The Swiss - along with the rest of the world - like to make fun of Americans and how fat they are. However, I have been noticing billboards like this one popping up all around the Basel area over the past couple of months. The billboard points out to the Swiss that THEY are getting fatter (one-third are overweight), and it references a website that gives all sorts of "top secret" information on how to lose weight such as: exercise more, eat less fat and sugar, etc. (DUH!).When Mrs. TBF and I moved to Switzerland in 2000, we were amazed at how slim and fit the Swiss all looked. One rarely saw an obese Swiss person; I'm talking, like, once per year. It was so rare, in fact, that when an obese Swissy appeared in public, people would just stare...and I'm talking Swiss - who always stare at everything anyway - and foreigners alike.
A couple of years ago, we began noticing that the Swiss were beginning to look a bit pudgy. Unlike America, where people wear clothes that are too big for them in order to hide the bulge, the Swiss seem to insist on squeezing into their old, too-small clothes which results in considerable public displays of muffin-tops.
Too-tight, low-rise jeans + midriff-baring top + love handles = BAD LOOK! Trust me on this one!
So, let's see here...
There are a little over 7 million people in Switzerland of which about twenty-five percent are foreign. If one-third of the Swiss are overweight, then that comes out to nearly 1.8 million people. There are currently 645,000 Swiss living abroad... The skiing in Switzerland is currently in a bad state due to the lack of snow. This means that the Swiss aren't able to work off all the fondue they're eating at this time of year...
I'm predicting that by this April...there will only be approximately twelve thin Swiss left. Of course, they'll all be complaining about how fat Americans are.
