I am way past the mean when it comes to waist size. I am a large fellow. My six foot frame carries 280 and some odd pounds about on its daily walk through life. If I were standing in a doorway, you could not move through it easily without bumping breasts. I am portly. I am rotund. I am larger than life. I am fat. This is the truth.

I am not alone.

On the coasts of the left side of this country, they whisper omen of the great spreading fat virus to spread from the middle of the Bible Belt. Look around you and you spot at least one fat person within eyesight.

There are fat people everywhere.

Obesity has become a real problem in our country, and on our campus. It is kind of scary because when something becomes this big of a problem, the attempts to solve that problem often become extreme. It is hard to solve a problem when no one even really is sure of the causes for certain.

Surely it is our diet and lack of exercise that is the root of the problem, or is it? After all, what is the root of our diet and lack of exercise? Who is the bad guy here?

Certainly not the fat people themselves. I am one of them, and I know I am not a bad person. Is it my fault that someone has been handing me soda-pop since before they invented sippy cups? I was strung out on sugary syrup before I knew my left from my right. In my life time I have seen that diet soda drug dealer called the vending machine infiltrate our infrastructure to the point of being at least one on every square city block.

I have a radical French socialist friend who once told me that my country was drowning in the black waters of capitalism. He meant Pepsi-Cola. Maybe he is right.

It could be an economy driven on two job families has left no time to eat anything but the drive-thru drudgery that is certainly drugging us into complacency. The dinner time ritual has been sacrificed on the alter of big business and now we are all pumping up the pounds.

So who really is the bad guy? And how can we beat a problem when we cannot even pin the blame on the donkey. At this point, is the best we can hope for an understanding of this global growth of girth?

No one likes fat people too much, they breathe too heavily, they pant and sweat too much. They simply are just not that pleasing to look at. How long will it be before someone thinks of shipping us off in cattle cars on the way to fat camps?

Already there are talks of adjusting the prices that fat people pay for seats on planes. If it weren’t for smokers, fat people would probably be the number one cause of high health care costs. It is only getting worse.

It makes me think about the old Jewish stories I used to hear about the seven deadly enemies of mankind. It makes me wonder if Sloth and Gluttony have gotten married.
Obesity is a real problem.