Saturday 19 November 2011

Cardiovascular Crunch Time

The call to cardiovascular fitness for the nation has fallen on deaf ears with pillows pulled over them. On sofas all around Australia, left over pizza has formed a tomato-based superglue, fusing cheap upholstery to tracky daks and creating an irresistible gravitational force to the horizontal.

The problem lies partly in the lack of credible authorities to speak for the slim and buff. It’s simply un-Australian to trust a bloke who looks in a mirror more than once a month even when the state of his beard makes him look like he’s half way through eating a squirrel.

Take for example, Shane Warne, who was always much-admired for his sporting achievements. Later in his career, Warney in his whites was only a couple of rhinestones away from winning a ‘fat Elvis’ look-a-like competition. Yet it was his fallibility to booze, birds, burgers and fags that made the man in the street feel he was really one of them.

Even former role models like policemen have been up-sized in the happy meal of life. Fitness requirements have been scaled down accordingly and the major test now is whether they can walk past a pack of Tim Tams.

So in the absence of true heroes to emulate, the Government must take a low-cal leaf out of the environmentalists’ book and introduce new legislation to win the hearts, minds and fatty livers of Australia.

Any fast food purchased must now be kilojoule-neutral. This would mean that drive-throughs become illegal for anyone actually in a car. When ordering, customers will be required to perform star jumps for each item requested, while being barked at incomprehensibly through the speaker by a retired PE teacher. A family bucket of KFC? Would you like a half-marathon with that? The collection window would also be sited slightly farther away than at present. By up to a couple of suburbs.

Those opting to dine in will be seated at benches reclining at 45degrees with feet uppermost, tucked under a smiling plastic Ronald McDonald’s armpits. If you can’t do the crunches, or at least get your little pudgy arms past your stomach, the burger goes in the bin.

Punishments for transgression will be severe. Greenies that rationalise their four-wheel drive and jet-set lifestyles by paying some unseen person to plant trees for their environmental sins will now have workforces co-opted from junk food junkies digging the holes. A troop of dietary recidivists will also be called upon to peddle the Western Power bikes when Perth’s usual method of electricity generation fails as a result of a bird coughing particularly forcibly atop a power pole.

The bigger polluters can of course purchase carbon credits and similarly, if you have a special occasion coming up, it will be possible to buy lard-on credits. This will ensure that five-star restaurants can continue to literally make a killing.

Dr Nitschke will write another book, this time espousing the over-the-counter availability of large potions of Death by Chocolate for the terminally ill or chronically down-in-the-dumps.

Even politicians will be expected to fall into line, with a human weighbridge being installed at the entrance to Parliament House. Transgressors will be given a talking-to by Tony ‘Iron-Man’ Abbott, Australia’s slightly sheepish answer to Vladamir Putin. Be afraid, Joe Hockey, be very afraid.

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