Big Business Embraces Big People

Jan. 6, 2006 — -- While doctors and other health experts are wringing their hands over the rise in obesity in the United States, another group of professionals is gleefully capitalizing on the growth in plus-size Americans.

Business owners have discovered this new and largely untapped market, and are expanding the number of products and services designed for overweight consumers.

A remarkable feature of this new market is its guilt-free attitude. Instead of frowning upon the obese and admonishing them to slim down with diets, exercise fads and other anxiety-inducing trends, many businesses are now making efforts to accommodate, even celebrate, the overweight American.

From the cradle to the grave, companies are retooling existing products to serve U.S. consumers who get larger and larger every year.

Evenflo recently hired an outside design firm to reshape its car seats to fit bigger baby bottoms. Though these babies are not considered obese, they are larger than those born in decades past.

And who wants to enter the afterlife squeezed into a skinny little casket? Not the customers of Goliath Caskets, which specializes in plus-size caskets measuring up to 52 inches in width. (Standard caskets are about 24 inches wide inside.)

"We're very, very busy," said Keith Davis, co-owner of the Lynn, Ind., casket manufacturer. "Our business is doubling here."

Davis welcomes the chance to alleviate the embarrassment felt by the families of the overweight. Because hospital and morgue equipment often can't handle bodies weighing over 500 pounds, "the fire department is called in to move the body," said Davis.

Hospital equipment makers are responding by reinforcing products for obese patients. Stryker Corp. has manufactured an ambulance cot, called the MX-PRO Bariatric Transport, capable of carrying 1,600 pounds.

Anyplace where people sit, it seems, is having to undergo a seat change.

"Butts are wider than they used to be," said Frank Sumner, national sales manager for Preferred Seating. "Back in the '20s and '30s, people could sit in a 17-inch chair, but people are bigger now."

Preferred Seating makes chairs up to 22 inches wide for stadiums, theaters, churches and schools. One of its more popular lines is sofa-style seating without arms, designed for extra-large customers. "They're really popular in churches, especially mega-churches," said Sumner.

Clothing designer Nicole Miller recently introduced a new clothing line called Nicole by Nicole Miller. The clothes are available up to a size 16.

"It was a good fit for us, and it's been selling really well," said Mary Tilt, spokeswoman for Nicole Miller. "What's nice is that it is a little more trendy. It brings a lot of style to someone who doesn't usually shop at larger department stores."

But resizing and reinforcing existing products isn't always enough. In some cases, what's needed is a whole new product.

Engineer William Fabrey heard that many overweight people have difficulty washing certain parts of their bodies. So he invented Ample-Sponge -- basically, a sponge on a stick -- and started Amplestuff, a company that sells products designed to address the needs of the "supersize" community.

Amplestuff now sells a wide range of products like the FootFunnel, to help those with difficulty putting on their shoes, a leg-lifting strap to help people get in and out of vehicles, and portable chairs that can support up to 600 pounds.

But not all businesses are profiting from the increase in obesity in the United States.

The airline industry, already reeling from increased fuel prices and other costs, must address the fact that its customers are now heavier and are using more fuel. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this added weight cost airlines an extra $275 million in fuel in 2000.

Burning that extra fuel also added 3.8 million tons of pollutants into the air, the agency reported.

And not all businesses that target plus-size consumers will succeed. Freedom Paradise, a resort on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, once catered to overweight tourists seeking a tropical vacation far from the scrutinizing eyes of thinner tourists.

But although the resort still has wider doors and bigger furniture, it no longer limits itself to advertising for overweight travelers.

And despite the gains that have been made in ensuring equality for the overweight, some business owners -- like the general population -- still think of obesity as a health problem as much as an opportunity.

"It's a crisis. It's an epidemic," said Davis of Goliath Caskets.