A wider view: in defense of eating heartily, and stiffing the fat police.

ONE of the more amusing events during the Katrina anniversary was listening to Richard Simmons throw a hissy fit about southern eating habits. Simmons, a New Orleans native and former fat boy who now skips rope for a living, announced that when southerners get stressed they eat too much.

Old-schoolers will note the bad taste in crying "fatty" in a city known for its food and drink, especially as New Orleans continues to reel from ministrations delivered by "Mother Nature," as the unreflective call that brutal entity. They will also note that food is one of the greatest of sedatives and southerners are hardly the only people to "self-medicate."

Yet the fitness guru's unsolicited sermon reminds us of the times we live in. Calorie cops roam the nation and especially its airwaves with a missionary spirit that trumps good taste, good sense, and whatever good breeding may have been encountered early on. It is beyond decency to preach the Gospel to cannibals (more about which later) but heroic to thunder at Americans for eating fried potatoes.

Even The Children are fair game: Some school districts have considered designating heftier students as fatties. Perhaps a scarlet F will soon be affixed to their lunch cards.

We southerners, of course, shouldn't be too hard on these people. One must make a living somehow, and it would be far worse, for example, to be turning tricks down at the local Greyhound terminal. At the same time--and especially with the feasting season fast approaching--we might be the best ones to suggest that the nation needs to lighten up on the fat chat. A wider view is in order.

Southerners, to be sure, are the right people to take up this Crusade. Following the example of our Lord, who by all accounts was on the lean side (though he didn't make a show of it), we can preach what we clearly practice. We are tops in the caloric class, with our bona fides recently recalibrated by the Trust for America's Health.

The Trust found the highest obesity rates in southern states: Dixie places eight states in the top ten, including first-place Mississippi, where 30 percent of adults are said to be obese. Other states on the roll of honor include Alabama (28.7 percent), Louisiana (27.4), and South Carolina (26.2). Arkansas and Texas are up there too, but they're not considered southern by all southerners.

To be sure, obesity as defined by the government doesn't do justice to our more accomplished eaters, who are able to convert coal to diamonds simply by standing on a clinker for a few seconds. A 5-foot-4-inch fellow weighing 175 pounds is obese by government standards, even though he might be solid muscle. We have desserts weighing that much.

Yet these are not times to quibble. The fact is we do like to eat, but not simply because we are stressed (which is why God made bourbon). By our lights a big belly reflects an expansive love of life--and the rejection of the fearful philosophy of the hard-body types.

Accordingly, we do not cringe at the words of Manhattan nutritionist Mary Dorfman, who recently said of southern cuisine, "A lot of their foods are fried. Fried foods add a lot of calories." Indeed, we say, "Amen, sister."

Fried foods, after all, are good. Really good. Broil a piece of flounder and you have created an argument for ketchup. Fry that same piece of fish and you have created a plateful of bliss, especially when supported by a small platoon of hush puppies--fried cornmeal that is a taste sensation along the lines of listening to Scarlatti. Frying is no curse but a blessing. It is also a great equalizer, capable of turning hum-drum cuts of meat, fish, and even vegetables into something worthy of the Sons and Daughters of Adam.

Indeed, there are few substances on earth that do not achieve a measure of glory through full immersion in boiling oil, including foods closely associated with the alimentary canal.

Chitterlings, which in theory would be a meal eaten only at gunpoint, are in practice a dish capable of drawing large crowds great distances during dangerous weather conditions. The substance known as scrapple, which some of us refer to as packaged pig molecules, experiences the same sort of transubstantiation. No wonder the pious southerner, when at prayer, never forgets to include the fry cook in his petitions.

Calorie counters, it should be noted, do have their rewards, among them being fairer on the eyes. Yet a paradox is at work, for the mind that fears the feast is often quite brittle, judgmental, and indeed dyspeptic when compared with that of the joyful eater, which is adaptable, inclusive, and charged with the spirit of discovery. The latter tend to be better company.

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Wide are their vistas, though they bring their own set of challenges. After all, it takes a brave spirit to gobble down brains, feet, eyeballs, snouts, eels, snakes, alligators, insects, octopus, and some forms of rodent life.

It is also true that the spirit of discovery can take eaters too far afield--even to fields where forbidden fruit is harvested. A revered uncle, now deceased, once told me of a dining experience in China, during the '30s, when he consumed a portion of one of Adam's children. These were very tough times, he said, suggesting the entree's prospects were very poor at best. He was also interested in learning what this particular dish might taste like (answer: fish). We don't talk about this much--he was only "experimenting" with cannibalism, after all--but the danger of unchecked passions must be noted.

All told, however, feast is better than famine for most of us, though certainly not all. A recent world conference on obesity, held in Sydney, echoed with fearful warnings, including a report that there are now more obese people in the world than registered malnourished. One participant noted that "this is the first generation in history where children may die before their parents," suggesting unfamiliarity with last century's two world wars. There was also some West-whacking going on: The international rush to the buffet table was said to be "led by affluent western nations, whose physical activity and dietary habits are regrettably being adopted by developing nations."

The fact, of course, is that no one needs guidance on how to get fat. All they need is food, and when nations that have known nothing but starvation finally get the opportunity to dip into the world's cornucopia, they go in with both eyes, and mouth, wide open.

To no surprise, expanding waistlines are inspiring expansive "remedies." Bronx councilman Joel Rivera, for instance, wants to limit fast-food sales in neighborhoods that show high rates of obesity, meaning fewer Big Macs for the poor. Other activists want employers to subsidize health-club memberships and local governing bodies to fund more sidewalks. A bit of caution was thrown in by one activist: "If we're urging people to walk more, and their streets are not safe, that's an unrealistic expectation." Looked at another way, that could vastly improve sprinting ability.

Twenty years ago, according to a recent report, a typical breakfast muffin weighed 1.5 ounces and provided 210 calories. Today, muffins are up to four ounces and 500 calories. For some, that's inspiration for alarm and legislation. For others, it raises a question:

Can we get some gravy on that?

Mr. Shiflett's latest CD, with the band Karma Farmers, is Songs for Aging Cynics (available on Apple iTunes). He is slowly but surely expanding near Richmond, Va.