Zachary Halley Has Issues with Fat Folks [FIERCE ANTICIPATION]

Let’s get a little throat clearing out of the way.  The tsunami in Japan is an unspeakable tragedy that strains the vocabulary of empathy let alone feeble attempts at humorous diversion.  I hope that our extensive Japanese readership will take this offering in the spirit it is intended: an admiration of the Japanese and their ingenious solution to the obesity epidemic.

For most of us as the sun burns warmer our thoughts turn to beaches and pools and any other myriad of outdoor events. One of the things that I’ve noticed since my return from the hell-mouth of Detroit to the sanctuary of the Californian coast is that the average weight of those around me has dropped 30 to 40 pounds.  LA, I like to quip, would sink into the ocean if everyone weren’t on a diet.

The obesity ‘epidemic’ is discussed as if it were some uncontrollable terror from which we can’t escape.

Depending on where you get your facts, obesity costs America between 100 – 150 Billion (yes ‘B’) bucks a year.  Most of the fattest people are also the poorest and most of that cost is subsidized by the thinnest among us.  Before you cry ‘Republican!’ and let loose the hot dogs of war, I’ll call your attention to the Fat Taxes of the mid to late aughts, which were Democrat bills based on studies done at liberal bastions called Universities that showed taxing trans fats and other high calorie / low nutritional value foods would extend people’s lives and improve their quality of life.

Fat people cost us money.  The fatter you are the more of everything you consume.  If we really want to have a greener environment, we should start recycling fat people.

In 2008 Japan started a campaign aimed at curbing it’s own piddling obesity problem.  They started measuring people’s waists and giving mandatory dieting courses to the overweight.

While I applaud any country that dares to have a national weigh in, Japan only needs to return to the roots of one of their most cherished sports to find the solution to the fatties among them.  Make those fatsoes fight it out in an arena.

The documented roots of Sumo wrestling are sketchy but I know exactly why they started putting their broad and bulkiest into rings to fight.  Making a spectacle of the corpulent is the only civilized thing to do.  They shouldn’t just suck all the mayo out of the societal teat.  They should earn their keep.

FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!!!

This righteous need to make a show from these freaks has evolved into the fussiest of all sweaty contact sports. There’s a whole ritual.  Who enters the ring first, what outfits they must where, when they stomp their feet, where they throw salt and how they must push each other around.

Fat Americans don’t even have the sense to throw salt over their shoulder to keep the devil away.  If you really want to know how Satan is to blame for the sad state of affairs of American morality, I’d stop looking at the gays who want to get married and start looking at the sodium content of the chips you’re throwing down your gullet you fat Baptists!

The existence of these landmasses within the land of the rising sun clearly proves that the Japanese are just as capable of becoming elephantine as Americans.  But Japan enjoys one of the fittest cultures in the world.  Coincidence?  I think not.  We should be emulating the Japanese.  Some of our fattest children already are.

“O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain,” you say?  “It’s genetic, they have a thyroid condition, they can’t help it,” you plead?  “Compulsive eating is the hardest addiction because you can’t quit cold turkey!  Mmmm…cold turkey…<drool.>”

Wipe off your chin and cry me a river fat boy!  Instead of trying to understand these fat people’s emotions we should be making them fight in salt rings for cash.  There should be a sumo-wrestling ring in even the smallest hamlets of the Dakotan tundra.  Mississippi could become the world’s leading human-elephant-death-match vacation destination.

So let’s make our meaty minstrel shows and put them on prime time!

That’s grotesque Mr. Halley!  I shan’t read on.  Besides, Biggest Loser is starting at 9:00:

Enough with the sob story.  Give them a diaper and make them push each other around a little bit.  Put them in a tutu and have them try to perform Swan Lake.

Better yet, let’s put them in a jar, give them weapons and see if they’ll perform an amateur liposuction.   Or let’s just watch them fall down.

We should speak to a physics professor about formulating an equation that quantifies the bravery of a fat person trying to balance on a bicycle

Listen, I want everyone to enjoy their life and feel comfortable with who they are inside.  But if the person you are is inside a 527-pound flesh jail how confident can you really be?  This look is NEVER coming back so get over it:

I accept not everyone was dealt the same genetic cards but no one is genetically predisposed to be hundreds of pounds overweight.  It’s just not possible that through millions of years of evolution our bodies would be allowed to become so inefficient.  There’s a reason wild animals are in such good shape.

Obesity is simply a problem of abundance.  So think when you’re preparing to squeeze into that bathing suit this summer, think like an ancient Egyptian and put yourself on the famine diet.

When I turned 25 I realized that my metabolism had changed.  And by noticed I mean, it was pointed out to me.  I was dumped because I was too fat.  Now, I was about as fat as an average adult man but for my boyfriend at the time it was a little too fleshy.

I’ve cropped these images to protect the innocent but this is me in a production of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn around my 25 birthday:

And this is the ex’s abs around the same time.  I can’t really blame him for wanting a chorus boy in Mamma Mia.

I’d still push him in front of a bus if I saw him again, don’t get me wrong, but I am grateful for the complex it gave me.  Now I work my ass off at the gym and I watch what I eat and I’m just going to throw this strategy out there…stop me if you’ve heard this one: Stop f@%king eating so much if you’re so fat.  I’ve found it effective.

LYMI, Fatties!