Living in the exurbs as I do, I sometimes do not fully appreciate how generously proportioned most Americans are. I rarely frequent malls so I rarely see people in large groups unless I’m hanging around an airport. I am currently sitting in one of the waiting areas in Terminal A at Newark Liberty Airport and I am stunned to see how really f-a-t a large percentage of Americans are. As two of the broadest beamed individuals waddled past me I prayed “Dear God, let them NOT sit next to me!” The people who design seats for trains and buses as well as the airlines think Americans still eat a depression era diet of scant portions. Whose butts do they measure to come up with the average seat space needed for their passengers? Of course, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Americans are plump when you see the food that is available to travelers at the airport restaurants and fast food stands, as well as the candies, snacks and drinks available at the newsstands. The restaurants push heart-unfriendly fried or fat laden food while the newsstands carry nothing but super-sized snacks. On this trip I woke up at the screech of doom and left my house with nothing more than a cup of tea. I had a 10:30 flight which I missed because of a major accident on the NJ Turnpike, which is the most direct way from where I live to Newark Airport. I was able to get on a 1:40 flight to Chicago so I had time to kill and figured I’d have a light lunch because I knew there was nothing on board my flight except liquids and the miniscule packet of peanuts with approximately 10 nuts. I try to stay on a healthy low fat diet that avoids red meats and heavy ups on green leafy vegetables. Try finding any food that closely resembles that in an airport. I know that some airports have a few (usually just one) heart friendly food outlets and that others are trying to bring more such establishments into their concourses. So as the pangs of hunger started increasing I went in search of sustenance. What I found invariably had cheese in it, or was fried, or was super-sized. I finally settled on a tuna mini-sub (3″) at Subway. Their usual sub size is 6″ or 12″! The first question the server asked was “Do you want that with cheese?” Cheese with tuna salad????? What are they thinking? The two large ladies in front of me were getting 6″ turkey subs with extra cheese while the large man (I swear he was pregnant) behind me was getting a 12″ roast beef sub with extra cheese. The amount of body fat surrounding me in that line had to be equal to half a whale in the days when whale blubber lighted the cities of Europe and the US. I have to admit you can eat healthy at Subway, but you have to restrain yourself from adding on the fat, i.e. cheese, if you trying to eat smart when you travel. -Dick Evans, vice president