When we were in the US my mother regularly reminded me of her embarrassment that I had made multiple comments about America being full of fat people on my blog. Often when we were in a room together she'd lean over to me and say "How many of these people would you say are fat?" Which, I would have to admit was not nearly as many as I had hoped. I think she was doing it to shame me into repenting for being rude on my blog. Though I think when she saw the Hummer-width wheelchairs American Airlines use to transport invalids around in she was converted to my way of thinking.

But alas, my American cousins (Are we cousins? Second cousins perhaps seeing as the British are cousins to both of us but we're not directly related) please do not feel my joking about your collective girth is in anyway out of ridicule of you. I have nothing against being large. In fact, I have often encouraged my fellow Australians to eat up. We beat you guys at the swimming, sometimes at the tennis, and I thought we should beat you in being the world's fattest nation too!

And I heard on the radio the other day that now we have! Yess! Australians all let us rejoice! The Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute tell us in their new report (with the catchy and academic, Tom Jones-esque title "Fat Bomb") that there are now 4 million overweight adults in Australia. Proportionally that's more than any other country on earth. Of course I can't actually find this fact in the report but the papers tell me it's there.

So I say cop that you United States, cop that Mexico. We we swim better than you, we play AFL better than you, and now we eat and sit on our bums better than you. Is there anything we can't achieve when we put our minds to it?