You must be this light to ride this attraction...

The admonitions and repercussions of overweight Americans are continuing their rise in frequency and volume. A recent cancer study finds weight and red meat consumption particularly unhelpful when not controlled.

"Part of the purpose of the report was to show that prevention of cancer by means of food, nutrition, and associated factors is as feasible and crucial as prevention of coronary heart disease," the researchers wrote. "The evidence that high body fatness and also physical inactivity are causes of a number of cancers, including common cancers, is particularly strong."

Hundreds of specialists evaluated more than 7,000 studies over five years to compile the report. Panelists found "convincing evidence" that carrying extra weight, particularly around the waist, may lead to cancer of the esophagus, pancreas, colon, kidney, and uterus, as well as postmenopausal breast cancer. [More]

This hardly news, however. But real-life consequences are getting to be hard to ignore as well.

The problem, quite simply, is that the flume that the boats ride in, and the boats themselves, were designed and built in 1963 on the assumption that the male adult riders would average 175 pounds and the women about 135, which they pretty much did at the time. Alas, those figures are as outdated today as the Rocket to the Moon ride.

The Small World ride now must accommodate adults who frequently weigh north of 200 pounds, which it often cannot do. Increasingly, overweighted boats get to certain points in the ride and bottom out, becoming stuck in the flume.

The ride monitors attempt to leave empty seats on many boats to compensate for the hefty, but this routinely antagonizes the hundreds of paying customers waiting in line. When a boat does bottom out, a long line of other boats backs up behind it, their passengers slowly going mad from listening to the ride’s theme song. [More]

So. Now you're uneasy about your weight and diet...and you'll have that dang song in your head all day.