As Americans get fatter, caskets, burial plots, even hearses must get bigger

THE NEW YORK TIMES ^ | September 28, 2003 | Warren St. John

[traumer]

Perhaps nowhere is the issue of obesity in America more vividly illustrated than at Goliath Casket of Lynn, Ind., specialty manufacturers of oversize coffins.

There, one can see a triple-wide coffin -- 44 inches across, compared with 24 inches for a standard model. With extra bracing, reinforced hinges and handles, the triple-wide is designed to handle 700 pounds without losing what the euphemism-happy funeral industry calls its "integrity."

[King Prout]

oh, come now - cannot the embalmers do a little liposuction?
Just damn.

[RIGHT IN SEATTLE]

Embalmers do use the same instrument that liposuction Doctors use.

[RIGHT IN SEATTLE]

[GretchenEE]

Save Your Survivors' Money, Your Pallbearers' Backs, with a Regular Size Coffin; Live Well with Atkins

[traumer]

I always wondered what do they do with the stuff from liposuction.
But, was to afraid to ask...

[winodog]

I wish you would bring back the old days where you buried your loved ones in the north 40 on boot hill.
Screw the "funeral business.

[mewzilla]

Well, there's always cremation...

[winodog]

They make make up with it. It use to be done with animal guts but I bet hteres a lipo industry

[traumer]

I almost thought of McDonald's....

[wizardoz]

My thoughts exactly. The person is dead, they aren't going to feel it... shoot, they could do some pretty extensive alterations.

From the remainder of the article: Grace Moredock of Evanston, Ill., said that in 1999, when her mother died weighing 340 pounds, the family could not afford an oversize coffin and opted for cremation.

"Because of our faith and our religious belief we would have preferred to have buried her," she said.

Moredock herself weighs 400 pounds, and she said the experience had affected her own funeral plans. "I'd prefer to be buried," she said. "But I wouldn't say to my family, `You have to bury me,' because I wouldn't want them to be in a bind if they couldn't afford it."

This is what's bizarre. She'll alter her funeral plans. Say, why not alter your LIFE?? Maybe do something to get you ... say ... under 200? I mean, not everybody has to be a supermodel, but a woman, no matter how tall she is, shouldn't be over 200 lbs. Period.

[BradyLS]

Actually, that is an option that is becoming more and more popular. Plots are expensive, as well as caskets, services, etc. It' very expensive to receive a "proper" burial.

[cake_crumb]

NY Slimes, marching in lockstep with the little dictators of the DNC again. **YAWN**...so tax fat people, get slaughtered in court when they fight back against your prejudiced a@@ses and get off our backs.

[Servant of the 9]

A quick sale to the dogfood industry?

So9

[Jack Black]

The writer Edward Abbey specified in his will that his friends were immediately upon his death take his body to the desert and bury it in a shallow unmarked grave, without complexifying the process by spending a lot of time talking to the government. I believe his wishes were carried out to the letter. I always thought that was pretty cool.

[Lessismore]

Just bury them in their Cadillac Escalante SUV.

[bicycle thug]

Seal the coffin and pump in helium to lighten it up. That should help some, aye?

[sociotard]

The real question here is not "how much will the casket cost" but "Who are you going to talk into being your pall bearers?"

[bicycle thug]

Bumper sticker for one of these caskets:
"Five trees died to hold my mortal remains, and yes I am proud of it.";-)

[Born Conservative]

Not sure whether it's true, but I was told that the difference between an oversized casket and a regular one is that the regular casket is filled with more filler under the lining (straw?). Any freeper morticians that can confirm this?