My mother will watch any TV show involving obesity or dwarfism. If it includes a big person trying to get smaller or a small person trying to reach a light switch, she will find herself compelled by the stories of their real-life struggles. I would imagine her ideal show would be a combination of the two – something along the lines of, “The Littlest Biggest Loser.”
The bounty of dwarfism programs can mostly be attributed to TLC, whose lineup seems to consist exclusively of reality shows about average-sized families of little people or extremely large families of average-sized people. But shows about obesity are virtually everywhere. The national epidemic is reflected in “TV Guide” – Discovery, NBC and even VH1 all have shows about losing weight.
The latest, “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution” on ABC, is about getting to the root of the obesity problem by changing America’s eating habits. That will be pretty hard to do, especially since KFC has started a revolution of its own with the Double Down sandwich.
The Double Down, debuting nationwide this week, is a grotesque masterpiece. If Michelangelo worked in grease, this is what he would create. The Double Down consists of bacon, melted cheese and something terrifyingly called “Colonel’s Sauce.” Where is the chicken, you ask? Well, forget everything you ever thought you knew about buns, because they have been replaced by two hulking fried chunks of bird.
KFC seems to have abandoned Kentucky Grilled Chicken, its weak attempt at following the healthier fast food trend led by restaurants such as McDonald’s, in favor of the only sandwich on the market that could accurately be described as Kafkaesque. Indeed, they are moving in the complete opposite direction and into bizarre, nightmarish realms never before explored by the American food industry.
Now, I usually have no qualms about junk food. I only go to fast food joints a few times a month, but when I do partake, I don’t shy away from the dark depths of the menu. On more than one occasion, I have ordered six KFC Buffalo Snackers to eat in one sitting. When you eat that much crap, the meal is divided into stages. The first two snackers go down fairly easily, but you’re just getting started. Halfway through the third one, you look at the remaining three and start to panic. On the fourth one, you feel your body starting to weaken and promise yourself never to do this again. By the fifth one, you’re angry at yourself, at KFC and at the world. When you finally get to the sixth one, you’re just depressed. You force it down and then cry yourself into a food coma.
When somebody who has done that multiple times is frightened of your sandwich, you’ve either failed or accomplished something magnificent. Or both.
If the sandwich is successful, the KFC just off campus could turn the already-feared freshman 15 into the freshman 50. And that may just be the start — if other places follow suit, we could see salads where the lettuce is replaced with beef jerky or cream cheese bagels where the bagels are replaced with more cream cheese. I have seen the future, and it is fat.
If you are brave enough to try the Double Down, please be careful. I don’t want my mother to see your story on the next episode of “I Nearly Died of Shame.”
— Nichols is a U. Kansas junior in creative writing.