Carmakers widen seats for wider ... seats By Chris Woodyard, USA TODAY
2 hours, 24 minutes ago



If you gorged at the holiday buffet, don't worry: You'll still fit in your car.

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As Americans grow heftier, automakers are making seats wider, adding more space to interiors and using bigger virtual mannequins to help design vehicles.


Domestic automakers say they already had seats for increasingly rotund motorists. Now foreign brands are catching up.


Getting bigger:


• Honda. The 2006 Civic offers front seats that are three-quarters of an inch wider than those in the 2005 model. Purpose: "To meet the growing needs of our customers," spokesman Sage Marie says.


• Mercedes-Benz. The big R-Class Grand Sports Tourer, which went on sale at the end of September, has front seats about a half-inch wider than the smaller Mercedes M-Class crossover.


• Subaru. The first-ever B9 Tribeca, a crossover vehicle introduced this year that was specifically designed for the U.S. market, has front seats a half-inch wider than those in the Legacy, the next-largest wagon in the lineup.


• Mitsubishi. The Lancer Evolution was given front seats slightly wider than in the Japanese version when the performance car was introduced in the USA in 2003.


Extra-wide seats are important now that 62% of adults are considered overweight or obese, according to market research firm NPD Group. The figure has doubled since the late 1970s.


For the auto industry, the solution is not just about hippy seats. It's also wider cars.


Toyota added a half-inch of width to the RAV4 sport utility and up to 3 inches to the 4Runner, Sienna, Tacoma and Avalon. The goal was both comfort and extra interior space to help protect passengers in side-impact crashes, according to Toyota's Paul Williamsen.


For its part, Ford Motor recently started using what it believes are the industry's first set of virtual mannequins depicting nine different body types - including a hulking man - in computer-aided design. Reason: a finding that the average near-biggest man grew 27 pounds heavier and nearly an inch-and-a-half wider in the hips from 1962 to 2000.


"For the first time, we've made these virtual dummies to reflect people's growing sizes," Ford spokeswoman Jennifer Flake says.


Ford is also paying attention to comfort of the seats themselves. The automaker is researching whether to install power massage units in the backs and cushions of its seats.


It's also considering inflatable bladders in the seats to make them fit passengers of different sizes.


"When you think about how much time people sit in a seat - the average time commuting has gone up dramatically - it's staggering," says Susan Dehne, the automaker's chief engineer of seat systems.

Spartacus' top ten reasons we're fat!

(1) Fluoride in the water supply kills our thyroid gland and much more. Chlorine in our water supply destroys vital digestive enzymes. Add to that elevated levels of lead, cadmium and mercury in our water supply which are introduced as a byproduct of fluoridation!

(2) Trouble with the Sweet Stuff! Artificial sweeteners and ultra cheap sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup. Low cal, low carb diet foods in general. To that you might as well add plain old sugar which we consume in astronomical quantities. No wonder diabetes is epidemic. School lunch anyone???

(3) Genetically modified food, radiated food, processed food is commonplace and utterly foreign (harmful) to the human physiology.

(4) Our meat and milk is full hormone, steroid, antibiotics and their residues.

(5) Plant and animal foods alike are sprayed with pesticides.

(6) We consumer rancid oils, processed vegetable oils, transfats and hydrogenated vegetable oils

(7) We eat lots of food additives that make us crave more food than is natural. We are hungry even when we're full.

(8) We eat so many preservatives that our bodies aren't even decaying when we die!

(9) Sedentary lifestyle. Heck who could posssibly feel energetic anyway eating like the average American???

(10) Lastly the number one reason we're fat is because many people make lots of money off you because your fat. (Soft Drink Companies, Food companies, Drug companies, food additive industry, Monsanto (oops!), restaurants, hospitals, doctors and the Television/entertainment industry)

No one in our family is fat, we rarely eat fast/junk foods.
I could use cushier seats in my car thou, not wider just softer ;-) On our 10thousand mile roadtrip, kidlet sewed a cushion for me. The extra padding was GREAT.

Thanks for the info, Spartacus.
It's becoming more difficult to live a healthy lifestyle on this planet.
Thirty years ago , our well water was fabulous, not any more, we drink distilled.
We have a 350gal. water tank, picked up a load a few years ago, filled our fish pond, let it sit for 5 days to get rid of the chlorine. On day 6 we thought it was safe to transfer our fish outside. Immediatly they showed serious signs of panic. Scooped them out and back into the aquarium. Tested the chlorine level, it was off the chart! PEOPLE drink that poison . Sheeeesh

My daughter in laws parents are very scary overweight. They are young people, 43. Always eating fast foods, diet drinks, and sweeteners. They have 2 deepfreezers FULL of those tv type dinners, pizzas and stuff like that She's been going to Weightwatchers for YEARS, whatzup with that

My neighbor decided that the family must start eating healthier so she declared the house vegitarian. Her contractor hubby phoned one day complaining of dizziness and nausia. She told him to go to MacDonalds and have a sawdust burger. He did and felt better. I spose the detox process takes a while.

I could go on and on but it's too frustrating, plus I have to go to the city in my little car with uncomfy seats.

I didn't think you were fat. Lots of people packed extra pounds on their already gigantic asses this holiday season. Now the car makers are going to sell us some extra car whether we like it or not. Heck the airlines charge us extra because were weigh more. Why not?

It's such a shame. In a nation full of dullwitted highly schooled morons its no wonder everything is so polluted. No corner of the earth lay untouched in some way. What a shame! What a sin! People are brainwashed to look the otherway or to look at some non-issue like global warming while the real polluting goes on unnoticed by a stupified and enormouosly FAT public.