"My God, you've gotten fat."
Fat and weak, what a disgrace
Guess the champ got too lazy
Ain't gonna fly now, he's just taking up space
Sold his gloves, threw his eggs down the drain
Guess the champ got too lazy
Ain't gonna fly now, he's just taking up space
Sold his gloves, threw his eggs down the drain
The inverse of Formerly Fat, in which a character that used to be trim or athletic ends up overweight or obese.
The reasons for this vary. The fact that they haven't been paying as much attention to their weight could mean apathy. Something huge and life-changing could have happened, resulting in depression. Heartbreak could lead to Drowning My Sorrows and/or Heartbreak and Ice Cream, which could in turn lead to this if it goes on long enough. Parenting is a notorious cause due to the stresses of child-rearing, with mothers getting the double-whammy of natural weight gain during pregnancy. It's also well-known among former military and professional athletes; returning to civilian life causes many to let themselves go over time, especially if their previous lifestyle required them to be big eaters and they kept the appetite but not the daily rigors that called for it.
Of course, there need not be a dramatic reason behind the weight gain. For many people, metabolism slows as they get older. If they didn't work out or mind their diet before, their favorite jeans may suddenly become a lot tighter than they remember.
Compare I Was Quite a Looker, though the number of years between past and present doesn't have to be as great, and the currently-overweight person isn't necessarily unattractive. Often the Formerly Fit person will be chided by other characters and/or show regret for letting it get this far. In those cases, they may decide to work it off. Alternatively, they could grow into being Fat and Proud, especially if they're healthier and happier now than when they were forced to maintain a svelte image. Overlaps with Intentional Weight Gain if a character gained weight on purpose. Expect A Weighty Aesop.
Contrast Acrofatic and Stout Strength, when their weight does not hinder them (or, occasionally, even helps them) in completely outclassing conventionally fitter people.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Advertising
- Parodied in "Slob Evolution", a riff on the "Dove Evolution" activist video that criticized supposedly Unnecessary Makeover and photo manipulation in advertising. An attractive male model is force-fed beer, fatty foods, and cigarettes to make him obese and appear older, then made to look even fatter and unhealthier with Photoshop.
Anime & Manga
- Zigzagged in Area no Kishi with Araki. His chubbiness is mostly connected to his bad eating habits, though his temporary retirement from the football club didn't help. When the main character Kakeru meets him for the first time after only having heard of him from his older brother's tales, he's shocked by how unathletic he looks. However, as Araki gets back into football, his appearance greatly fluctuates between looking as skinny as he did in the flashbacks to pretty tubby. It doesn't stop him from being a skilled player either.
- In Baki the Grappler: Maria, wife of Biscuit Oliva is morbidly obese and bedbound. She used to be a Head-Turning Beauty but she had a disease and the medication she took led to weight gain.
- Invoked and weaponized by a Dark Agency youma in Codename: Sailor V: the youma Este deBrine took advantage of Japanese Valentine traditions to sell lots of extremely addictive and fattening chocolate sweets called Rainbow Chocolates to both men and women in the build-up to the celebration, and then used the women's wish to be attractive for Valentine's Day to convince them to go to her spa, where they would be drained of energy but would keep their weight due to deBrine hating slim builds. It was extremely effective, to the point only three people in the whole Minato Ward are confirmed to have kept themselves fit: Minako's friend Hikaru, who eats very healthily, Toshio Wakagi, who hates sweets, and Minako, who, upon noticing she was getting fat, was convinced by Artemis into training fanatically until she lost the fat... And, between the training routine having been prepared by Artemis and her own tendency to go overboard on everything, gained the weight back in muscles.
- The Daichis - Earth's Defense Family: In a flashback in the alternative episode 11, Seiko and Mamoru are very much fit on the day they Mamoru accepted Seiko's marriage. In the present day, however Seiko and Mamoru are seen with putting on more weight.
- In episode 11, Nozomi comments on how Seiko doesn't stick to her diet and is taking up space on the table which is the only thing left they can stand on within the black endless pit. Episode 12, also highlights this fact by putting camera focus on her shoulders when she is first seen in the episode walking in the Daichi Residence hallway. Seiko also sighs at the end of the episode when Mamoru got stuck inside of the toilet when he jumped really high a punched through it.
- In the alternative episode 11, Seiko after gaining the Divine Orb from defeating several monsters comments how this is too much action for someone her age. Seiko when meeting Mamoru in this episode how Mamoru made the same excuse when he got fat when he became the sorcerer king.
Seiko: Wh-What are you doing here?
Mamoru: I wonder. Why don't we all think about that?
Seiko: Stop messing around! Why do you have to be the sorcerer king?!
Mamoru: I just ended up this way. It's not like I wanted to be like this.
Seiko: What's that?! That's the excuse you gave me when you got fat!
- Dragon Ball Super:
- Majin Buu lost weight while training for the Tournament of Power, but soon reverted back to his fat form, making him an example of this trope and an example of Formerly Fat for the amount of time he managed to lose weight and even resemble Super Buu. Justified because of his Bizarre magic Eldritch Abomination biology.
- Gohan started off in Dragon Ball Z as a kid who was rather muscular for his age and grew up to be a teenager with a lean, athletic build, that can be hidden under baggy clothes and when his hidden powers are unlocked by the Elder Kai, he gains a Heroic Build that rivals Goku's. By the time Freeza is revived, he has slacked off so much, that he looks incredibly skinny. He regains his Heroic Build soon afterwards when he starts training again.
- Droy of Fairy Tail is this after the time skip, presumingly due to depression over Levy's disappearance. Even after her return, Droy continues to get plumper. Nab has gotten a massive belly over time as well.
