America’s most embarrassing features make headlines on such a constant basis that it’s hard to keep up. With one in four adults clinically obese, it’s easy to get lost in the flood of headlines about our gargantuan waistlines. We made a round-up of our country’s recent obesity-related news to help you navigate:
The U.S. Army is changing its training regimen to accommodate an increase in fat recruits.
The “New York Times” reports that one of the most pressing issues facing the U.S. military is how overweight the new recruits are.
How are they responding? By training the trainees for training. The new programs are easing the fatties into Pilates and yoga exercises instead of the usual pushups/sit ups/obstacle course routine we know from the movies.
It turns out that it’s tough to climb a wall if you’re too chubby to touch your toes, and doing pushups requires a reasonable body weight.
They’re also overhauling the mess halls, offering our soldiers more veggies, less soda.
Texas man figures out how to deep-fry beer.
As if beer on its own isn’t fattening enough—a Texas man named Mark Zable spent the last three years trying to figure out how to deep-fry the stuff. He succeeded. The final product looks like ravioli, but is actually dee-fried, beer-filled pretzel pockets.
They’re fried for a short enough time to remain alcoholic, and you have to show an I.D. to purchase them. That said, it’s unclear how many you’ll need to down to actually catch a buzz.
Man robs Arby’s with a Samurai Sword.
Okay, so the man actually robbed the Arby’s in Killeen, Texas for cash, but it says something about obesity that he knew the cash would be at a fast food restaurant and not a gym.
Dunkin’ Donuts opens 338 new locations in the first half of 2010.
The donut retailer founded in 1950 is still growing rapidly, presumably due to high demand. Donuts are cheap, but consider: There are 470 calories in a blueberry crumb donut, 510 calories and 30g of fat in their famous ham, egg and cheese croissant, and 800 calories and 86g of sugar in a large Coffee Coolatta. Gross.
“WSJ” writes about a European fat tax.
Two weeks ago, German parliamentarian Marco Wanderwitz told the German tabloid “Blid” that fat people should be taxed to pay for the cost they impose on the healthcare system. The “Wall Street Journal” published a story on it, and the idea has garnered support across the U.S.
While in some ways Wanderwitz is missing the point by suggesting the victims of a systemic, often socioeconomic problem pay for it, he has a point. Cigarettes in New York are taxed up to $6.02, over 100% of the price of the pack, often dissuading three-packs-a-day smokers. A major Twinkie tax may be the only way to get people to stop stuffing their mouths with them.
Manure and rodents caused salmonella outbreak.
After 500 million eggs were recalled due to a Salmonella outbreak, the FDA decided to investigate.
What they found should give pause to bacon, egg and cheese lovers. The hen houses contained piles of manure up to eight feet tall, live mice, pigeons, and maggots. Wright County Egg and Hillendale farms were the two inspected so far.
On the upside, a run-in with Salmonella can shave off as much as five pounds of body fat in just a couple days.
September 02, 2010 at 9:09 am, The Barbie and Mexico’s Other Girly-Ass Druglords | Death and Taxes said:
[...] actually isn’t an entirely innocuous nickname, what with the obesity epidemic and everything. Technically they can kill you, but only after many embarrassing decades of smelling [...]