Fatness Not Fitness

Have you been to Arby's recently? The roast beef sandwiches, long the heart and soul of the franchise (at least before the diversification into Market Fresh sandwiches), are now available in three sizes and when you order you have to specify whether you want a small, medium or large sandwich. The typical, and some would argue logical, assumption would be that if you wish to get a regular sized sandwich, the medium would be the way to go. However, when you get that medium sandwich it comes in a wrapper that says "Giant Roast Beef." There are, in fact, not three new sizes of sandwiches; they have just renamed the sandwiches (presumably) to get people to buy the larger size. So now the former Giant is called a Medium. The original Regular Roast Beef is now a Small. Where does that leave the large? Oh yeah, it's the sandwich formerly known as the Big Montana. I'm all for changing the name of that sandwich, because Big Montana might have been one of the worst names for a fast food product ever (right behind Taco Bell's short lived Things We Found in the Dumpster Burrito), but when this is the sandwich that used to be advertised as the 1/2 pound of roast beef for only the biggest of appetites, you might want to keep something in the name indicating that it is approximately the size of a basketball.

Unfortunately, Arby's isn't the only place messing with the menu. I went through the drive through at a Burger King recently and began to order a number three meal: The Whopper Jr. Lo and behold, the number three meal was not the Whopper Jr. but the Triple Whopper. Now, if you are already claiming that your burger is big by calling it the Whopper, do you really need not only a double but a triple version of that? Seriously, I'm fat and I look at that sandwich and think, "That's just not right. It's like a whole herd of cattle on one bun." Who eats the Triple Whopper and how many people ordered what they thought was a Whopper Jr. meal only to find out that they had more food than the Christian Children's Fund gives away in a month? I'm starting to wonder about Burger King anyway. First the Ultimate Omlette breakfast sandwich, which I'm pretty sure is six eggs, three sticks of butter, a side of bacon and a whole smoked hog on a very large bun, then the triple Whopper. I think the King from the commercials might be running things now, and he needs a lot of food support that giant head. (Side note, because I so rarely have those: That dude is just creepy. He's got this huge head and doesn't ever speak. He just stares at you and grins. He's always popping up in places people don't expect him and leering at them. He's like Jason Vorhees on Thorazine.) With these new huge sandwiches, they're either catering to Diamond Jim Brady or to Gaston from Disney's Beauty and the Beast (Go on, sing the song. You'll get it.)

Everywhere you look there is talk of how Americans are getting fatter. I say stop blaming Americans. These companies keep putting out larger and larger sizes and in some cases renaming things so that they do not appear quite so overindulgent. I say it's entirely the fault of the companies and they should be held responsible for my fatness, not me. After all, what are we supposed to do? Order something else? Stop going there?

Oh...right.