Manly Muffin Tops

Over the course of the past 5 years, the tables have turned. In a bad way. Well, they were already bad to begin with, but they are so much worse now.


-So what's the, what's the, what's the scenario? Yo-

Spare me a moment of absolute blunt-ness. In the past week, I've seen more extremely lower man-back than I had seen my entire life.

So... 5 years ago I was in college. At that time, I started noticing that a lot of women were wearing shirts that were not long enough on the bottom to reach the top of their pants. So there was a gap, ranging from 1 to about 8 inches, of what I felt to be unintentionally-showing-to-the-public skin. I'm sure in some cases, this skin was intentionally shown... however, in most cases I know for a fact this was unintentional. ...At least it should have been (the dreaded case of the "muffin top" out the top of the jeans... had better be unintentional. NO ONE in their right mind wants to EVER see a muffin top. For those of you who don't know, the muffin top is basically that layer of fat around the mid-section that sticks out of the top of the jeans and hangs over the top edge. Not good. I realize most Americans are at least a little bit overweight... and the first place this "over-weight" shows itself is in the hips/waist. So why draw attention to that part of the body by revealing it, unless it's nice to look at? No one wants to see this fat! Anyway...)



But, a couple of years ago, we started to see more women who were figuring this out. The trend in muffin tops declined (Hooray!) due to the introduction of the longer-undershirt. So, the tops women are wearing are still the same length, the jeans are still lower cut, but the extra layer of the (normally white) longer undershirt has been added to cover up this bare skin that no one wanted to see.

KUDOS TO WOMEN FOR FIGURING THIS OUT AND DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!

One of the most traumatic days of my life also happened to be the day that I happened to see the worst case of a muffin top I've ever experienced. If you don't want to know about this most-painful-of-days, skip the rest of this paragraph. So... a co-worker and I were in San Francisco for work a couple of years ago, and we decided to get tickets to the baseball game that night, Giants v. D-Backs. Our seats were out in right field on the bleachers and most of the seats were full in that part of Pac-Bell. During the bottom of the 1st inning, 2 girls showed up and had seats about 3 rows in front of us. They each had a beer in their hand. However, it didn't look like they needed the beers, as the taller of the 2 girls was already having trouble keeping her balance and was REALLY loud. She also happened to have a bad case of Creeping Muffin Top. I'm sure being drunk didn't help with the growing muffin top... she didn't seem to notice it at all and with her presumably out-of-normal swaying and moving, she eventually worked her way to the absolutely Biggest Muffin Top I have ever seen... the gap between the bottom of her top and the top of her low-cut jeans had easily reached a full 12 inches. And she had a healthy layer of fat to keep that revealed part of her body warm, which made it that much worse to behold. The top just kept going higher and the pants just kept sliding lower... And she just kept getting drunker. And with a crowd that was probably 80% dudes... well, you can imagine that basically everyone in the crowd was staring at her. Praying... hoping... but no. The muffin top was there to stay. This experience scarred me. Luckily, experiences like this involving women have decreased dramatically over the past few years.

Not that I'm on an outright crusade against muffin tops, but I WOULD say that I am 100% anti-muffin tops. Maybe you could say that I've been leading a SILENT crusade against muffin tops. You know, the lead-by-example type of crusade. Lesson learned: muffin top + alcohol = bigger muffin top. Simple enough.

Ok, so the women have figured out that to cut down on muffin tops, they just have to add this little lengthy undershirt - easy enough. But in the past week, there has been an alarming trend - now, it's the guys who are taking a turn muffin topping.


-What? No way! Guys are NOT muffin topping!-

Oh, YES THEY ARE. Let me share. I just started my first class at ASU last week. One of my classes happens to be a 1,000-student lecture, in a theater/auditorium. Me being me, I am required to sit on the back row very near the door. This gives me a great perspective to people-watch. Anyway, I started noticing (NOT GIRLS, BUT GUYS!) showing up with muffin tops. Not just one here or there... I'm talking like 20-30 per day. Guys showing up to class and then when they sit down, this big muffin top just shows up out of nowhere (they glow in the semi-dark auditorium, so they're really easy to see...).

And last night I was at dinner with some friends at a little restaurant. I didn't notice until about 20 minutes into the meal, but sitting behind one of the girls in our party was a particulary large man, with an equally large muffin top showing out the back of his chair. I whispered to my friend sitting next to me, "Hey, don't look now, but... there's something you really DO NOT want to see in that direction [pointing]" This girl's response was (in a loud, almost angry whisper), "OH, I KNOW! I SAW IT ABOUT 10 MINUTES AGO. ISN'T THAT DISGUSTING?" Then the girl sitting on the other side of me leaned over and asked what we were talking about... I pointed again, and without even having to turn her head, she said, "EW! I ALREADY SAW. NASTY! SOMEONE SHOULD TELL HIM."

And one final experience from this past Sunday... I went to a different church congregation than normal, and while sitting on the very last row [again, my usual seat...], happened to notice the worst male muffin top I have seen to date (but keep in mind, I hadn't seen any to note up until a week ago...). A guy who was dressed in a nice button-down shirt and khakis, matching shoes/belt, and a shiny new black leather jacket was showing about 8 inches of his extremely lower back through the metal chair to everyone behind him. It was absolutely disgusting. He should have known better. In fact, the only row of seats in the entire room that had no one sitting in it, turned out to be the row directly behind him and his poor wife. About 5 minutes into the service, in walked a young family - parents and 2 children. Since the only seats available were in the special-row-right-behind-manly-muffin-tops, the family seated themselves there. No less than 10 seconds after sitting down, the wife noticed the muffin top and I heard a very slight shriek out of her. Her 3-yr old son was sitting directly behind the muffin top and had one hand grabbing the top of the man's pants and pulling them out, to reveal EVEN MORE skin. Luckily the mother caught the boy before the man noticed... who knows what sort of fury would have burst forth from the muffin top guy had the muffin top actually been touched. Luckily the mother found a large piece of posterboard that she had brought to church for a lesson, and she placed it directly behind the muffin top, concealing it from view. And you could just tell the 3-yr old had never seen anything like it with how he kept staring at it.....

This is a trend that just didn't used to happen. I recall in elementary school, there was always the lazy, slobby kid in your class (usually accompanied by a snotty nose), and if you were anywhere behind him while he was sitting down, you couldn't help but notice what brand of underwear he had on. (I need to insert a disclaimer here: I am NOT a bum-looker [to quote an old SNL...]. Sometimes you just can't help but notice things...). BUT, you almost never saw an actual muffin top. This is yet another sign of the declining morals in our society.


-But why are GUYS doing the Muffin Top?-

That's the whole reason for the blog post today. I am dumb-founded. I have no answers.

Have guys not remembered the negative reactions they had when the women were muffin topping? I mean, it's like a gag reflex when you see one. Really, it's the type of bad experience I don't wish on even my worst enemies... even they deserve better than that.

I can only think I've been put on this earth for one reason: to call attention to anyone who has a muffin top (and this appears to be mostly guys right now). We need to increase muffin top awareness and stop them in their tracks. Join me in this crusade against the muffin tops!