Around this time every year, websites and MSM begin posting their “Top 10 Stories” recounting some of their favorites over the year. I figure I might as well jump in on the action, too. (Hmmm… does that count as exercise?) So here, without further ado, is the Year In Fat: the Top 10 reasons we’re fat, according to various “news” stories that came out in 2007.

10. Friends make you fat, even if they live hundreds of miles away.

9. Marriage does, too.

8. So does diet soda, even if it doesn’t have any calories.

7. That prescription your doctor gave you? With certain prescriptions, it might be that your medicine makes you fat.

6. Credit cards make you fat, according to one financial site.

5. Sleeping too little or too poorly, makes you fat, too.

4. Video games make you fat, but who cares when we can all have skinny avatars?

3. Or maybe it’s something you caught, now that research claims a virus makes you fat?

2. You could always blame it on your parents, but that’s so…. 2006. Why not blame it on your skeleton, since your bones can make you fat?

But before you start thinking that every diet-related news story has shifted the blame to something other than what you eat, take a look at the Number One story from 2007 that explains why you and I are fat:

1. Eating diet food makes you fat!

So, with just about every single person or thing surrounding me to blame for the extra pounds I’ve been trying to lose for the past year, what’s a girl to do?

Why, I’m going to start calling all of my skinny single friends in the middle of the night to suggest they check out Second Life as a way to meet their soul mate, then I’ll invite them over for a diet soda and healthy salad, thereby upping the chance they’ll catch the “fat bug” that’s obviously infected me.

I figure by the end of 2008, if I do this just right, they’ll have joined me in the ranks of those struggling to shed pounds and maybe — just maybe — I won’t be the only Chubby Girl in next year’s holiday photos.