Horizontally challenged

Let's just get this straight once and for all. For all you non-Americans, half-Americans or wannabe-Americans, Americans are not fat. They are not. There. Let's just bury that prejudice once and for all. Or at least after I'm done blogging about it.

I can't begin to tell you how often I hear someone tell me that "Americans are fat", "Americans eat too much", "Obesity is a typical American disease", and how frustrating it is to never really have a good reply. Especially since these things are often said to me by foreign visitors right after they witness a 400 pond American whizz by at the local grocery store, squeezed into one of those electrical shopping carts with far too much flesh hanging over either side of the seat. But I've had some time to think about it, and you're about to read the response I have come up with. Good luck.

First, please let's not generalize. Husband-dear is an American. And he is the type of man who, besides not being a pound overweight, can probably outrun half of you lazy foreigners, and says things like, "Since we have nothing planned tomorrow, how about we do some serious tri-training and do a 20 mile bike ride followed by a 5 mile run?". Kay and Shelly are both American, and they are my only triathlete friends. Summer, another true red-white-and-blue friend looks pretty hot in a bikini, and I can think of countless Americans or half-Americans who spent a lot of their free time exercising and eating well. On top of that, I have never lived in a place where there are so many races, triathlons, and fun runs, all of which are so popular. So don't assume all Americans simply love to sit around and eat. They don't.

Second, and I hate to do this, but it's not as though Dutch people are all that skinny either. The last time I went back to Holland, I was surprised at the amount of big people in that little country. I remembered Dutch people as being a lot more athletic anyway. I can't ever find pants there that won't fall off my behind, and I can't say that they have as many athletic events to chose from as I do here in my little corner of Georgia. I remember having to struggle to find one 5k and one 10k run in my area, while down here, in our little podunk town, there are various 5k runs, several 10k races, two half-marathons, a marathons, and two triathlons from which one can chose. And that's not even counting all the road races, the XTerra races, the mountainbiking, the skeetshooting competitions, and the Texas Hold 'Em tournaments. Although I'm not sure if the latter two count as an athletic activities per se.

And finally, the comparison is just not fair. I mean, come on people, in Holland you get to ride your bike everywhere. I remember riding my bike up a 3 mile hill every day just to get to work, loading a week's worth of groceries on my bike and not blinking twice about getting on, and riding in the rain, snow, hail, sleet, and high winds. So it's fair to say that you people pretty much have exercise built into your daily routine. Living in a town where a) there are no bicycle lanes, b) people don't really look out their windows when they're driving, c) everything is at least ten miles apart, and d) it's over a 100F for about four months out of the year, biking is not really an option.
And then, and this is really true; American food is just nothing like Dutch food. Have you ever been hungry and driven past any restaurant that serves fried food? I bet it made you want to jump out of your car (or off your bike) and get some. Well, now imagine living in a part of the world where fried food is not only a staple and considered acceptable for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but where it's just about everywhere. Just for the sake of this blog, I did a little survey the other day, and we have three restaurants that serve fried food within three miles of our house. The nearest grocery store is five miles away, just for comparison's sake. I'm pretty sure that not a lot of Dutch people can say that. So here we have a people who a) don't have exercise built into their daily activities, and c) are surrounding by tantalizingly unhealthy food. I mean, seriously people, if Americans are just a hint bigger than Dutch people, they deserve some slack.

I think I have made my point. And any foreign guest who, during future visits, comments on the size of "the American" will be forced to sign up for the next available triathlon with me.