When Spotlight Shines, San Antonio Citizens Seem to Swell to
Fill It
City in Texas Called Obesity Capital of U.S.
By Lee Hockstader
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday,
March 6, 2003; Page A03
SAN ANTONIO --
It was Mardi Gras the other day in San Antonio, Fat Tuesday. That set the stage for Portly Wednesday, Tubby Thursday and Chubby Friday.
So it goes for the Alamo City, home to the highest percentage of supersized people of any major metropolis in the United States, according to figures supplied this week by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In this town, a salad means guacamole. The culinary lubricant of choice is lard. Joggers? Parks? Not so you'd notice.
That's not really news at Apetito's Mexican Restaurant on the west side of town, where $8.95 at lunchtime will buy you the unspeakably delicious, impossibly gargantuan Mucho Grande Plate: 4 enchiladas, smothered in cheese, 1 crispy taco, 1 puffy taco (deep fried), 1 chalupa, plus fried rice, refried beans and silken guacamole.
"It's way too much food for two people, but we serve it for one," said a beaming Margie Perez, 51, Apetito's endlessly welcoming owner, who invented the Mucho Grande Plate last year in response to popular demand.
"It's the fat," said Perez, warming to her subject. "We use lard. Refried beans? Must have lard. The rice? You need lard. For carne asada? For tortillas? You have to have it."
San Antonians complain that there are precious few parks for exercise. They note that walking anywhere is impractical because the city is so spread out; its population of 1.1 million sprawls over 333 square miles, making it less than half as densely settled as Washington.
On the other hand, people here love their Tex-Mex food. They also enjoy living in one of the cheapest big cities in the United States, a town where $1.99 will buy you two stuffed tacos and a 16-ounce Coke for lunch. And most insist they would not trade their town's laid-back, party-loving spirit for all the Slim-Fast in the world.
The other day at a La-Z-Boy furniture outlet -- one of two on San Antonio's main beltway -- Jose Castillo was testing an L-shaped green couch with pop-up foot rests. At 200 pounds, Castillo, 31, a sales manager for Hewlett-Packard Co., seems relatively fit, at least in context. But he winced when a visitor mentioned the new statistics on obesity in San Antonio, before leaning back in his La-Z-Boy and breaking into a broad smile.
"Just have the remote right here, and get a beer right here, and I'll live up to the reputation!" he said.
According to the figures from the Centers for Disease Control, 31.1 percent of the adults in San Antonio were obese in 2001, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the highest rate in the nation. Overall, 65 percent of San Antonio adults were classified as overweight, second only to Charleston, W.Va., where nearly 68 percent fell into that category.
The latest statistics on America's swelling citizenry were insult added upon injury for San Antonio, the country's ninth largest city. Last year, keying on the furnace that is San Antonio's summer, advertisers for Old Spice pronounced this place America's Sweatiest City. Then studies by Men's Health magazine and Tufts University named San Antonio residents among the most overweight in the nation.
Along the way, it was reported that casting directors for the remake of the movie "The Alamo," which is being shot just north of San Antonio, were having a hard time finding extras who were lean enough to play the roles of Mexican soldiers.
Many in the city took the news stoically. San Antonio's population is nearly 60 percent Hispanic -- the highest percentage of any American city of more than 1 million -- and researchers have long recorded a correlation between that ethnicity and high rates of obesity, diabetes and other conditions.
For many, there is nearly as much resignation as unease. The city may have a problem, some say, but then, so does most of America. "We've created a pretty permissive environment," said Anthony G. Comuzzie, a geneticist who studies obesity at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research. "But even if you may rank San Antonio as the fattest, the rest of the country isn't doing all that well. It's just a matter of degree."
Nonetheless, the steady diet of fat stories did trigger civic action. Mayor Ed Garza (a lonely jogger), pronounced San Antonio "Fit City." The city's official Web site began posting monthly health and nutrition tips. The city council pressed vending machine companies to offer low-salt pretzels and juice alongside their Milky Ways and Pepsis.
A half-dozen city officials took up the challenge, sweatily executing crunches and push-ups for the local newspaper, the San Antonio Express-News.
Last month, a radio station, KXXM-FM, jumped into the fray. Its morning show hosts, Woody Woodward and Jamie Martin, invented what they called "The San Antonio Meltdown," a sort of extreme makeover for the extremely overweight.
"We were tired of it; it was just embarrassing," Martin said. "We hate this image. So we went on the air and said we're going to melt pounds."
From scores of applicants, the station and a local health clinic chose six contestants (dubbed "the six-pack" by the show), five of whom wanted to lose at least 100 pounds. The heaviest, who goes only by "Andrea," weighed 390 pounds; the lightest, about 200 pounds.
The Meltdown started in early February and is set to run for a year. The idea was for the six to shun fad diets, pills and gimmicks; with the help of doctors at San Antonio's Methodist Center for Metabolic Health and Fitness, they would shed pounds by eating right and exercise. The carrot is that the station pays for medical consultations and fitness training; the stick is that contestants get bounced if they don't stick to the regimen and continue losing weight. Each Friday, three of the six check in with the show for a progress report by telephone.
The group has "simple wishes," said station spokeswoman Heather Bailey. "It's not like, 'I wasn't able to go on a cruise.' It's like, 'I want to be able to cross my legs.' "
