26 Cheerleaders + 1 Elevator =

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

Interesting thoughts here. It does "gall" me a bit to have to cover with my taxes the costs associated with the by-products to our society of an overweight population.

Here's an observation for you to ponder. I wonder if anyone else has noticed. When my wife and I go out to eat these days it is hard for us to sit in a booth as opposed to a table. Why? Well, it seems to me that there is much more room between the seats in a booth and the table in most restaurants with booths these days? Why? To accomodate the increased SIZE of the average American restaurant patron these days. My wife and I can hardly reach the table these days without having to lean forward or sit on ther edge of the seats. Has anyone else notived this subtle change in seating around the country? By the way...it was not the case during our recent visit to Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Estonia...and we noticed! Hmmmmmmmmmm

I will say, that the "average" person we encountered in Estonia, while "thinner" than the average American, was not as thinh as those in Denmark, Sweden and Finland. I can only assume that was due to the Soviet nutrition influence on Estonia during its domination by the Soviet Union.

These are only non-scientific personal observations, but it was darn hard to not notice all the "smokin hot" young ladies I saw in Denmark, Sweden, etc. My wife noticed that I noticed too...just in case you were wondering.

---It is the same in every European country....[ I have been in a lot of them] The big difference is THEY WALK not drive about everywhere. The subway or whatever gets them close and they walk the rest of the way. Beside to even get to a subway they have to climb or decend stairs. Also ALL YOU EAT places are pretty rare and even most meals I have had there were a bit on the small side... and I have never walked away from a meal feeling that I was stuffed.

---In the math classes I teach I sometimes use the comment (about inverse proportion and when no unusually heavy people are in the class) that the distance that people park from Walmart's front door is inversely proportional to how much they weigh. They heavy ones just seem to hover around waiting a close place to park....and the skinny ones park at the far end of the lot and don't mind walking ..... LOL... It is goofy but they remember it. Goofy works in the classroom.

[JesseMartin]

I've propogated that same exact observation; I just didn't put it so nicely.