She is in London, and is obviously generalizing. Back for what, two days,
and already being a pill?

there was actually a survey done by the nhs and they found that the
areas with the unhealthiest lifestyles and highest rates of heart
disease and high cholesterol were inthe north and north west,
unsurprisingly, if i find the link i will post it.
and no i am not in london.

havign lived in staffordshire (near stoke on trent in fact) for a
while I was not surprised by the findings myself.

why? where are you from?

i think the fattest person i ever saw in my life was someone in a
dairy queen in miami, i was scared they might fall on me, or eat me
possibly.

I also read a report about a partuicularly tubby tribe of american
indians, somewhere new arizona or nevada (not sure where now, may have
been new mexico) but they seemed to live off 'fried dough' or
doughnuts cos that was the cheapest form of energy they could get and
was all their benefit cheque could stretch to. They were immense, and
it was partly a genetic predisposition to laying done lost of fat for
survival purposes i guess, their bodies were just so efficient at
storing up any calories they took in for future use in case of 'lean
periods'

The obesity problem is apparently world wide, and is partly due to the
preponderance of fast food, coupled with activities that require little or
no physical activity, such as computing, watching TV, and listening to
I-pods and the like....As the emerging countries improve their economic
status, they become prone to all these activities.
   It is a problem that was addressed many years ago, actually. I can
remember back in the 60's that science fiction writers and others (who liked
to speculate on the future) predicted that the "man of tomorrow" would
become a lump of fat, with tiny legs and arms, who did nothing but press
buttons and let machinery perform all his necessary functions.......Of
course, they were talking about a future thousands of years from now, but
the fact is, that a little bit of it is already coming true only 40 years
later.......

Yeah....When I was  kid (the 40's) back in NYC, they said just living there
was like smoking two packs of cigs a day.....I remember that there was a
continuous fallout of soot in the air....30 minutes after my mom cleaned off
the windowsills, I could run my fingers along them and come up with a line
of black, greasy soot on them.
   Since then, however, the smog controls on both automobiles and factories
have done a lot toward cleaning up the air, and it is much cleaner....(I
went back there for a visit during the early 90's)

i think america has the monopoly on bigotry my good man

I think you are both missing an important point.  From an economic
standpoint, the gov't would do well to encourage smoking and obesity
both.  Smokers and fat people tend to die in their late 50s/early 60s...
right at the end of a long working life, but before they collect any
retirement benefits or require much gov't funded medical care.

If you want to know who is costing the taxpayers a bundle, it's the
little old grannies who eat like a bird and would never dream of using
tobacco... they live to be 95-100, soaking up medical resources and
usually spending the the last 5 years in a nursing home at gov't expense
after they have run through their assets.

So next time you see a slender gray-haired old lady, throw her under a
passing bus.  And next time you see a fat chain-smoking pig, give that
person a pat on the back and thank them for their contribution to a
fiscally sound republic.  Or kingdom, as the case may be.

Charlie