Confessions of a once-chubby American.

Part I Roots of the Conflict

Maybe it all started with grilled cheese.

Yes, the evidence points to the grilled cheese sandwich as the root cause of my childhood girth, seeing that throughout the formative years 4 to 14, I did not crave steaming lasagna, sugary donuts or chocolate ice cream. No, it was grilled cheese in the early years, grilled cheese, in all its wonderful permutations, that sparked the first embers of culinary expedience and at the same time ensured a chronic layer of fat that has grown and shrunk over the years.

That extra weight, called disturbingly, a "spare tire" by one former girlfriend, has affected everything from athletics to dating to deeper psychological issues of self-worth and identity.

But little did I know I was an enemy of the state. Sure, as a boy I could rattle off the various benefits of near-daily experiments with bread and cheese. There was of course the American standard grilled cheese in a pan, called by some a ''fried cheese'' sandwich, merely two slices of very meltable American between two slices of white bread, fried up until the bread turned golden brown and the cheese took on the form of oozing molten lava--the kind of grilled cheese one finds without deviance in diners from Long Island to Seattle.

From there the obsession evolved into combinations that tested the elasticity and staying power of assorted cheese types as well as the suitability and stamina of different breads: muenster on a English muffin toasted in the broiler with a small block of cheddar melted on top; a slice of American blanketing a wedge of mozzarella melted on a salt bagel; sometimes a slice of ham or tomato added.

That I was close enough to walk or ride my bike home for lunch in grade school meant my reliance on these sandwiches had a warping effect. When I opted instead, once or twice a week, for lunch at a friend''s house, I felt confusion and despair when the mom would put a plate of tuna sandwiches or hot dogs or a bowl of Spaghetti-Os in front of us. It was the shock of the new, and in some extreme cases, it was surreal. One particular lunch of beets and roasted chicken served by a mother who''d emigrated from Hungary remains to this day a searing event. Beets? For lunch? What the hell? I thought it was punishment. There was something green too, which looking back was probably spinach. I wasn''t surprised since everything was always a little different at this kid''s house but it became apparent my communiques demanding grilled cheese for lunch were not being understood. All these people were failing to grasp the sanctity of lunch as a daily expo, sort of like the World''s Fair, of the simplest, most satisfying sandwich ever.

Do I blame the combination of melted cheese and bread for a childhood and early adulthood as a chubby kid? Maybe. Everyone knows grilled cheese is delicious. And growing up in suburban New Jersey in the ''70s and ''80s, that just happened to be what was lying around. It wasn''t Asia--I wasn''t eating rice and fish and steamed vegetables. It certainly wasn''t the Middle East, as the circa 1981 discovery of pita bread only meant another handy, portable vessel in which to melt cheese. And it wasn''t California--I didn''t know what a burrito was until college.

No, it was New Jersey and the meals were predictable. I could rest assured knowing that there would be a pizza night--probably Friday--in my future, pork chops with applesauce, or tuna casserole at least once a week, a barbecue at some point on the weekend, and scrambled eggs or pancakes for breakfast on Sunday. And it was grilled cheese for lunch in pre-health conscious America, pre-obsession with Oprah''s waistline, pre-Atkins Diet America that made me a chubby kid.

But I never thought it meant I was a threat to national security. It only made me feel like the oddball. Now the fat kid who likes grilled cheese a little too much is less the oddball than the norm.

The Threat, and the Battle Plan

According to the latest information from the Centers for Disease Control, America just gets fatter and fatter. Obesity has been placed in the category of epidemic, like a disease that spreads from person to person. Today, two-thirds of American adults are either overweight or obese. Two-thirds of us, a leap of 50 percent from 1993.

The government places the cost of obesity at $117 billion a year and blames obesity for 300,000 premature deaths annually, through increased heart disease, diabetes, various cancers and depression. Fifteen percent of kids aged 6 to 17--eight million--are overweight or obese.

If I was a fat kid in 1980, there are twice as many of me now. That may lighten the ostracizing through shared misery, but it is by no means good.

Last year, Secretary of State Colin Powell declared that the AIDS epidemic poses a threat to national security. The devastation caused by millions and millions of sick and dying from India to Africa to Indiana pose enough danger to global stability that it''s being put on the same shelf as intercontinental ballistic missiles. Guess what else is on the list of threats to national security? Fat Americans.

According to a report published in the American Journal of Medicine, research at Johns Hopkins and the University at Buffalo found that the government would be hard pressed to find enough physically fit recruits when faced with a national emergency. Not to mention the drag obesity puts on the health care system, the study says 13 percent of draft-age men and 17 percent of women would fail their physical examination for being overweight.

Where teenagers used to be more physically active, some 43 percent just sit and watch at least two hours of television every day; 25 percent spend four hours daily watching television or playing video games. Forty percent of Americans get no regular exercise.

"This study shows that obesity is not just a public health issue, it''s a national security concern as well. We''re not physically fit to defend ourselves," said one of the report''s authors, Dr. Carlos Crespo of the University at Buffalo.

