America the fatty

Have you ever gone to Golden Corral for dinner, ate your heart out then slouched back in your chair and thought, "Wow, I'm a fatass?"\nWell I have, and I feel that way pretty much every time I go to a buffet restaurant. Yet it doesn't stop me, or anyone else. After those three or four plates piled with greasy goodness, I feel guilty, not because I'll gain weight, but because we as Americans are wasteful gluttons.\nI went to a Chinese buffet over the weekend with my parents and as I was searching for a second helping, I passed a man taller than me and much wider. As I slopped a mass of lo mein onto my plate, I could hear the man's heavy breathing (looming death) from five entrees away. It made me think about what I was doing, so I picked up those tongs and took a little off of the mountain I had constructed. \nI guess it didn't really affect my appetite that much, but in my head I thought that I would never let myself get to that point in my life: where my lungs feel like a night at Kilroy's and my body can't even perform its primary function: breathing. It's sad, but like the man at the Chinese restaurant, we just can't stop eating, especially at buffets. \nThey're a value when you consider the amount of food you are getting. However, buffets represent everything that's wrong with American eating \nhabits. \nOur eyes are bigger than our bellies. Plus there's no waiting because we're not just fatties, we're impatient fatties. \nJust seeing the counters full of delicious grease excites us, and we end up overeating because we all want our money's worth, especially college students. The other day my friend and I went to a Chinese buffet to please our porky appetites and we ended up staying there for three hours. The waitresses even stopped bringing us water, but that didn't stop us. That was just enough time to get hungry again and go back for another plate of dessert before we left.\nAlmost all of the food at buffet restaurants is unhealthy, with the exception of the salad bar, but who really gets a salad at a buffet? It just takes up space in our stomachs that could be filled with greasy, fried and maybe even diseased food. I mean I doubt those sneeze guards really protect the food from gross little kids running around spreading their germs.\nBuffets were probably invented by someone who took the concept of a salad bar too far. I can't imagine any other country having as many buffets as we do, but that's not something to be proud of.\nWe're becoming one big ball of lard called America and buffets are keeping us pudgy and rotund. And we wonder why every other country in the world hates us. It's because we have more than we need, and all we do is eat it.