Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 17, 1993 TAG: 9303170258
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
HEY, WE CAN ALL GET FAT TOGETHER
What I want to know, and want to know right now, is how these poll people can depend on honest answers to questions about our private lives.Don't worry, ladies, you don't have to turn to "Funky Winkerbean." We're not going to be talking about sex practices here.
We're going to be talking about the latest Lou Harris and Associates poll on national nutrition.
The poll concluded that we are all getting fatter. Now, how did they find that out?
Somebody calls me up on the phone and asks me whether I'm fat is going to hear some very colorful and exotic lying.
People are sensitive about fat. Anybody who has seen that commercial of the chubby woman with the beautiful blue eyes crying and overwhelmed with guilt because she gained all her weight back knows that.
Americans are so sensitive about their weight that they allow people like Richard Simmons to live.
Do these guys get women or men similarly situated to actually say things like: "Yep. Fatter'n I was a year ago. Bigger'n uh Amtrak engine. Fatter'n ary danged hawg. Yessir. Gone to suet. I'm glad you asked me that."
I just hope they don't call that tearful chubby lady we were talking about up there. Might just be enough to send her over the edge.
Then, the survey found that people are eating more junk food. Listen, people don't admit things like that.
If one of them called me, I'd say: "Oh, yes, I've become a vegetable-casserole man myself. Eat a lot of wheat germ watching reruns of `Designing Women.' No more suicide by red meat for me, Jack. I'm clean. Whatta you think of a 32-inch waistline on an old goat like me?
"I thank a kind providence for things like Brussels sprouts, succotash and lentil soup every day of my life. I'm also into rice balls in a big way. Haven't had a shot of bourbon in four years."
Actually, I'm almost as chubby as the teary lady, only I don't cry about it or have any guilt because I never lost any weight in the first place.
These people also gather information on whether you're using seatbelts.
Is anybody going to admit that he or she doesn't use a seatbelt? That's like admitting you don't believe in motherhood or apple pie or in deficit reduction.
I know that physicians, mothers, fathers and civic leaders won't agree, but it seems to me that common fat can be a uniting influence in this great country of ours.
Fat people make great sacrificers, you know.