We all want to live in a Flat world. No, I am not talking about Nandan Nielkani’s open trade opportunities for everybody. I am talking about the growing waist and Body Mass Index of the world.

We may want to have the lean and muscular frame but in place of pursuing it we end up blaming it on the bad luck of ours; but only while eating popcorn, sitting in a couch and watching the latest flick. The un-flatness is most apparent when many times disturbing pictures of starving people in Africa in place of evoking sympathy stirs up jealousy that how they manage having such a lean body!

The people, even after knowing the effects, keeps on bulging and gulping more and more on the fast food, which is always slow in digesting. Of course it takes away your ennui but at the dear price; which in every form is exorbitant.

The un-flatness becomes more evident when with the growing weight and waists people tend to need more space everywhere. The only car which can support is SUV, the only class of travel has to business, and the only meal to satiate hunger has to be king size. In all this the person ends up taking the resources fit for at least three more. Had it not been the own waist size of most environmentalists, the obesity would have been categorized as the biggest reason of greenhouse gases.

The growing waists are also class-conscious. The “sethanis” average weight is more than the maids’ overweight range. Not only epidemic level of five percent obesity in India tells about the growing vulnerability of society but also reveals the demography trends of resources usage. And interestingly such trends are most visible in India only.

And poor are forced to adapt in every manner possible. The squandering of oil by SUV’s has forced them to travel less. The destruction caused by more force coming with more weight has taken more products out of their reach. The ever-reducing space has become more suffocating. With Obese more prone to disease, the doctors are also more concerned with the heavy pockets and bodies.

Thank God, swimming and obesity are oxymoron; otherwise most of the poor man’s drinking water would have also gone away in splash.