As I'm sure you've read or heard elsewhere, the U.S. population is growing more obese. Which makes me wonder how this impacts meetings. Airline seats are not designed for the "fluffy" among us, that's for sure. Are hotels making their chairs and other furniture wider and sturdier? How does having larger attendees impact room sets? Is anyone else thinking about this, other than Freedom Paradise Resort, which I wrote about a couple of years ago. Back then, it deliberately was marketing itself as a resort for those who are "living large," something it seems to have backed off of a bit—at least, the Web site no longer touts the hotel specifically as obese-friendly.
But this is a growing issue, and one we really shouldn't ignore in the hopes that we'll just slim down and the trend will go away on its own. Indications are that it won't. Should planners play mom and try to get people to eat more healthily at meetings, or just cave in to the "what I eat on the road doesn't count" mentality most of us (me included) have when we travel? How do you accommodate ever-larger attendees?