Flab, Schmab - We Can Still Be Number One!

By Kimi Yoshino, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 9, 2007

The annoyingly catchy song at Disneyland's "It's a Small World" attraction reminds riders that "the oceans are wide."
Whether they're deep enough is another story.

Forty-one years after the whimsical ride debuted at the Anaheim park,Disneyland plans to shutter the attraction in January to give it a much-needed face-lift -- and deal with the delicate problem of bottoming-out boats.
Heavier-than-anticipated loads have been causing the boats to come to a standstill in two different spots...
Perhaps in an effort to protect visitors' egos, the park insists that fat tourists aren't to blame.
The boats get stuck because "layers and layers" of fiberglass have built up where maintenance teams have patched and re-patched problem areas, said Disneyland Resort spokesman Bob Tucker. (Whole story here.)

Oh yeah. that's why my pants are so tight, too - layers and layers of fiberglass have built up around my waist.

The truth is, it's NOT a small world after all, it's a big fat world, a rollicking, roly-poly world populated by walking tubs of lard, two hundred pounds of blubber in a hundred pound sack, a world of the "big boned" and those with a "large frame." It's a world where we sneakily widen the seats in movie theaters and apply a sort of grade inflation to clothing so a woman who used to wear a size six can still wear a size six 25 pounds later. We are simultaneously bombarded with stories about how ungodly fat we are, and actively taking measures to maintain denial. We consume Jumbo Jacks and Oreo Blizzards in between calls to Jenny Craig. We watch competitive eating on ESPN. We have a prime time TV show about obese people losing weight. No, my friends, it is not a small world after all.

So considering how hard it is to lose all this extra baggage (and trust me, I know - I tried to lose weight for several hours yesterday, between breakfast and lunch, and it doesn't seem to have worked) I offer an alternative plan.

All I read and hear these days is how China is about to break through and become the dominant super power in the world, how they have all these factories and are consuming all the resources. I think we can stave them off by out-eating them. Look, even scrawny child laborers need some kind of sustenance, right? I say if we Americans stop holding back and just consume the way we want to, we can eat the rug right out from under them. We'll be packing away all the world's calories and they won't have the energy to get up off their mats and bike to work. Sort of a colossal scorched earth policy, but maybe we call it the scrumptious earth policy instead. We eat them into submission. I don't know about you, but I'm sure that in one meal, I can eat all the calories that a 10-year old Chinese girl consumes in a week. In fact, I think I did that yesterday. Maybe three or four times.

So here we go, America, it's time to change the future. Go to the closet and get your fat pants and then go to the fridge and get to work. I know we can do it if we all chew together.