Thoughts on the whole "fat people on a plane" thing.

Kevin Smith got booted off a Southwest flight because he's fat. Apparently, he bought two seats, but then got on standby for an earlier flight and got the very last seat on a full flight, and then he was told that he was too big and would have to get off the plane. The main issue seems to be that he apparently could lower the armrests (the de facto test) but was kicked off anyway. My thoughts:

1. What the hell is Kevin Smith doing flying on Southwest? Southwest is for people who can't afford an airline that pretends not to be a bus, not big Hollywood producers.

2. "People of size." Okay, I get that you can't have an official Fat People Policy, but come on. Are the "people of size" different from...what, those literally one-dimensional people? Please, airlines, I'm begging you to come up with a slightly less inane euphemism, because every time I hear someone identified as a "person of size" I want to start screaming that OF COURSE they're "of size," everyone and everything has size, you idiotic PR-obsessed morons!

3. If you are tall, there's not a damn thing you can do about it, short of chopping off your legs. Planes are designed to be as efficient as possible, which means cramming as many tiny seats into a tube as possible. This is not going to change, so get the hell over it. Fly business class, spent the extra twenty bucks for an exit seat, or drive.

4. If you are fat, you can do something about it! You can lose weight! Yes, you can! No, seriously, you can. I don't care whatever made-up glandular problem you have; if you take in fewer calories than you burn, you'll lose weight! Forget about nutrition; that's the first law of thermodynamics. The energy that your body needs to pump blood around and get up and walk and blink your eyes needs to come from somewhere. Usually it comes from the food that you eat. If you eat less food, some of that energy will come from the fat already within your body. That is why humans have fat, as an emergency battery. If you say you can't do anything about it, you're lying.

4a. I do not care if you're fat. If you want to live your life slurping down McDonalds and die of a stroke at the age of 35? Fine. Not my problem.

4b. If you make that choice, it comes with trade-offs. You can be too fat to fit in a single seat on an airplane and buy two, or you can lose weight and fit in a single seat.

5. If you cannot fit in one seat, and the flight is otherwise fully booked, you will need to reserve a second seat on a less-full flight. This is not a personal insult. This is not punishment. This is not a moral judgement. This is just how buying things work. You pay to occupy a seat on a plane going from A to B. If you want to occupy two seats, one of which could potentially be occupied by a second paying customer, you have to pay for two seats. If I go to Subway and buy a 6 inch sandwich, but decide I'm really really hungry, Subway is not obligated to give me a second sandwich for free. If I pay for a one-way bus fare, I cannot ride the bus again for free just because.

5a. If the flight turns out not to be fully booked, the money for that second seat should be refunded; this, I understand, is how it already works.

5b. THIS IS NOT DISCRIMINATION. Pointing out the obvious (this passenger does not fit in one seat) is not discrimination.

6. It would be lovely if the airline staff was discrete and polite in these situations. It would also be lovely if airline staff was polite when your flight is delayed for whatever reason, or when you've been sitting on the tarmac for three hours and you have to pee, or when you nearly miss your plane because the gate suddenly changed from A1 to Z452. It would also be lovely if cashiers always handed you your coins first, if milk never went bad in the fridge, and if I woke up tomorrow and had 20/20 vision. Humans are humans, and usually we're a mean, brutal people, and nothing's going to change that. Suck it up and deal.

An important point about weight gain/loss

Inspired by a combination of things I've read recently:

You are not fat because of your genes. You are not fat because of your self-diagnosed (or medically diagnosed) thyroid condition. You are not fat because of the alleged toxins in your food. You are not fat because your deity of choice hates you. You are not fat because of your friends.

You are fat because you regularly consume more calories than you burn.

If you change this, by altering your dietary and exercise habits (ie, stop with the McDonalds and TV, and start with the fresh vegetables and running) so that you burn more calories than you take in, you will lose weight.

