Let the big boys play

As all my avid, relentlessly obsessive readers may know, I've been a little harsh on the stemming obesity problem in this country, which in the past I have called "a plague worse than crack, sex and late night cable television, if they were all rolled into one euphoric virtual sex-reality."

Thusly, allow me to formally apologize to all of you who have broken a sweat opening up this paper. It's been wrong of me to blame obesity on a variety of issues that afflict our nation, such as world hunger, our healthcare system and that whole illegal-immigration debacle. I admit: My logic was a little off on that last one.

But what I feel most guilty about is my reluctance to accept the fact that obese people do in fact play an important role in entertaining our society, other than their constant humiliation or the bane of the show Yo Momma's existence. No, I am talking about their role in sports.

Of course, not all sports take a stance on creating people, "larger than life," more so than football. The good ol' gridiron gang that has helped to make my Sundays actually worth living for have been producing some of the largest people that walk this Earth for years, if not decades. And as with any successful business, they do so by working with their employees as soon as they know how to tackle

But as with any exploitation of children, there are those out there who are trying to call foul about football's tendency to create young players who can't touch their toes or even see them in the first place.

And what a surprise. The New York Times staffers, who want to crash everyone's fun parade, published an article containing several studies published by the Journal of the American Medical Association and The Journal of Pediatrics, both indicating that football players were growing obese at rates much higher than other adolescent males.

Well, thank you Captain Obvious. Of course, football players are going to be bigger than the average scholastic nerd who spends his days role-playing in his friend's basement. They're football players. It's their job to get the living hell knocked out of them day and night so by the time they're in their 30s, they can barely walk. Therefore, they're going to need a little extra padding.

But more importantly, the New York fun-police failed to realize several factors that only help to exemplify their lack of logical reasoning. First off, as they state in the article, "Another study of 650 football players in Michigan youth leagues from ages 9 to 14, published last month in The Journal of Pediatrics, found that 45 percent were overweight or obese."

The last time I checked, and correct me if my algebra is off, but 45 percent means that the other 55 percent of players aren't suckling Twinkies in the locker room during halftime. And as any American would tell you, it's that majority that counts.

Furthermore, you can't classify them as "overweight" or "obese" without considering that their BMI, or Body Mass Index, which is what determines such classifications, doesn't take into account how much of their body is fat and how much is lean muscle. I mean, yeah, they may be sporting man breasts and have a gut that hangs over their pants like a tidal wave, but maybe they're just "big-boned."

Plus, I could personally vouch that all 650 of them could easily kick my ass, and that's evidence enough to call this study complete hearsay.

What I think The New York Times fails to realize in the end, however, is that we as a society always shoot for bigger and better things. How else would you explain the recent drug craze that has swept the sports world? We expect our athletes to go beyond their human potential, no matter how detrimental it may be to their health. I mean, imagine if we were content with an athlete's performance and didn't expect them to sacrifice their health for our own selfish needs?

Talk about a boring Sunday afternoon.

[Reach columnist Eric Uthus at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.]