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Woe is HMO
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"Fat guys kick ass"
If I ate less, I'd lose weight. But I don't, because I love food.

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By Steven A. Shaw

Oct. 15, 1999 | That the world is run by fat guys is no secret (more on this later), yet Americans devote a tremendous amount of time, effort and money to losing weight without ever stopping to consider the advantages of obesity. And the advantages are many -- not least of which is that you can eat whatever you want.

I'm a fat guy -- always have been. I'm not "big-boned" (surprise, there's no such thing), I don't "carry it well," and I'm neither "husky" nor "just a little heavy." There's nothing wrong with any of my glands. I'm not a victim in any way. I'm a fat guy because I eat too much. If I ate less, I'd lose weight. But I don't, because I love food (and I even eat food I don't love, because I love the mere act of eating). I'm a fat guy, as in I could lose 50 pounds and still be fat, as in I'm 5-foot-10 and 250 very apparent pounds (plus or minus 10 pounds depending on what I ate that day). I'm a fat guy, and I'm not alone.

According to a study published in the May 29, 1998, issue of Science, 54 percent of American adults (and 25 percent of children) are overweight (and that figure is likely skewed downwards by all the people who crash-diet the week before their annual physicals because they know they're going to get weighed). We, the fat, are the rapidly expanding majority. (The fat population has grown by 33 percent since 1978.) It is the thin who are abnormal.

I enjoy being a fat guy, although I must confess I wouldn't want to be a fat girl. The societal deck really is stacked against them (unfairly, I might add, because fat girls are in many ways superior to skinny ones). But being a fat guy is great. I've never felt that my weight kept me from getting a job or a girl, or from gaining admittance to a club. And it has many, many advantages.

Fat guys are strong. Ask any bar owner who hires bouncers, or anybody who gets in a lot of fights, or any high school wrestler. They'll all tell you the same thing: Don't fuck with fat guys.

Despite the propaganda of 10,000 suburban strip-mall tae kwon do "academies" and health-club self-defense classes, the simple truth is that victory in a fight is largely a matter of inertia. "The 300-pound tub-of-lard beats the 165-pound musclehead every time," says Navy Lt. Jonathan Shapiro, my brother-in-law and all-around physically fit tough-guy, who spends much of his life recovering from various exercise-related injuries. "Fat guys kick ass."

In competitive wrestling, if one guy outweighs another by a few pounds, they put him in a different weight class -- the match wouldn't even be fun. Every fat guy is inherently strong, but the ultimate weapon is the fat guy who knows how to fight (aka the sumo wrestler).

Fat guys aren't as slow as you think, either. I don't have time to explain all of Newtonian physics to you, but remember that a body in motion tends to remain in motion. Fat guys may have trouble turning on a dime, but they can move in one direction with great alacrity and effectiveness, as demonstrated repeatedly in every NFL game.

Next page | Women in the know prefer fat guys because fat guys are better in bed