The Fat Economy
This article from the Washington Post is sort of a blast from the past – it was written about two years ago. But little has changed in the intervening years, so I thought I’d dig it up again and post it…as it’s a pretty fair description of how overweight/obesity has influenced the economy, and vice versa.
“Put simply, there is a lot of money being made, and to be made, in feeding both oversized stomachs and feeding those enterprises selling fixes for oversized stomachs,” Weis wrote in 2005 in the Academy of Health Care Management Journal. “And both industries — those selling junk food and those selling fat cures — depend for their future on a prevalence of obesity…
…For that last problem, the Fat Economy has already found ways to innovate and profit. In Lynn, Ind., there is a company called Goliath Casket that makes caskets up to 52 inches wide. The company’s Web site, which can be found at http://www.oversizecasket.com/ , notes that Goliath’s founder quit his job as a welder in 1985, saying: “Boys, I’m gonna go home and build oversize caskets that you would be proud to put your mother in.”
Sigh…