RAND, which for years has served as a contract research body and think-tank for the Pentagon and other government agencies, has also looked into the strategic consequences of a chubby America.

It names obesity as a more significant health threat than poverty, and found that the obese spent way more on medications than daily smokers and heavy drinkers. The RAND report puts overweight and obese teenagers into the same category for chronic conditions as someone aged 30 to 50.

Although factors of heredity come into play, the research found a dramatic spike in the levels of obesity from 1980 forward. The dramatic increase is blamed on lifestyle.

The human body is a machine designed for movement and work, but we spend more time sitting, prone or supine. More and more Americans have super-sized their caloric intake over the years--often with the cheapest, most convenient but deadliest food available--while their everyday lives have become less active.

As summarized by RAND: "The past 20 years have witnessed a significant lifestyle change: Americans are exercising less while maintaining at least the same caloric intake. Desk jobs, an increase in the number of hours devoted to television watching, and car-friendly (and pedestrian- and bike-hostile) urban environments are some of the environmental changes that have combined to discourage physical activity."

With so much at stake for the nation''s future, the government has set a 2010 goal to reduce by 15 percent the number of overweight people in America, plans shy of Japanese-style mandatory corporate calisthenics.

On June 10, 2003, Surgeon General Richard Carmona spoke at an "Obesity Conference" hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank that often focuses on large-scale strategic issues. In his remarks, Carmona outlined the associated health risks with being too fat, noting that a third of cancers are caused by bad nutrition, inactivity and fatness, and that hypertension, a byproduct of fatness, "contributes to the number-one cause of death in this country: heart disease."

Actually the cure is clear: eat smart and exercise more. As Carmona told the June gathering, "We shouldn''t have to rely on good science to undo many years of bad habits. We''re at a crossroads in our nation. We''re standing at the corner of health and disease. Are we going to sentence ourselves to being a society defined by obesity and disease? Or are we going to choose to be a nation of health and vitality?"

The Battle of the Bulge: A Personal Account.

Being fat is not fun. Fat and funny guys like Chris Farley and John Candy may have gotten a few laughs in their shortened lives but don''t believe anyone who tells you they''re proud of it or that it''s OK. That''s baloney. It''s not. Being fat means you get ostracized, made fun of, left out, picked on, whatever. It''s like being crippled except you did it to yourself.

Here''s some evidence: a personal catalogue of humiliations and defeats:

o Although I never got to be really, really fat, I was always sorta chubby. That distinction made no difference. In fourth grade, I become known to a handful of classmates as Spanky--after the fattest Little Rascal--a nickname coined by a particularly wicked girl who shall remain nameless but remained on the grudge list until junior high. Erosion of ego begins.

o A new girl moves to town in fifth grade. Tallish and svelte with blond hair, blue eyes and a toothy smile, she was and remains a classic, legendary beauty. I sit next to her in math class and develop what is an all-American, red-cheeked crush. That crush withers to dust quickly when she declares for many to hear that I have "the fattest head" she''d ever seen. My only retort is to prove her wrong by trying to pinch fat off the side of my skull. "See?" I implore, "No fat!"

o The annual school year outfitting trip to the boys'' clothing store for corduroys, plaid shirts and jeans takes a saddening turn when the clerk suggests I try out some "husky" jeans. I think that means there''s a patch of an Eskimo dog sewn on the back pocket. I am wrong. Husky jeans are for the fuller-figured boy. By shades of an inch I manage to qualify for regular Levi''s.

o In order to play junior football, starting in fifth grade, a boy cannot be too heavy. It is a rule born partly out of safety--it would be dangerous to have a 150-pound ogre of a child on the same field as a little 80-pound jackrabbit. Kids who do not make weight are put in the Fat Man''s Platoon for extra conditioning. Sufficient fear of the unwanted attention, extra laps, push-ups and wind sprints keeps me out. In a strange, Lord of the Flies twist, the members of the Fat Man''s Platoon become objects of scorn and derision, even by those who barely escape induction.

o At the shore in the summertime, the beach poses major threats of anxiety looming with menace on the June horizon. The beach is supposed to be a fun and sunny playground. But when you''ve got rolls of fat no one else has, the beach becomes a place where people wonder why you keep your shirt on. Only when there''s someone fatter than you do you escape notice.

o In junior high schools around the nation in the ''80s, some gym teachers add a program of rock climbing and rappelling instruction, and team-building confidence courses. Meant to reinforce the concept of working together to achieve goals and overcome obstacles, the classes were fun because they were a break from doing lay-ups in the gymnasium and laps around the dusty field. One confidence course exercise involves falling backwards into a gauntlet of classmates'' outstretched arms. In a chubby phase, I am the only one in the class who falls through the arms to the wooden gym floor. I take it personally, believing that it was because I was fat or they hated me or some combination of the two.

