FATTY ACTIVES LIVE LONGER

A crisis meeting has been called by Weight Wishers CEO Sam Slatz and his Director of Sales and Promotion, Spring Swimsute.

"Spring, I'm very disturbed about all these reports in the media about the relationship between weight and health."

"What disturbs you, Sam?"

"They're saying that new research shows that being thin might shorten your life."

"I know, Sam. And it certainly bothers me too. But the research is new and runs counter to conventional professional thinking."

"We've got to take this seriously. Our whole company depends on people believing that being thin makes them more attractive and healthier -- and longer-lived. The belief in 'thin' makes for fatter wallets for Weight Wishers and our stockholders."

"Not to worry, Chief. We have our lobbyists buttonholing Washington to keep preaching the federal body mass standards as gospel, which make even normal people feel they're fat."

"You can't trust the government, Spring. Didn't they just let the subversives kick over the food triangle?"

"Sam, we also are actively supporting the fashion industry, which uses models which look like members of the Bellevue anorexia ward. And we are buying $10,000 designer outfits for a few down-on-their luck society dames as long as they keep chirping, 'You can't be too rich or too thin.'"

"Look, Spring, what if more research indicates that being thin can shorten your life?"

"Actually, there has been more research, Sam. The press just hasn't dug it up."

"My stock options, Spring. You're scaring me. What research?"

"Ralston Purina did a long-term study on dogs, starting in the 1980s. They compared two dozen dogs fed a normal diet with two dozen of the same breed which were fed twenty-five percent less. After fourteen years, the underfed dogs were healthier, livelier and more of them were still alive."

"Well, doesn't that prove that being thin makes you live longer?"

"At first everybody thought so. But now they think that underfeeding made the dogs agitated so they would run up and down their runways, barking at visitors. People now think it was the exercise, not the feeding per se, that made the dogs live longer and healthier lives."

"Spring, that's a horrible turn of thinking. Hasn't every experiment on underfeeding animals shown that the underfed are thinner and live longer?"

"Yes, sir. From rats to cats, the underfed have been thinner and lived longer. But like Ralston's dogs, it probably was hunger that made them more active."

"And this new research on people shows that being active is more important then being thin?"

"I'm afraid so, Sam. There was even a report that many surgery deaths in hospitals have been attributed to malnutrition, especially among very thin people who didn't have the reserves to carry them through the ordeal."

"Spring, this may all be true. I remember when I had my gall bladder taken out the old-fashioned way and....."

"The old-fashioned way, Sam?"

"The way surgeons used to do it. The bigger the scar, the higher the fee. Well, I got a pulmonary embolism that kept me in the hospital 23 days. My weight fell from 227 to 201. My doctor told me I was fortunate to be carrying all that extra weight."

"That's the point to the new research, Sam. It says that people need fatty reserves to carry them through crises and that people who are fat and active are better off than people who are thin and without reserves. Look how many years Magic Johnson has survived with HIV by bulking up and staying active."

"But, Spring, why does all the research show that fat people die earlier than thin people?"

"Because most fat people are couch potatoes. Being fat and inactive is the worst combination. Being thin and inactive is almost as bad. The best thing according to all the research is to be a 'fatty active.'"

"Spring, I'm dying here. If fat becomes beautiful, we are ruined."

"Sam, don't worry, I've come up with a contingency plan."

"Thank my annual bonus, Spring. What is it?"

"We run a big campaign starring people like Britney Spears, J. Lo and Madonna to keep the young and up-and-coming market thinking thin is great."

"Fine, I know who Madonna is and ....."

"And Sam, we run a big worldwide TV campaign."

"What's the theme?"

"Thin is the only thing."

"Sounds great, Spring. But what if it doesn't work?"

"There's a second part to the plan, Sam."

"Which is?"

"We all start selling our stock. Quietly and in small packages so Wall Street doesn't catch on until we are pretty much out."

"Brilliant, Spring, brilliant. I want you to know that I never went along with all those people in the company who claimed you were just a pretty face."