Every generation gets a label: “The Greatest,” “The Baby Boom,” “Gen X,” “Gen Y.”
So the youngest Americans might want to hire a public relations expert.
Or a personal trainer.
Generation XL -- as in Extra Large -- is in the running to become an appellation for those born since the early 1990s.
In some communities, up to one-third of today’s children and teens are overweight. That’s double the percentage of fat kids in the early 1970s.
Health experts agree that today’s youth sit in front of TV and computer screens too much and eat too much junk food.
In short, the generation is in danger of being branded with a derogatory label. Books, newspaper articles and TV shows have begun using it.
According to lexicographers, the earliest reference to “Generation XL” was a prescient comment from a sportswriter in 1995.
Writing about baseball, Bob Molinaro of The Virginian-Pilot made the waggish comment that “if researchers are correct that people in their 20s today — the so-called Generation X — are heavier and less physically active than people in that age group five to 10 years ago, that would make them Generation XL, wouldn’t it?”
Read the complete story at kansascity.com
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