For America, it’s official. The residents of the world’s super power have become super-sized. Yup, the road to ruin is now littered by corpulent bodies of ever increasing girth. Maybe that’s not news: ask any bar boy in Thailand and he’ll confirm the number of farang who are grossly rotund is on the rise and they are even more chunky than ever before. STD’s are no longer the leading bar boy concern, but rather being squashed by a commodious farang rolling over in bed is the latest scare. For the truly brave, a visit to Pattaya’s gay beach for an up close and personal viewing of pale beached whales proudly displaying the rolls of lard they’ve worked so strenuously to develop will confirm the fact that the fat farang in Thailand are just getting fatter.

Several recent changes in American Federal regulations and municipality expenditures attest to this burgeoning problem. The latest pudgy news to hit the streets deals with obese children and crash test dummies . . . not that there is a real big difference between the two in use, intelligence, or looks. Seems the current 40 pound weight of the kiddy dummies is no longer sufficient to ensure the safety of America’s oversized offspring on the roads. Newer crash test dummies weighing in at 78 pounds are now being developed for use in testing seat belts and booster seats.

This change is in response to “Anton’s Law,” a Federal mandate named in honor of Anton Skeen, a 50 pound four-year-old who died when his seat belt failed in a car crash. The article I read that inspired this post noted: “The alarming and unfortunate result is that parents of overweight kids have no federal assurance that the car seats currently on the market will protect their children in the event of a crash.” Uh, no. The “alarming and unfortunate’ part is that parents allow little johnnie to reach Mobie Dick size in the first place. It’s not the seat belt maker’s, auto manufacturer’s, or Federal Government’s fault, it’s Mom & Pop Fatso who need to shoulder this massive blame.

But it is not just tubby tykes causing changes across the country. Adult obesity rates increased in 28 states in the past year and cities are now having to buy larger ambulances in order to keep up with the corpulence of the patients riding in them. Boston was one of the first to super-size its ambulances to accommodate porcine passengers. Fort Worth, Texas is now bowing to the scale of proportions by ordering heavy-duty ambulances as well. And they are buying stretchers built to support 650 pounds, as the old ones, with their 500 pound limits, were proving inadequate. (Boston, on the other hand, is planning for the future and went with the 800 pound model.)

Earlier this month, the Federal Transit Administration bowed to the inevitable and submitted a proposal to change its regulations “to more accurately reflect average passenger weights and actual transit vehicle loads.” Using data gathered by the Centers for Disease Control, they’ve added an additional 25 pounds to weight assumptions used for Highway Traffic Safety Administration tests for public buses. Which is probably still short by a good 30 pounds.

The U.S. may be a world leader in some areas, but is not the world’s leader in flab production. That honor is held by Kuwait, the world’s fattest industrialized nation. And the rest of the world is gaining, putting on the poundage at a faster pace than ever before. Concerns of skyrocketing population growth are being replaced by weighty concerns over the ballooning stomach growth rates of the Earth’s population. Recent data from an voluminous country-by-country report on obesity from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows most of Europe, especially men, are now overweight. The WHO data reports that one in nine people around the world are obese. At Pattaya’s beaches, the score is nine out of nine.

The people of Thailand, who have always held a special place in their collective heart for elephants, now live in the country with the fifth most serious obesity problem among the Asia-Pacific rim countries according to WHO’s report. And that’s just with the local lard-asses weighing in, fat farang are not included in that statistic. About 10 million of the country’s 65 million people are rated as blimpos due to a lack of exercise and overconsumption of fast food. The Thai Health Systems Research Institute concurs; Thais are whopping out with whalelike waistlines from gobbling down too many Whoppers. You’ve probably noticed the recent over abundance of chubbies on stage at your favorite gogo bar. Good thing that’s meat you don’t have to pay for by the pound.

The good news is that maybe now they’ll stop using those ubiquitous tiny plastic stools that no farang’s ass could ever fit on in the first place.