Op-Ed Columns

"All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal, or fattening."

Immoral? None of your business.

Illegal? Too old for that. (Probably too old for immoral, too, but let's not go there.)

Fattening? Ah, there's the rub.

Read the other day that Alabama was the third fattest state in the Union, right behind West Virginia (No. 2) and — drum roll, please — Mississippi (No. 1). To illustrate Mississippi's top ranking, the article showed a picture of the Taylor Grocery in Taylor, Miss. ("Eat or we both starve.") Well, I have eaten there (wrote my name on the wall right next to Barry Hannah's) and the catfish is first-rate. But I can take you to half-a-dozen places in Alabama just as good and just as fattening.

Which is part of my problem.

And yours.

At least according to the same survey.

According to the folks who figure these things, 67 percent of Alabamians are overweight and 31 percent are down-right obese.

Now, excusing those who are fat through no fault of their own ("It's glandular"), the fact remains that we, as a state, are chubby, fluffy, more to love.

Especially white males.

Of which I am one.

And why are we this way?

Because we eat too much — duh (as my 10-year-old daughter would say).

And who is to blame for this?

Why, our mamas.

(Another characteristic of white males, apart from the paunch, is a general refusal to take blame for their own shortcomings. It is always someone else's fault.)

Because of Mama, I was a fat kid.

In the morning I would rise early and breakfast on something pork, grits, eggs (cooked in the grease from something pork), toast (my mama was not a big biscuit baker until they appeared in a can), all washed down with coffee that was mostly milk and heavy on the sugar.

Lunch — Mama called it dinner, and still calls it dinner, 'cause the night meal is supper, just as it was when Jesus was alive (it was the "Last Supper," not the "Last Dinner"), so 'nuff said — was a belly busting meal with most dishes enhanced with the drippings from the pork we had for breakfast that were saved in a can on the back of the stove.

Supper (I've already been over that) was much like dinner except in the summer when the garden came in and we made sandwiches that consisted of white bread, lots of mayonnaise, something pork, cheese and thick slices of tomatoes. Could and would eat two or three at a sitting.

With buttermilk.

Life was good.

I was chubby.

"Ain't he fat and fine," country folks would say when I went politicking with Daddy on his runs for office and re-election.

Years passed and I went through a thin period brought on by graduate study, when there was no time to eat, and an addiction to running, from which I am now recovered. Then, about the time I turned 45, things began to thicken and sag.

And here I am — "fat and fine," all over again.

Only what was once considered something to be admired today places me in a category where I'd rather not be.

Why?

Well, for one reason it may cost me money.

Yessir.

Word has reached me that the State Employees Insurance Board is considering charging obese state employees an extra $24 a month in health-insurance premiums to cover the cost of taking care of them when they get old and sick. "They" (whoever "they" are) estimate that "extremely overweight" employees cost the state some $50 million a year.

I am a state employee and I am wondering if I am one of the "extremely overweight." Who are they? Folks with "a body mass index of 35 or greater," that's who. Which might be me. (Or might not, being as I don't have a clue what a "body mass index" is or is not.)

While pondering this I picked up an article with the tempting headline, "A simple way to add 3-to-7 years to your life." Naturally, I read it.

And it said, "eat less."

Simple?

But there it was.

It is like they are ganging up on me.

Eat less, be healthier, live longer. Do it for your state. Do it for your family (assuming they want you around three-to-seven more years). Do it for the white males.

And save money in the bargain.

$24 a month.

$288 a year.

You can buy a lot of catfish with that.