January 7, 2005 8:59 AM

The official city celebration will be at 7am tomorrow at the Krispy Kreme on Bay Area Blvd.

Mayor: Fat city title doesn’t fit. As magazine puts Houston back at No. 1, White unveils a program to get city moving. Exercise boosts Seattle to fittest U.S. city

Eating in America (“I [don’t] feel [so] good!”).

Woohoo!! Once again, Houston has regained it’s rightful place as Lardass City. We’re here, we’re fat…and we’re apparently not at all happy about it. Yawn….

One minute Mayor Bill White debunked Men’s Fitness magazine’s methodology for labeling Houston the nation’s fattest city, and the next minute he announced a new wellness initiative to combat the label.

“It’s calculated with voodoo and fraud,” White said of the rankings of 50 cities across the nation featured in the magazine’s February issue, with Houston back in fattest place.

The magazine put Houston in second place last year, behind Detroit, but for three straight years before that Houston topped the list of heavyweights.

To determine the rankings, the magazine staff does not actually weigh anyone, but examines 14 elements of city life, including the number of fast food and pizza restaurants.

If my hometown is any indication, the Houston area has it’s work cut out for it. Seabrook is a small town of about 10,000 people, but in one short stretch of Hwy. 146, you will find these fast food restaurants:

  • KFC
  • Taco Bell
  • Sonic
  • McDonald’s
  • Shipley’s Donuts
  • Dairy Queen

Not so very far away, you will also find:

  • Subway
  • another Dairy Queen
  • Jack-in-the-Box
  • Wendy’s
  • Chick-fil-A
  • Pizza Hut
  • Domino’s Pizza
  • Waffle House

There are probably one or two fast-food places I’ve neglected, but I think I’ve made my point. Seabrook, and by extention Houston, is like any other American city. We value speed, even if it is at the expense of quality and health. If it tastes reasonably good, and it’s fast, chances are that we’ll eat it. Of course, the price of this speed and mediocrity is clogged arteries, expanded waistlines, and heart disease. Everything has a tradeoff, eh?

IS Houston fatter- or less healthy- than Seattle? Perhaps. Does it matter? Personally, I can’t see how it should. Given the methodology used by the authors of this survey, the information yielded impresses me as being virtually useless. Mayor White would do well to simply ignore the survey. Most everyone else in the Houston area will be.

And yes…I WOULD like to supersize that….

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on January 7, 2005 8:59 AM.

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