Beer Bellies Gaining in Popularity

The common beer belly, often demonized by health experts world-wide, is now making a popular comeback. Numerous Duluth personalities now support beer bellies. Rumors indicate that even Duluth’s popular Mayor, Herb Bergson, is presently attempting to increase the size and shapeliness of his belly.

But what makes a good beer belly? Edward Herrmann, a popular Hollywood actor, sported a beer belly in The Gift of Life, in 1982. “My beer belly had to be firmly shaped for my role as Dr. Quinn. So I loaded up on the beers, and wore a special device that worked somewhat the opposite of a corset,” he explained. “Needless to say, I had a wonderful beer belly. It took some 2 years to remove.”

And others in Hollywood are working to build up the popular image of the beer belly, which has been out of vogue since the fitness binge of 1987. Zack Graff, of Garden State and Scrubs fame, believes that “beer bellies are really the way of the future. Once my character, a funny doctor, is sporting a beer belly on Scrubs, I think they’ll catch on. Besides the writers, my girlfriend is really pushing me to grow a nice beer belly too. I don’t see how I can go wrong.”

Public health official Juyora Thompson, a fitness expert for St. Louis County, explained that having a beer belly is actually more healthy than not having a beer belly. “Beer is about 78% healthy, and 20% non-healthy. So obviously, drinking more of it is good. Not only that, but a round, pregnancy-shaped belly is really good for the male heart, circulation, and appendix. In fact, beer bellies are probably a good way to reduce the number of appendix removals each year. That should save our hospitals some big bucks, and maybe solve Duluth’s money troubles,” she lucidly dictated.

With both Hollywood and local public officials rallying behind the beer belly, good days are expected at Fitger’s Brewery. The manager of Fitger's stated that beer sales are 8% higher than over the past 40 years, and that the brewery expects to ramp up production by 60% due to the rising beer exports out of state. Surprisingly, no data was available for female beer bellies; however, all popular indications dictate that most female bellies will be growing to normal beer-belly size by early 2008.