land of the fat, The

Spectator, The, Aug 18, 2001 by Langton, James

Nowhere are the growing pains of America felt more acutely than in the airline industry. Over a decade, the number of passengers has doubled in size. So have many of the travellers. Clearly, something has got to give, as illustrated by the near tragedy involving Ronald Olshausen, a consultant who found himself wedged between two 300 lb women on a 13-hour flight from San Francisco to Paris and claims, at one point, to have blacked out from lack of oxygen.

In vain does Boeing protest that it has increased capacity on most of its aircraft. This has mostly been to accommodate the amount of luggage that Americans take on their trips. The actual seats remain a fairly constant 17 inches and, given the waferthin profit margins of American airlines, are likely to remain so. Packing 'em in is still the policy, but it causes all sorts of problems, and the Federal Aviation Administration is non-committal on this one. A number of airlines require their larger customers to purchase a second seat - but only if they find it physically impossible to squeeze into just one.

This is what happened to Arlene Edelman, an 800 lb Florida woman who found herself embroiled in a row with a gate agent at New York's LaGuardia airport. Delta, the airline involved, insisted on charging Mrs Edelman for two seats. Then, when she asked for a wheelchair, it supplied a luggage trolley. `I'm not luggage, I'm a human being,' Mrs Edelman demurred. After complaining, she was given a refund.

Inevitably, someone will sue one day and a law will be passed. It will then be no more lawful to ban access to a fatty than to a cripple. At present the death house in Huntsville, Texas, has only a ramp for wheelchair access. Why not an extra-wide electric chair?

This is the true price of American expansionism. Not just bigger planes and cars, the king-size bed and the XXXXXXXXXXL shirt. The supersizing of America finds employment for lawyers and jobs for farmers. It touches the cotton fields of the Old South and the sweatshops of south-east Asia. The china industry is working overtime. Is it any coincidence that the last decade saw the greatest period of growth in American history, both in waistbands and in the economy?

Health experts complain that treating obesity costs the United States about $70 billion a year, but it is not for nothing that we talk about 'consumers' and 'growth'. To put it another way: with a recession looming, is this any time to talk of tightening belts?