America’s Biggest City – Obesity

When I landed at Newark Airport 3 years ago for my first glimpse of the supposed land of milk and honey. I experienced a miracle. I seemed to have lost a lot of weight in my 14 hour flight! As soon as I set foot on the terminal I sensed I looked dashing like a Bollywood superstar not about to be detained for questioning.

I almost felt prying teenage eyes looking at me with admiration at my looks. I asked my wife if she felt like the wife of a superstar.. . ’Shut up’ were her famous first words to me on American soil.

I asked myself for a rational explanation for my dramatic weight loss and just then my friend KK who had come to receive me yelled across the terminal ‘Hi Fatso’. My reverie was shattered.

I realised that the theory of relativity was working. All around me were Americans – obscenely obese and they made me feel relatively small, literally.

In the course of the next two years I studied the food habits of Americans. This is what I found: 60% of Americans are overweight or obese!

Processed foods are the culprit — these refer to foods processed by man - white bread, chips. Cookies, sweeteners, preservatives, trans fats, and artificial additives.

Researchers tell us that by 2015 ,24%of kids and 75%of adults will be overweight and 41%will be obese. Americans spend over $50 million every year on weight loss efforts-clearly a losing proposition.

What is paradoxical is that the taxpayer and the government have conspired to make the people obese by subsidizing out of tax payers’ monies the very foods that are harmful. Here is how the paradox works.

Food subsidy works in such an irrational manner that a dollar can buy 1200 calories of potato chips, or 875 calories of cola drinks, but just 250 calories of vegetables or merely 170 calories of fresh fruits! To put it in simple language — it is too costly to be fit!

Hence when an Indian paper announced that Chennai will get its first taste of fine dining experience when KFC and Mcdonalds open their outlets I let out a scream and a groan, I have seen the looks of orgasmic delight in young patrons at the McDonalds outlet at V.T in Mumbai

I could see that these teenagers felt they were in the US for the hour they spent eating french fries. I followed one teenage couple to the outlet. Before they entered the restaurant they spoke English with a typical Gujju accent. ‘Chale Mcdonald ma snake khyavano’ Once inside, the accent miraculously had a Texan drawl.

Such is the power of unhealthy American snakes or snacks! I learn Mcdonalds will open its Chennai outlet next week. Chennaites, take Quick Gun Murugan’s advice and MIND IT.

K.R.RAVI