Fat Kids and Monsters

Food as a theme this week.

A health promotion conference in San Francisco this week brought a good friend to town to listen to the ex-Surgeon General and to hobnob with 9,000 other healthcare activitists. The steady fattening of Americans -- particularly kids -- was cause for concern. As was indifference in Washington. Perhaps to reinforce the point, conference organizers all but eliminated meals at the event. Attendees were left to fend for themselves. Naturally, we went out to a terrific and decidedly fat-inducing North Beach Italian feast.

A few days later we caught the terrific Korean film, The Host (Gwoemul). A slithering monster crawls out of a polluted river and begins eating people and spitting them out -- some alive -- in its sewer lair. One of the victims is the young daughter of a dim-witted food stand owner, who, along with his estranged family, sets out to rescue her. Oh, and a virus may be related to the monster as well.

But there's more to this film than meets the eye. Food, in particular, plays a dominant role throughout the movie. The dad is slow-witted because he didn't have enough food as a kid; he runs a food stand; homless kids brave the monster to steal food; the daughter, caught in the monster's lair, scavenges dead bodies for food; and, of course, the monster itself is in a constant quest for food.

And then there's news from Singapore, where government officials recently scrapped a school anti-obesity program because parents complained that kids were being singled out and teased by classmates.

All these themes brought back memories of the infamous billboard here in San Francisco that drew protests from self-described "fat activists." But I think they got it wrong. When "they" come, the fat ones are more likely to be the ones doing the eating.

Bon appetit.