Fat --> Thin --> Gay

You will notice that pictures of me are rare on this blog. My profile picture is from the Gay.com bus-ride during Pride 2005 (none of my friends like it), and the more recent one Sue took because of the shirt.

Basically, I have rarely liked a picture of me. I think this is largely because I used to be quite fat -- I weighed about 250 through late high school until my third year of undergraduate. (If you think I don't like my pictures because I'm but-ugly, keep it to yourself). Then I found athletics, kung fu, and got depressed over a woman. Yes, I said woman. A hot red head who had taken ballet and modern dance. When she did a chair dance, you wanted to be the chair. If you didn't, you'd have to be a 12 on the Kinsey scale.



www.kinseyinstitute.com

Keep reading -- this is not a pity party for me. I'm going somewhere.

Background the first:
In my own discussions with the boyz, it seems this is not an uncommon theme. A surprising number of gay men I have met, and friends of friends whom I have not met, were large at some point in their lives. Or, as James Gumm would say, "a great big fat person". Or as my Mom and Sears would say, "Husky".

This is incredibly interesting to me from biological point of view and I'd love to study it. I can already imagine a myriad of reasons why being fat could be related to homosexuality: genetic, environmental, hormonal (fat cells definitely can change hormone levels).

Hold that thought.

Background the second:
There is an obesity epidemic in this country (which Jeff of Well This Is Just It claims to have joined on the affirmative side with this stock choices). It's bad enough that adults are overweight, but what kills me are the children.

I once took care of a 60 kg, 7 year old boy who was already suffering from sleep apnea and pulmonary hypertension. They're both life threatening conditions, but Gramma kept given him the candy. Sleep apnea can also affect the cognitive ability of children -- this has been known for so long we call these children "Pick-wickian" based on the Dickens character.


home.planet.nl

We've been on this since the Gubernator (Ah-Nold) was the head of the President's Council on Fitness, but were losing the battle. Threats of early diabetes, amputation, blindness, and arthritis haven't gotten rid of the twinkies.

A Modest Proposal

We need a new attack. Something parents would really fear...homosexuality. Check out the following map of the epidemic.


www.surgeongeneral.gov

You will note that obesity is centered in some of the traditionally less tolerant parts of the country. Which do you think would work better:

a) "Mr. Hutt, if your son is obese, he is more likely to be diabetic."; or

b) "Mr. Hutt, if your son is obese, he is more likely to be gay."

If you picked "a", you have an attractive optimism about people and I like you. I think "b" is more likely, which puts me in a gut twisting conundrum. Prove that child/teen obesity leads to homosexuality to decrease the incidence of obesity -- through homophobia. How Machiavellian!

Disclaimers (before you send hate mail):
1) Losing weight is difficult, and I still have a few pounds to go.
2) While this is all somewhat true, it is written in the spirit of the satirist below (except that he would have skipped the disclaimers). Read the original Modest Proposal if you haven't -- you'll probably lose your appetite.


www.amazon.com