Eat healthier food. Eat reasonable amounts of that food (look it up; you don't need a quarter pound of fatty, low-grade meat for lunch). Leave the TV off in the morning and go for a run before work (it's easy, you don't need a gym or an exercise plan, just some decent shoes and the slightest trace of willpower), or after work, or on your lunch break (because you're bringing a salad from home instead of running out to McDonalds). Continue doing so.

Congratulations! You're beginning to move from 'fat' to 'not fat'! Can we please move on as a society now?

Letter to the Editor of the New York Times, 23 July 2008

To the Editor:

Re “Eyes Off the Price” (Op-Ed, July 19):

Dan Ariely might have mentioned a far more compelling factor in our shock at gas prices: there is no simple substitute for gasoline. For short- or mid-range travel, most Americans have no alternative to taking the car and paying for gas.

When the price of butter goes up, we might switch to margarine, or olive oil, or jelly, or just eat our bread plain. But when the price of gas goes up, we have no substitutes: pay more, or stay put.

Sweet Jesus, when the hell are more Americans going to get it through their head: YES YOU DO HAVE ALTERNATIVES.  Here, from the official site of the government of Asheville, where our intrepid writer lives:

Asheville Transit provides bus service service throughout the City of Asheville and other local areas with 24 bus routes running from 6 a.m.-11:30 p.m., Monday through Saturday.

Ta-da!  Or how about this option?  Or even this one?  Gosh, wouldn't it be grand if us humans had some sort of built-in way of easily and gracefully moving ourselves from one place to another?  Besides those who live actually within America's largest cities - I mean the people who live in Manhattan or Center City in Philly or similar - suggesting someone "get there someway other than driving a personally-owned vehicle" is like suggesting that they just flap their wings and fly to commute.  It's really not that hard - and we'd be less fat as a nation, too, if more people accepted it as an option.  My boss has two kids, a husband, and zero cars.  They ride their bikes, walk, take the bus, or some combination of the above.  If they absolutely need a ride somewhere, they get a ride from a friend or call a cab.  Simple.  

Here's another point: until more people start taking public transportation, or walking, or riding their bikes, or however-the-hell-else getting to work and the grocery store and that great cafe, the systems aren't going to improve.  There's no motivation to put in sidewalks and more bus routes if no one's using them.  Use them, be vocal about how you want them to be changed, and it'll change.  

In his defense, the writer does go on to make a good point:

And lingering in many minds, of course, is the awareness that as gas goes, so goes heating oil. While it may be possible to forgo a vacation trip or delay a trip to the store, with heating oil, the choice is more stark: pay or freeze. That choice makes a jump in the price of yogurt seem trivial.

This is true, and it is going to be a problem.  Part of it is a problem of our own making (hint: apartments are easier to heat than McMansions; your family of four really doesn't need a six bedroom house), it's also a symptom of our miserable economy.  

The solution of course is obviously to cut taxes and sink more money into the defense budget.  Anything else makes you a terrorist!  (Actually, it's more alternative power sources, more conservation, and...well, I don't know, but I'm not an economist or an energy or economics policy advisor).  

"It's my metabolism!"

Things like this make me angry:

Individuals can no longer be held responsible for obesity and government must act to stop Britain "sleepwalking" into a crisis, a report has concluded.

YES YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE! If you are fat, it is - with extremely few exceptions - your fault. It means you eat too much, or eat badly, or don't exercise enough, or some combination of the above. Some people might gain weight from medications they take (most of which are probably not necessary anyway), but no one gets obese from anything but their own idiocy.

Know how you stop being a disgusting bucket of useless lard? Get up off your oversize bottom, do some exercise, eat a salad instead of three Big Macs. You'll feel better for it, plus you eventually won't be one of those assholes who takes up more than one seat on public transportation.

The actual article goes on to say that obesity is an "inevitable" by-product of our modern culture. It does not explain why, you know, a lot of people aren't fat. Because that would require acknowledging personal responsibility, I guess.