No Fat Allowed!

Over Memorial Day weekend, I made a trip to Busch Gardens, Williamsburg with two of my best friends.  I haven't been to the park in probably about a year or two, so I was shocked when we were standing in line for their new ride, "Verbolten" and saw them turn away a pretty large woman who was unable to properly fit in the rides seat.  I felt her pain as she walked away while her slightly smaller boyfriend managed to squeeze his way onto the coaster.  My turn came up and I had no problem safely securing myself on the ride, so I didn't think that I'd have any problems that day--I was wrong. I ended up having to sit in double-belted seat on two rollercoasters at the park, and I barely managed to squeeze my way onto Apollo's Chariot.  Phew, three times I managed to avoid the embarrassment of embarking on a "walk of shame" to the rides exit without having had the chance to ride the coaster.

      When I got home that day I asked myself, "what's the deal? I've never had this problem before, and I know I haven't gained a significant amount of weight in the past couple of years." This led me to a Google search on fat people on rollercoasters. I figured that I would find horror stories about fat people falling to their deaths because they were too heavy for the safety restraints, but no such thing really came up. However, I did find Cedar Point's interesting guidelines on weight and height requirements.

Busch Gardens used similar language when addressing issues with "larger guests," and their staff was clearly not excited about addressing such issues with these unique guests.  I even went as far as to ask a timid, red-headed ride operator, "So are you saying I'm too fat to ride?" He awkwardly paused after this statement, and I presume he decided not to answer my question but instead quickly walk away and address some other customers.  Although the experience that day was no where near disastrous, it still made me quite self-conscious at times.  

Being fat nowadays is almost like being black in the early 20th century.  People who are obese are now eing treated like complete "others" who are unworthy of the privileges that skinny people are allowed.  We can't like ourselves too much, or people will say we're promoting an unhealthy lifestyle.  We can't relax without people calling us lazy. We can't eat without people calling us greedy.  We can't ride rollercoasters people telling us we're too damn fat to have fun.  As far as rollercoasters go, I believe that as parks build newer ones they will accomodate people of a somewhat larger size and many of us who are barely able to ride now will probably be able to ride again with ease as time goes on.  However, when will people stop looking down upon fat people as the bane of human existence and realize that trying to tear us down is not going to perpetuate some overnight weight loss epidemic? We all need to live healthier and more active lives whether we are BIG or small.