We're No Longer Number One?

One of many memorable columns by the Atlantic's former editor, the late Michael Kelly, came after he'd spent a wonderful summer spell at Cape May with his family, and it began this way: "I have been for some days at the shore, in the company of many of my fellow middle-aged Americans who are wearing not a lot of clothes, and I have a report. My fellow middle-aged Americans, we are some kind of fat."

I don't mean we are getting a bit thick around the middle, or that we are pleasantly plump, or that we are zaftig, or Rubenesque (we are Reuben-esque), or settling into our bodies. I mean we are fat, fat, fat. It's true: As a people, we have never been this fat. Probably, no people has ever been this fat. We are billowing immensities of avoirdupois, great, soft bins of finest quality lard, a nation of wide loads wallowing down the highway of life.

Americans are indeed the proud world champions of fatness. But here as in so many areas we may soon be pushed from the throne.

At least that's what I thought after a few days at a Chinese beach resort where virtually all the other foreign visitors were Russians. For sure in the men's division, they're giving us a run for the money.

Perhaps the group at the resort was unrepresentative of its home population (rich enough to travel -- and eat everything they want?). And perhaps they unfairly seem bigger than they are because, unlike Americans of similar stature, they prefer Speedos. But the three shown here (two more after the jump) are a fair sample of the travelers we saw. OK, the first one was larger than normal - but the other two were on the svelte side and, from their faces, appeared to be no older than about 35.

Clean your plates, America! There are hungry middle aged men in Russia who wish they had that food.

(Pictures tastefully cropped to protect identities -- and tastefully selected to avoid some truly startling specimens.)