The Muffin Top 2003-2007

It is with huge relief and no little thankfulness that As A Dodo can confirm the death of The "Muffin Top", which was first announced by the BBC on 15 August 2007.

The Muffin Top - the unsightly excess of flab spilling over the top of a pair of trousers, was born at some time in the early noughties. It was at this time that a Western population used to levels of activity more usually seen in a three-toed sloth and individual levels of food intake usually found only in Biblical-scale swarms of locusts first came into contact with large amounts of expensive, low-slung and tight-hipped trouserage originally designed to adorn the bodies of fashion models whose monthly ingestion consisted only of a piece of lettuce, several thousand cigarettes and enough white powder to mark out the pitch at Wembley for all eternity.

The early meetings of these two - one an irresistible piece of designer-inspired clothing, the other an almost immovable piece of lard - did not go well. Those who witnessed the early attempts to mate obese bodies and slim denim still recoil in horror at memories of twisted bodies, ripped fabric and shop assistants rendered blind by rivets popping free of their blue-jean homes. Yet somehow, union was achieved - hundreds of pounds of adipose tissue were eased slowly inside denim sheaths, copper riveted buttons were slipped into the appropriate holes and vast amounts of fat, together with wholly unnecessary inches of buttock crevice, leapt upward and outward in exuberant celebration.

For years, the new child went - like a child in a David Pelzer book - unnamed, wandering the streets of the Western world (and anywhere else obesity and poor fashion sense went hand-in-hand) lonely and unloved. It was in Australia that it first found its true home, after an irritatingly fit Aussie popping into Starbucks noted the similarity between the midportions of the American tourist in front of him and the overspilling extra large muffin she was holding and finally gave the phenomenon its name - just before being whacked in the face by the American tourist in front of his equally large husband.

From there on The Muffin Top went from strength to strength - seeing off such phenomena as the whale tail - and finding a place on streets across much of the globe, often just outside the nearest fast food restaurant. Many assumed that The Muffin Top would always be with us, a handy reminder of the evils of consumerist society, but it was not to be. Bored at last with their hipster jeans, designers now decreed that the world should wear high waisted skirts and trousers, forcing the overspilling flab within a new casing and starving it of the exposure it so obviously craved.

The Muffin Top will be buried in an overly small coffin at midday, only for most of it to pop out seconds after the lid has been banged on. It is survived by the belly bulge, the turkey wattle, the banana fold, the love handle and the bingo wings.