Queenan On 'Fat People'

This morning, one of my colleagues mentioned a statistic she'd heard: That for those of us over 40, every holiday season we pack on three extra pounds that we never lose — for the rest of our lives. Now, I'm neither a statistician nor a scientist, but whether that particular figure is true or not, it's abundantly clear the potential for packing it on between Thanksgiving and New Year's is huge. It's also clear that for most of us, avoiding that weight gain is probably prudent.

But stress kills too, they say, so if you find yourself obsessing unhealthily about an extra sliver of pie, maybe take a moment to savor Joe Queenan's op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, "Stop Picking on Fat People." He calls out society for believing the worst about the overweight, particularly in light of the current health care debate, and reminds readers "that carrying a few extra pounds does not necessarily make a person any less effective as an employee, a spouse, a parent or a citizen." To wit,

Where would jazz be without the seminal influence of Louis Armstrong, the greatest trumpeter of them all? And how do we know that it was not those few extra pounds that gave him the pep to belt out such crowd-pleasing numbers as "St. James Infirmary" and "Hello, Dolly"?

And to those who press on, reminding Queenan about how the obese unfairly tax the health care system?

But the very same arguments can be applied to workaholics, alcoholics or garden-variety idiots, none of whom violate any specific law by indulging in a lifestyle others deplore.

A slippery slope, he fears, so read on for Queenan's appreciation of overweight greats like Ella Fitzgerald, Honore de Balzac and Catherine the Great.