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NEW YORK, NEW YORK, September 28, 2003: If you’re obese and think your problems end when you die, think again, suggests this article in the New York Times. Like the airline industry, the article says, which was warned in May that passengers were heavier than they used to be, and was asked to adjust weight estimates accordingly, the funeral industry is retooling to make room for ever-larger Americans. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 20 percent of American adults are obese, up from 12.5 percent in 1991. Of those 70 and older — the demographic that most interests the funeral industry — 17 percent are obese. Despite the numbers, nearly every aspect of the funeral industry, from the size of coffins to vaults, graves, hearses and even the standardized scoop on the front-end loaders that cemeteries use for grave-digging (it is called a “grave bucket”) is based on outdated estimates about individual size. “Many people in this country no longer fit in the standard-size casket,” said David A. Hazelett, the president of Astral Industries, a coffin builder in Indiana. “The standard-size casket is meant to go in the standard-size vault, and the standard-size vault is meant to go into the standard-size cemetery plot. Everyone in the industry is aware of the problem.” The Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx recently increased its standard burial plot size to four feet wide from three feet to accommodate wider burial vaults, and the cemetery’s newest mausoleum has four crypts designed especially to hold oversize coffins. The Cremation Association of North America has begun providing special training to its members in the handling of obese bodies. For those who can’t afford the cost of larger plots and coffins, cremation is an option, but most crematorium can’t handle bodies over 500 pounds.

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