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having bowling as their only form of exercise.  Many can’t take the few barely aerobic steps in fast enough sequence for a proper bowling approach so they just grunt their way to the foul line and then rock back and forth to generate a standing swing to generate the meager momentum it takes to get a round, smooth ball to roll down sixty feet of greased wooden boards. 
         “Umm, I would get him into something with a little more cardio.  He needs to get running and jumping at this point.” 
         “Do you hear Dr. Grant, Xander?  No more TV and video games all day.  And you liked baseball when we played it at grandma’s, right?  We’ll sign you up at the rec center.”
         I know those are empty words.  I’ve given variations of this speech right into Kate’s face countless times, but look at Xander now.  He still is a collection of rolls with his candy apple face buried in his GameBoy.  She promised to get him more active after every plead, but the only activity I’ve ever seen him engage in are his thumbs flicking buttons on his video games.  He needs to be transported into Super Mario World and spend his days jumping obstacles and dodging Koopa Troopa’s.  She’s such a pushover with Xander.  I think he might have eaten her backbone, hickory smoked until fork tender with a side of coleslaw and corn on the cob.  Kate was going to graduate to full on enabler in a few years.
         “I think that’s a great plan, Kate.  And if he can get back to a more normal weight soon, he’ll probably have fewer problems with those other kids, and he’ll just feel better about himself.  You don’t want him to be that fat nerd whose life is only computers and fantasy games?”
         “Ha ha, I guess not Dr. Grant.”
         Xander was heading down the narrow road of fat person stereotypes towards his limited place in society. There are many niches a fat kid can fill, and being the nerd is one that is always approving applications.  The computer variety seems to be perfect for a lifestyle of extended hours eating junk and sitting on ass.  Or he could become an obsessed hobbyist.  Gamers, fan boys, Comic-Con conventioneers – many are just groups of fat kids living out more active lives as heroes in a virtual world.  They congregate to slather green all over their bodies to become out-of-shape Hulks or squeeze into plastic white armor to become lumpier Stormtroopers.  There is also the fat funny guy who can change a laughing-at to a laughing-with (Belushi, Candy, Farley), but Xander’s burgeoning introvert makes me think that’s not going to be him.  Plus, he’s never made me laugh with him.  The lack of entertaining personality is too bad because he could have a perfect body for radio.  If he was an entertaining blabber mouth with personality, he could’ve spent his days sucking back coffee and donuts seated for hours of drive time in front of a microphone.  Television isn’t kind to the obese, and is pretty adept at showing contrived possibilities for fat kids to become: local cops (e.g. Sipowicz), as part of a comic fat husband/hot wife pair (e.g. King of Queens), the disgustingly crass male (e.g. Cartman), the crazily slutty female (e.g. Anna Nicole Smith), Italian mobster (e.g. Tony Soprano), lovable alcoholic (e.g. Norm Peterson) or cartoonishly inept all around (e.g. Homer Simpson).  The one positive characterization for the obese is as the fat mascot, the nice kid everyone likes and keeps around as a second buddy, but who no one really wants to date – an involuntary eunuch by means of weight rather than castration.  Every attractive protagonist’s best friend needs to be an unattractive, obese person to accentuate the protagonist’s comparative attractiveness, and that obese person needs an easy going personality, deep loyalty and a bag of outrageous quips to show that the protagonist can look past the superficial and befriend based on more substantive