“If People Were Meant to Exercise, We’d All Have Been Born with the Desire to Do It!”

Don't read newspaper comics as diligently as I used, but my wife recently pointed out a plotline in the long-running "Mary Worth" strip that she knew would be of interest to yours truly. The story revolves around a couple who live close to our heroine and who appear to be enmeshed in a dysfunctional feeder/feedee relationship. As stolidly rendered by longtime comics pro Joe Giella, wife Kelly Stirling is by no means fat – her stated goal is to lose thirty pounds or so, and aside from a slightly rounder face, she looks no different from the rest of the women in the strip. But even this modest goal is apparently too much for her slightly podgy hubby Lou, who we see constantly noodging her to eat just a little more as the two politely bicker at Mary's Sunday dinner table. "I'm never going to lose weight this way, Lou!" Kelly whines as Lou brandishes a piece of Mary's apple/pear pie in front of her, while her hubby (who appears to have a good two decades on his wife) mentally gloats, "My intention, exactly!"

Oooh, pretty creepy, kids! Lou undermines his wife's attempts at losing weight and apparently is striving to make her even bigger! "If he keeps this up, you'll have a 'whale of a time' keeping romance alive!" Mary snarkily thinks as she watches this dynamic in action, though it never seems to occur to her or scripter Karen Moy that Kelly's weight gain might actually enhance the couple's sex life – that idea is more the province of degenerate fanta-sizers and the makers of cheapie horror flicks, apparently.) As I write this, we still haven't been given the motivation behind Lou's behavior: is he a stereotypical Diet Saboteur, desperate to keep his wife plump so that "nobody else will want her"? is he threatened by the fact that Kelly is attempting to "take charge of her life"? Or does he just like his zaftig spouse with a little meat on her bones? Hard to say, though I'm betting that when we get to the end of the story arc, Lou will be shown for the manipulative son-of-a-bitch that he is . . . and mousy Kelly will find the strength to Become Her Own Skinny-Ass Self . . .

NOTE: The gang over at Dimensions Magazine On-Line's "Weight Board" – led by one of my favorite FA illustrators, BeakerFA, has a go at the storyline. I swiped some credit info from ace cartoonist Ned Sonntag's addition to the discussion, incidentally . . .