Fat Funnies

I am eternally amazed and amused by life's coincidence, irony and downright absurdity. Life seems to have a sense of humor about the unharmonic convergence of events and trends.

Consider the colliding coincidence of the recent release of the latest health news noting the rise of obesity in pre-schoolers with the opening of the movie "Fat Albert."

On New Year's Eve the American Heart Association announced that recent surveys revealed that about ten percent of the nation's preschoolers were obese, which is a three percent jump from a decade ago. But those preschoolers are not unique; indeed they are just part of a growing nationwide trend that now shows four million elementary school children overweight or obese and 5.3 million teens in that category. The news release also noted that "Since 1991, the prevalence of obesity among American adults has increased 75 percent." Those 62 million adults represent about 30 percent of the U.S. population.

On Christmas Day, Twentieth Century Fox released "Fat Albert," the live action-animation movie based on the character Bill Cosby made famous in his stand-up comedy routines. So far the movie has grossed (pardon the pun, but, hey, that's what the industry calls it) nearly $34 million at the box office, raking in more than Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator," James L. Brooks' "Spanglish" and "The Phantom of the Opera." The marketing department for the movie blithely quotes the critics who tell us it is "delightful, wholesome, fantastic!" has "lots of laughs" and is "a holiday treat for the whole family." The print ad in the Los Angeles Times also reminds the potential moviegoer that "Cosby's appeal is timeless." And there's Fat Albert himself swelling out from one side of the advert, a Hollywood example of the four million 6-11 year olds who are overweight or obese.

So what are we to do? When we fork over our movie bucks to see "Fat Albert" we are supposed to have "lots of laughs" at the fat kid, and then when we open our morning newspaper we should shake our heads in indignation at the dire state of our children's health.

Three or four decades ago when Bill Cosby first created Fat Albert, the neighbor from his Philadelphia circle of childhood friends, an overweight kid was an anomaly, the only one out of all the students in your grade school. But what was once uncommon has, in recent years, become prevalent. And those children who are overweight or obese in their younger years will probably continue to be so in adulthood, taking their fast food nation eating habits with them. There the health risks--and costs--rise. They will face the threats of heart disease, diabetes and stroke. Some will enter the category of the morbidly obese, where even simple mobility is a problem. And none of that is a laughing matter.

But until corporate profit gluttony tightens its belt, fighting fat is a losing battle. And it is not just Hollywood players to blame, the real con men, pandering to mere tykes, are the fast food hucksters, who are laughing all the way to the bank.