By Jui Chakravorty
New York - American fast-food chains may be introducing healthier menu items such as salads and major food manufacturers may be trimming portion sizes, but not everyone has joined the fight against obesity.
An increasing number of entrepreneurs have discovered there's big money to be made out of catering to Americans' bulging waistlines, without seeking to trim them down.
It's big business.
'What we have is people feeding the problem to make money off the obese people' Freedom Paradise, a 112-room resort south of Cancun, Mexico, bills itself as the world's first resort designed for obese people. Its amenities include large armless chairs, wide steps with railings in swimming pools, walk-in showers instead of bathtubs, stronger hammocks and a staff steeped in sensitivity training.
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Nearly a third of American adults are obese (a Body Mass Index of 30 or more), according to the Centre for Disease Control. In 2000, more than 300 million adults in the world were obese and a billion were overweight, according to the World Health Organisation.
"We are no longer a niche market. Overweight people are the majority in this country," 147kg Mindy Sommers said, referring to the 64 percent of Americans who are overweight. "Businesses that don't cater to us are stupid. There are a lot of us, and we have a lot of money to spend."
An expanding obese population is providing lots of demand for businesses that supply things that are plus-size, from larger towels to larger beds, larger clothes to larger jewellery, larger furniture to larger coffins.
Amplestuff.com, an online retailer, sells nearly everything to the obese market, including seat belt extenders, larger umbrellas, larger clothing hangers, larger towels and weighing scales that can accommodate up to 450kg.
'We're big, and we need the same things that thin people do'
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