600 Pound Restaurant Spokesman Dies...As A Result Of Being Restaurant's Customer

Everyone, meet Blair River.  1999 Arizona state high school heavyweight wrestling champion and financial advisor for the University of Phoenix.  He was also part time model and spokesman for Chandler, Arizona's Heart Attack Grill.  For his time on the camera, he received $100 an hour and all he cared to eat, anytime he wanted for free at the restaurant.  

That's actually a misnomer.  Blair had been receiving all of his meals at the Heart Attack Grill for quite some time prior to working as a spokesman for the company.  In fact, hundreds of Phoenix area men and women eat there for free on a monthly basis.  You see, the H.A.G. has an interesting gimmick to attract customers.  If you weigh 350 pounds or more, you can eat as much as you want, as often as you want, at no charge.  It's gluttony at it's best.

Since opening in 2005, they've gone with a tongue in cheek doctor shtick.  The owner calls himself a "doctor".  The waitresses are dressed up as sexy nurses.  There's an ambulance parked outside in the parking lot.  All of the menu items are "heart attack" or "bypass surgery" themed.

I live minutes from the restaurant, and have been tempted a time or two to try it.  At one time, I even "qualified" to eat there for free, but the menu is just too much to handle....even for me.  Their "bypass" burgers come in single, all the way to quadruple versions.  Each patty weighs a half pound.  The buns are soaked in pure lard.  Not butter....but lard.  If you order the "quadruple bypass", expect 2 pounds of fatty, not lean, hamburger, eight slices of American cheese, a whole sliced tomato, and a half of an onion sliced, all on a lard soaked bun.  The burger comes in at 8,000 calories.  And that's just the burger.

Their "flatliner" fries (I'm not making this up) are fried in lard, too.  Oh, and don't expect a Dr. Pepper or a Mountain Dew at the Heart Attack Grill.  Those are considered "diet drinks".  They only serve Jolt Cola and Mexican Coke.

For those of you that aren't familiar with Mexican Coke, corn syrup exports from the U.S. are taxed so highly that Mexican soda companies cannot afford to put corn syrup in their product.  Instead, they stick to pure sugar.  It's much sweeter than their American counterparts and higher in calories.

That not all, folks.  They also advertise that they sell milkshakes with "the world's highest butterfat content".  If that's not enough, they sell cigarettes directly off the menu (unfiltered only, of course), and candy cigarettes for the kids.

The Travel Channel profiled the restaurant in 2009 in the aptly titled 'Extreme Pig Outs'.  Here is a clip for those of you that aren't familiar with this bastion of human decency.



So, what does this have to do with Blair River?  He died last Tuesday.  He was only 29 years old.  He was 6'8" tall, and depending on the news source, weighed anywhere from 570 to 600 lbs at the time of his death.  He had the flu the previous week and it developed into pneumonia.  He died from complications a couple of days later.

"OK, Adam", you're saying.  "He didn't die of a heart attack, or complications from type 2 diabetes.  What's the problem here?"

Well, a study was released last April that determined that men with a BMI of 30 - 34.9 were 40% more likely to catch pneumonia when ill.  Those with a BMI over 35 were twice as likely (200%) to catch pneumonia.  Regardless of height, I would say that 600 lbs is higher than a 35 BMI. 

 I am no one to talk.  I am 6'4" and some change, and, depending on my stress levels and diet, I'm anywhere from 300-320 lbs.  If you have been reading my blog, you know that I am fat positive.  But there is a clear difference between being fat positive and being exploitative and promoting an unhealthy lifestyle.  Just take a look at the last commercial that Blair recorded for the Heart Attack Grill.  The "warning" at the end of the ad advises that "mild death may occur".  Four months after recording this ad, Blair River is dead.

I understand that ultimately, every individual is in control of his or her physical health.  It makes it difficult to make smart and healthy decisions when someone is offering you something for free.  Eating healthy is expensive.  It's much cheaper and takes less energy to go through the drive thru sometimes, than to stand over a stove and cook something nutritious.  When you're offering an obese individual the option to come in, eat a single meal with the equivalent of your recommended daily caloric intake for four days, at no charge, as often as the want, you're an accessory to murder.   You are slowly killing that individual.

The restaurant may have thought they were starting a funny gimmick, but a husband and father is dead now.  They are partially liable for his death.  The gimmick needs to stop.  It's not cute anymore.