Fat stuff ...

Sixty-one years, 10 presidents, and one Red Sox championship ago, a bevy of international scientists issued a report that America was in danger of losing its No. 1 rating in sport.

Their study of American and European kids "proved" that the American kids were more obese and lacked the speed, agility, and neuro-muscularity of the foreign kids.

All of our red, white, and blue-eyed patriots lost their cool over such infamy and began clamoring for reform. "Let's get our kids in shape," replaced "Remember the Alamo!" on the hit parade of fighting words.

With our newspapers and Sports Illustrated leading the way, our schools, sports associations, and physical education groups began launching all kinds of exercise and sports programs.

Even Mr. Eisenhower of Washington, D.C., voiced his approval and support. He even named a national sports leader--Gene Tunney (as we recall)--to lead an association for the stimulation and support of youth health groups.

America appeared to be on its way to rescue young American from adolescent corpulency.

We applauded the ideas and the many agencies that had rallied behind them. But, alas, we did not believe it was going to work. You don't erect a building, train, a great army, or run a national program with volunteers. You have to bring in the professionals and get the acceptance and funding from Capitol Hill.

Without all of this, you cannot produce anything of national significance. The President's Youth Council on Physical Education and Sports would eventually disappear and our poor "fat kids" would have to turn to sumo wrestling.

The crusade against a fat America eventually faded and stayed that way for a couple of decades ... until, surprisingly, another band of scientists with the same hang-up about "fat kids" showed up with their own international study and the same old conclusion--American kids were physically inferior to foreign kids.

It was hard to believe, a classic case of deja vu, but also a little weird. Nowhere did we find any mention of the first crusade. It was as if nothing ever happened.

This time, however, no one took it seriously and it vanished after a few steamy editorials.

And so that brought us up to November, 2004, when still another group of scientists showed up with the same spectacular finding: America's kids are too obese.

It was the same old potage and, once again, there was no mention of the two studies that had preceded it.

So here we sit awaiting the fourth coming of "fat kids." But this time we are going to pass, particularly since we now have an idea of what has become of our "fat kids."

They are the 350-pound tackles in the National Football League.