It's a Slippery Slope When You're Skating on Lard

“Congratulations, you are very shrim.”

Fourteen months ago this response would have instinctively caused one of my eyebrows to shoot up. Perhaps I would have even accented it with a stroke of my imaginary philosopher’s beard, as I pondered the possible meanings. I might have tried to proceed with the conversation using a series of educated guesses (it’s likely a positive adjective) but later, through an impossible number of missteps I would discover that my guesses were about as educated as a snail attempting calculus. Some students are just as likely to say “you are very Saturday. “ However, today I’m unfazed. It now takes my cranial filters a fraction of the time it used to when pressed to decipher a thick accent. Logic does the brunt of the work. I pause momentarily. The Japanese syllabary doesn’t include a sound for “si” or “l” ergo, it feels more natural to use し(shi) andり(ri). A clinking of abacas balls upstairs and soon I’m staring at the typewritten printout of the word “slim.” Duh, I should have gotten that one from context.

I had just finished telling the results of the recently published report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In collaboration with Trust for America’s Health (TFAH), this study documents obesity rates, for both children and adults, by state in my mother country. Quickly becoming one of the most heavily cited health evaluations in the US, it lists Colorado as the only state with an obesity rate of less than 20%. Thus the compliment from my student, in all its gloriously mangled tones, makes sense, or does it?

If you read a little deeper into the study you find that a 19.8% rate for adults is nothing to be proud of. It’s like being cheered for being the thinnest kid at fat-camp. It’s still just fewer than one out of every five people not being overweight, but so fat that they have to buy two seats on any airplane they choose to travel on. Furthermore the report goes on to say that in 1995, just 15 years ago, this number would have gained my home state the title of fattest with a capital ‘F’. So what’s changed? Have our diets really worsened that much? Are we too busy to get a little exercise now and again? Have the portion sizes started to resemble a feed lot rather than a restaurant? Maybe it’s increased stress levels from the economic paralysis we’re currently facing. Whatever the case may be I’ll be interested to see how this progresses over the next decade or so.  

Is it Mexican food keeping us prepped for perpetual winter?

With my curiosity piqued, I looked up the obesity rate in Japan. Care to guess? Of course it’s lower than the US, but how much lower do you think? Nope, try taking that number in your head and divide it by a factor of 3, now you’re close. It turns out Japan’s rate is about 1/10^th of the national average in the states. Weighing in at a measly 3.2%, it makes the observation of an obese person only slightly rarer than a Godzilla sighting. Lucky for me, I happened to spot one of these majestic creatures a few weeks ago.

His waddle, for it would be an affront to the English language to say walk, reminded me of the kind of shuffle Mr. Potatohead would do if he were animated. It all started with me channeling cold thoughts inside a sparsely packed train, on a sweltering Saturday morning. The AC on the train was doing all it could to keep the passengers from turning into puddles of goo, but at the first stop, almost eagerly the doors opened and the heat fought its way back in. And with the burst of high temperature, came the monster. The first thing I noticed was his belt. It must have taken a whole cow to provide the leather for this thing. Circumnavigating his robust midsection I wondered if it wasn’t just three normal sized belts tied together. I tried not to stare, really, but it was like telling someone not to notice the sun; he had his own gravitational field and my gaze was quickly captured in orbit. Across the way from me sat two 小母さん obasan (little old ladies) who were equally perplexed. I could see this was a rarity. Between the elderly women was a polite cleft of no more than 11 inches (29 centimeters). It seemed the respectful comfort space afforded to others when the train was outside of rush hour traffic. The fat man tottered to a stop right in front of us, sweating more than a prison steam vent. He eyed the space separating the women and one could almost hear the gnash of the gears going to work in his brain. For what seemed like a lifetime I panned back and forth between his 7-point-turn and the ever widening eyes of the two grandmotherly pancake victim candidates on the bench opposite. They both appeared to realize what was happening but were paralyzed not knowing what to do. As the countdown to impact neared, they (just barely) gathered their belongings and cozzied up to their fellow passengers in an impromptu imitation of a can of sardines. Impact, a shockwave rippled, then silence. I felt uncomfortable for them, and even more so for their American counter parts who face the same thing ten times as often…