STRANGER THAN FICTION: IN THESE CHANGING TIMES, THE GYM HAS A LOT TO OFFER

As a woman who passed the "pleasingly plump" stage about 50 pounds ago, I feel I've lost the right to laugh at anyone at the gym.

But I can't help it.

Maybe the guy I saw over the weekend was laughing at me, too. Who could blame him? Sitting there on the inner-thigh machine, squeezing my legs together, my teeth bared, my thunder thighs a-quiver, I must have looked a sight. In fact, my workout was so energetic that I can't even lift my leg to apply the brakes in my car now.

But the point is, I was completely silent. I didn't let out a peep when I lifted my flabby triceps behind my head 50 times, when I worked my calves for what seemed like a day or when I endured several sets on the chest machine.

Which made my encounter with "Chewbacca" even more entertaining.

I first saw him doing abdominal crunches on a springboard. He was bouncing around making short, loud grunting sounds with each exertion. Kind of a "Unh. Unh. Unh. UNH. UNH. UNH. Unh." But the best part was when he rolled around, face down, on a large rubber ball and made the same noises.

I've seen late-night movies on Cinemax with less action.

Chewbacca isn't alone. Despite my appearance, I've been a member at gyms in four American cities, and every one of them had men grunting and screaming as they performed various exercises. There was a guy who almost brought the house down in Pensacola, Fla., during his squats, and frankly, he was not all that fit. He would put the weight bar over his shoulders, bend his knees and then shout "yyyyaaaaAAARRRRGGGG" as he stood up straight.

He was one of those muscleheads who was having a red-hot love affair with the weight room mirror.

Women who exercise don't make noises like Chewbacca and the Pensacola musclehead. We've been taught to only scream out in case of fire or childbirth.

But there was a radio news report Monday morning that made me want to scream.

A new study has shown that obesity is a major problem in America, and being overweight is a contributor to other diseases, including certain types of cancer.

Duh. But that's not the worst part. The study's authors have decided the only solution is to launch a major advertising campaign against obesity the way the nation has done against tobacco.

As we know, that campaign has been extremely successful. Smokers have been made to feel like second-class citizens and ostracized from every social occasion. Lighting up in public is now viewed as akin to announcing that you agreed with Hitler's politics.

Imagine that concept transferred to obesity. In the future, when I go to restaurants, the hostess will ask, "Fat or non-fat?" and then lead me over to eat with my kind. When I pull out a candy bar in public and start to take a bite, my thin peers will stare down their noses at me and nibble on carrot sticks.

And the bad kids in the school won't sneak into the bathroom for a smoke break. They'll sneak in for a calorie break, wolfing down a few Twinkies before the bell rings. After school, they'll carelessly flick their Dolly Madison wrappers out the car window, rock music blaring, tires squealing.

"We don't need no stinking nutrition guide!" they'll yell, blubber shaking with the roar of the engine.

I'd better get prepared for this new era.

Chewbacca or no Chewbacca, I'm heading back to the gym.