o A similar experience later, in high school. Before a dining hall full of 550 very competitive classmates and teachers, I lean back in a rickety wooden chair and manage to break it. The chair collapses under my weight and I go sprawling out on the floor. I look up to find a table full of faces looking down, stunned but snickering, then laughing. Soon the whole row of tables is laughing. Eventually the whole room laughs at the sophomore who was fat enough to break a chair. He broke a chair! It was like being in a Pink Floyd movie. On the verge of total mental collapse, I realize I have to do something, so I take one leg of the chair and wave it over my head like it''s some inanimate opponent I''ve crushed. The laughs give way to applause and I drag the chair into the kitchen, humiliated but triumphant.

o Later on, after college, I am recruited to play on a local men''s rugby team. My recruiter picks me for my size, because if he can get me on the team, he is released from playing "prop," traditionally the heftiest player on the pitch. At this point I probably weigh 200 pounds. Through a combination of lifting weights, drinking insane amounts of beer, and a pre-disposition to be un-thin, I vault to a whopping 240. In the eyes of the young female population I should be dating, I am invisible.

(Years later and pounds thinner, I tell my then-girlfriend how I''d had a crush on her when she worked in the neighborhood bagel shop. We''d actually had conversations about the benefits of the salt bagel over all others. But at 240 pounds, I was transparent to her. She had no recollection of me.)

My fat days on the rugby team earn me the nickname "Scooprah;" a combination of Scoop ( I was the local reporter) and Oprah.

A Report from the Front: Holiday Season 2003 in a Carmel "Sweat Shop"

It''s 3:30 in the afternoon in a back courtyard at the Crossroads shopping mall in Carmel. Rilene Simpson sits at the desk of Slender Lady, an international franchise of weight loss salons for women who want to shed pounds but can''t seem to get the hang of it. The peak time at this particular Slender Lady runs from seven in the morning until about 10am. Simpson and a partner bought the Carmel and Monterey franchises three weeks ago, and, with the holiday season quickly approaching in the midst of a fat epidemic, you might say Slender Lady is a growth business.

"It''s increasing rapidly. I''d say we get one [new member] a day," Simpson says. "It''s about weight management as well as weight loss; changing your body composition, changing the ratio of muscle to fat."

Women who come into Slender Lady give their weight and eating habits during an initial consultation, and, Simpson says, they often reveal some nasty, covert fast-food habits. They begin a "food journal" and are weighed and measured. Each one then begins a program of light training in the shop on hydraulic exercise machines that offer more resistance the faster they''re pumped.

After just 30 seconds they take a break and sort of shuffle around or jog in place on little platforms called "recovery stations." Once they''re up on the machines pushing and pulling at the hydraulics, the denial games are over.

"They''re honest because by the time they come in they''ve had enough," she says. "They''re tired of wearing ugly fat clothes and they''re tired of being uncomfortable. They''re fed up."

Some tend to be very heavy, over 300 pounds, and they''re too large to jog in place on the platform so they just sort of sway back and forth, Simpson says. Some are off the charts.

But even that slight bit of movement, coupled with a change in diet, has meant tens of pounds lost--as much as 80 pounds in some cases. Simpson says that this taste of success is enough to get them to keep going.

Simpson and her partner bought the two sweat shops thinking it would be either a successful venture or the most expensive diet ever.

"We''re both overweight," she says. "It''s a national health crisis. All of America is in trouble, right down to the kids. How sad is that? You may look at me and say ''Rilene, you are not thin.'' But we bought this franchise three weeks ago and I''ve already lost seven pounds."

The reasons for overeating are often sublimated feelings, a gap or space in life that goes unfilled, for things such as intimacy. As the weight gets higher, the problem compounds.

Simpson says women come in emotionally wrought.

"They are invisible people. People don''t like to see them. Like it or not, that''s the way it is," she says. "They feel so isolated by society. They feel abnormal. They feel like bad people. People look at you when you''re really heavy and they think, ''Why doesn''t she just stop eating?'' as if it''s that easy. It''s not that easy."

Marching Orders

Ever gone for a hike, you get to the top of the mountain, pull out your wedge of cheese, your ham sandwich, an apple, whatever you''ve stuffed in your pack, and it''s the best damn thing you ever ate?

After exerting your body for an hour or two or four, it needs food and there''s always something about that first bite that makes it taste like the best piece of Jarlsberg or Italian sausage or cracker or grilled cheese sandwich ever. You''re just genuinely hungry.

Sure, it''s not that easy, as Rilene Simpson says. But it''s not that hard either.

All that passion for grilled cheese or chocolate cake can quickly be turned into an obsession with something as simple as walking or running. In fact, some long-distance runners will admit the hidden benefit of running far and often is that you''re fully licensed to eat often and large.

As the Surgeon General says, Americans need to eat less, eat smart and exercise everyday. It''s not an outrageous demand to take a walk after dinner, ride a bike or even just move a little bit, like the women who manage nothing more than swaying their hips between shifts on the hydraulic exercise machines in Rilene''s shop.

Obviously--and during the holidays even more so--the food all tastes good, that''s why we eat it. But if Americans can manage to just listen to the Surgeon General, and try eating when we''re hungry and breaking a sweat once in a while, we''re all going to be even more thankful than usual next year at Thanksgiving.