit me fine in the States but when I bring a bunch of Size 4 outfits into my dressing room in Europe they are usually way-too-small-for-me?
Experts today have yet to identify what exactly the cause is other than to say, "The reasons aren't fully understood, though the likely causes include high-calorie diets and insufficient exercise." Hmmm. How illuminating.
I've no problem with a little overweight. It's obesity that confounds me. I again go back to the analogy of the 5lb. bag of sugar. Strap 20 of those bags onto your body for a day and see what it's like to be 100 pounds overweight. Now try sixty of those bags to see what it's like being 300 pounds overweight. It is just heartbreaking to see a sixteen-year-old girl with this kind of weight waddling down the street, and unfortunately she now represents 15% of children ages 6-18 in the US.
Well to my snobby and critical European friends and family, I can at least account for about twenty of those extra pounds American adults carry around with them. Put cigarettes back into every American mouth like the rest of the world and I'd bet you'd see a drop of between ten and twenty pounds right there. I would also tell them that Russian women still beat Americans hand's down in the extremely-obese-department. Da! Da! Look At The Chart
OK but how to account for the additional 300-plus pounds...Socio-economically those pounds are predominantly to be found at the lower end. Well if a society constantly barraged you with media messages that happiness was just an Abercrombie-sweater, BMW, trip-to-the-Bahamas, Tiffany's necklace, new dishwasher, and big house away, but you had no chance in hell of ever affording any of that glitter and in fact weren't sure how you were going to scrap together your next rent check, where would you go to get comfort? What gives you instant gratification and doesn't cost a lot? 99 cents at McDonalds, that's what. For the more affluent there's Prozac.
PAY NOW OR PAY LATER. Insurance companies aren't yet picking up the tab for stomach stapling, a procedure more and more obese Americans are having done but they might end up doing so given the astronomical back-end costs associated with diseases linked to obesity. Heh Mr. Insurance, Will You Reimburse me $40,000?
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