I don't get it. Are you saying she must be a citizen because there is no way she could crawl over the border at her size? If we are going to start a discussion about obesity we should address the rise in the entire modernized world's obesity. We need to rethink how we consume the resources available to us as a planet. A bigger car, bigger house, and big mac are not the keys to happiness.

http://www.freewebs.com/nohunger/

This is the second "fattest" thread on your blog in the last few weeks... a short while ago you pointed out a fat guy on the plane. Andrea... do you have a problem with large people?

I have a problem with obesity. I believe we should all have a problem with obseity since we are all responsible for it in one way or another. The food we eat and the socio-political effects of that food and its production and our lazy attitudes towards exercise warrant some discussion at least, yes?

Andrea... don't get me wrong... it wasn't criticism... just a comment. You're absolutely right. Obesity is a symptom, in the west, of over consumption, and in a world where huge numbers of people are starving. Nobody starts life obese and while a few unfortunate individuals have some genetic predisposition to weight gain, in general obesity is because people eat too much. I can be smug at 165lbs, but even I have 5lbs excess fat around my middle.

this is kind of a different discussion, but maybe the problem is in the mind of the beholder. i say this because i sense in myself an uncomfortable relationship with obese people. i find the sight of obesity repulsive in an odd way, and a way totally opposite to my reaction to someone who is underweight, despite the fact that the basic problem is the same. maybe it's because i have some deep psychological problem related to food, or maybe to the idea of self-indulgence, as opposed to self-denial. something to do with self-esteem? is this therapy? yay anonymity!

Obesity is VERY costly to a society. The health problems that occur as a consequence of obesity are great and varied and obese people end up in the hospital quite commonly, many of them uninsured. Who ends up footing that bill? Every American taxpayer. It is a huge problem and it is not just a personal problem for the obese person. It affects us all. Not to mention the very sad underlying problems of overconsumption and American laziness that Andrea already mentioned.

I think we should be careful about letting personal feelings about how obese people make us feel interfere with the point of this discussion topic. We taxpaying citizens end up footing the bill for quite a few self imposed addictions such as smoking, alcoholism, and drug addiction. What about how U.S. school children are no longer required to take physical education five times a week? What about the kind of food the poorest in our society eat? Fresh vegetables cost three times what a bag of frozen French fries cost, not to mention a bag of frozen French fries will stretch further. How about how we allow advertising giants to virtually brainwash the children of our society with incessant junk food commercials. We as a people need to see obesity as an addictive behavior spurned on by lack of education. To fight obesity we need to educate not isolate that segment of our population.

Too much beans and rice would make for that voluptous figure in the crowd too. P.S. starving 'til your ribs show is not a logical alternative either. But. I do tend to think of what about partial cannibalism? Feed the world from our excess inner tube winter hibernation calories? Now I don't mean carving the fatty tissue off of live marchers. More like, next Big Mac, next ice cream cone binge, don't buy it, put the 4-5 dollars into an empty spaghetti sauce canister until it overflows. Send the contents to Bread for the World. Voila, within months, sexy figure, you "American" guys and gals, and less starving children everywhere else, maybe the North American continent too. Sure I'm politically incorrect but I mean well. Think of FAT as just a wad of money commerce transferred to caloric intake and stored in your extra fat cells; in that sense OBESITY is just visibly squandered energy wealth. Give it to somebody who could use the extra calories in order to survive.