From the Crow’s Nest
by CLINT YOUNTS
Whoa, Nellie! I just read that Texas is ranked 13th in a recent poll. Thirteenth! That’s ridiculous. How can Texas be ranked that low? No, I’m not talking football; I’m speaking of a nation-wide study that ranks our Lone Star State the13th fattest in the country. We Texans, lovers of barbecue and beer, fanatics of fajitas and frijoles, should be ranked much higher in my rotund opinion. I demand a recount!
According to some report by a bunch of bean sprouts-eating number crunchers, 29% of Texans are obese. That’s pert near one out of every three bubbas. We’re talking a ton of lard, folks. Nearly one third of all Texans have to buy two seats on a Southwest airplane just because they went back for thirds at Golden Corral. Could these figures I’m reading be right? Are there really that many big ol’ boys two-stepping their adipose posteriors to the fridge every night? When we brag how everything is bigger in Texas, we don’t mean our beer bellies!
This report doesn’t say how the researchers obtained these bloated figures. I don’t recall a question on our census form that asked, “What size are your undies?” or “How many family members can sit together on your sofa: 3, 2 or only Aunt Bertha?” Maybe these researchers perched themselves out front of HEB and counted the number of wide-loads that passed by. I’m very curious how they gathered their data.
Not only am I a bit embarrassed about us being ranked 13th in the nation, but must we lose out to Oklahoma? Dang it if they didn’t come in 6th place. Who did this poll? The BCS committee? How can the Sooners be fatter than us when Lockhart lies in the center of Texas? And I doubt you can find any good Mexican food up there in Oklahoma. Who are they foolin’? We’ll put our lipid-pitted butts against theirs anytime and we’ll win every time.
One interesting item I read in this report is the top 10 portly states all lie south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Why do you suppose that is? Could it be that we abundantly insulated southerners know something about good cookin’? You won’t find a thick-breaded chicken fried steak served with home fries and a mess of collards on the menu in some swank Manhattan restaurant. You might find items like “Tofu a la Orange” or seasoned asparagus spears, but I bet they don’t serve menudo. Ask for a bowl of grits at a New Jersey IHOP and see what happens. Down here in the south, we know what’s good, even if it has to be fried in hog fat.
Guess which state turns out to be the leanest? Nope, it’s not Rhode Island. That was my guess, too. I figure there’re only about a dozen residents in that puny little state, and they probably eat nothing but cod and clam chowder, but they came in 45th.
Colorado came in 51st. Yeah, that’s what I said, 51st! Did I doze off and Congress acquired Kamchatka from the Russians and made it a state? Do I need to go buy a new flag with 51 stars on it?
Oh, my bad. I just read the District of Columbia was included in this study and did quite well, coming in at 49. You’d think with all the excessive spending on pork in D.C., the number of buffalo butts in the nation’s capital would be much higher.
Yeah, Colorado has the fewest number of obese people. I’m not sure why, but perhaps, like all our Yankee friends, the folks in Colorado burn more calories by shoveling snow off their sidewalks nine months out of the year. Down here in Dixie, we have a harder time burning off calories when it’s hotter than a link of deer sausage on an open pit. It’s much tougher working off that beer gut while you’re sitting in a lawn chair beneath a big oak, your feet resting on a cooler of ice-cold Lone Star beer, engulfed in the aromatic smoke from pork ribs grilling on the pit. I keep my chiseled physique by utilizing an aerobic exercise of waving off the gnats trying to get a taste of the barbecue sauce on my chin.
Seriously, obesity is no laughing matter. While profusely plump adults are ranked 13th, obese Texas children are ranked 7th in the nation. A separate study shows only 8% of Texas high school seniors could pass a simple fitness test, meaning 92% of our kids get winded after texting a long message. This is horrible, definitely nothing to brag about, folks. We need to get these kids back out on the playground instead of sitting in front of a TV or computer. Cook them healthy food instead of grabbing a bucket of fried chicken on your way home. Buy your kid a baseball glove instead of a Playstation. Teach your daughter how to swim and not how to bake brownies. Let’s get out and play. Help Texas slim down. Who cares if Oklahoma outranks us in this poll? We can still beat their big butts in football.