- Mr. Heart, a Breakout Mook Character from Fist of the North Star received an origin story called Heart of the Meet. It is revealed as a youth, Heart was a Bishōnen who fattened up considerably
to a morbidly obese man. The fit part actually ends up inverted as while more attractive when thin, Heart was extremely weak and sickly, and when fat he was actually a Kung Fu-Proof Mook with plenty of Stout Strength, Kevlard and even Acrofatic on his side. Essentially he became fit-fat.
- Kagurabachi: The Sword Bearer Ibuki Misaka was a legend in the Seitei War and leanly muscular, accentuated by his lack of shirt. After the war, facing emotional turmoil and his Enchanted Blade being locked away, he neglected to keep himself in top shape and by the time of his assassination had developed a gut and lost some of his skill.
- In Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic, after a six-month Time Skip, Sinbad visits Aladdin and Alibaba to see how their training is going. Unfortunately they've both been pigging out from depression instead of actually training and developed chubby bodies and double-chins (and cartoony man-boobs in the case of a tiny blob Aladdin.) Sinbad has a Heroic BSoD, but before he loses it completely, spends a few panels chasing the chubby duo around the palace until they run off all the weight. Yet while Alibaba was able to slim down to normal, Aladdin required magic training to revitalize his body and lose the rest of the weight.
- Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun's character profile simply notes Miyamae's the only fat character in the cast due to the stress of being with Maeno. He would immediately lose weight when Maeno's away from his life, in fact, reverting to somehow akin to a Bishōnen.
- My Hero Academia
- Izuku Midoriya's mother had a thin figure in the past. In the present, she's gained some weight and gotten chubby due to stress eating to cope with the guilt she felt for not believing in Izuku's dream due to his quirklessness.
- Inverted with Midoriya himself, who was a skinny weakling in the beginning but after being trained by All Might, he is all jacked.
- All Might himself suffers from an inverse of this. For most of his life, he had a stereotypical Heroic Build, but after he was grievously injured by All For One and had his stomach destroyed prior to the story, his body became practically skeletal. He can use his superpowers to regain his old physique, but only for a very limited time each day. After his second bout with All For One, he loses his powers and his muscular body for good.
- Anko Mitarashi had a slender, athletic frame over the course of Naruto, but by the time Boruto rolled around she retired from active duty and became fat.
- One Piece:
- Played with Boa Marigold who used to be skinny as a teenager but now is a fat, round woman. But this turns out to be incorrect, since according to Oda in an SBS chapter, she was eating chanko and is stocky and muscled and not actually fat, at least not entirely.
- Charlotte Linlin was a fat child, but somehow became slim and attractive in her 20s, despite being a massive Sweet Tooth for her entire life. As she became older, and most likely from constantly eating the sweets in Totto land all the time, she became fatter and fatter, and now in her late 60s, she's incredibly fat. If she goes hungry for too long, her body slims down a lot in a very short amount of time, but if she gets the sweet she wants, she goes back to being fat.
- Temporarily happens to Usopp as he's stranded on the Boin Archipelago after being displaced by Bartholomew Kuma. While he's being guided by the archipelago's sole inhabitant Heracles and stay at the called the Forest of Gluttony. This forest not only includes ordinary wild food such as plum trees and corn stalks, but also a river of already prepared ramen, all of which exist most likely to fatten up prey for the true apex predators of the island. And Usopp falls for this trap as he gorges on the food until he's become obese from all the giant food of the living islands. But after hearing of Ace's death and Luffy's message, immediately begins working out and training to lose the weight. And after two years, Usopp not only has slimmed down to normal, but gotten much more athletic looking.
- Weaponized in the One Piece 2017 Premier Show, as the Straw Hat crew are fighting the BIG pirates, they are hit by Neiro's "Cholesterol Ring Attack" that causes the whole Straw Hat crew to become obese and immediately swell up with fat. The crew are shocked as their clothes now barely fit on their much fatter bodies and are baffled by how they gained all this weight out of nowhere. Neiro explains that he ate the Pocha Pocha no Mi, a devil fruit that allows him manipulate fat and can make others obese and reduce their athletic ability. As a result the Straw Hats can't fight very well due to their much plumper bodies hindering their movements and being too out of shape now, with Luffy barely able to move around due to his obese body. And in particular, reminding Usopp of his time on the Boin Archipelago, while Sanji is outraged by what he did Robin and Nami's bodies. But Franky uses Coup de Boo to make the BIG Pirates retreat before they can attack Hakuto, who's carrying and protecting the last flame of Portgas D. Ace. As the crew recovers, they waddle to the center of the ship and discuss a plan on how to lose all this weight as soon as possible, since they obviously can't fight the BIG pirates while being so fat. Yet Franky comes up with a plan and leads the crew in a dance routine to get back into shape, as Hakuto takes the opportunity to flee while they're preoccupied. After twenty minutes of nonstop dancing, the crew manages to burn off the fat and returns to normal. And later when Neiro tries the same trick, Luffy learns to digest the fat before it can pile up on his body.
- Photon: The Idiot Adventures: Aun is horrified when she meets her older sister again after she moved away and finds she is now really fat. Aun begins to worry that she will become fat too when she grows up.
- Played with in Please Tell Me! Galko-chan. Nikuko used to be a lot slimmer than she is now, but over time let herself go and became rather chubby. But despite her stocky figure she is still athletic enough to be a star player on the school's soccer team (and earn herself the nickname "Sonic Meat").
- Plus-Sized Elf: Part of the very premise. Most of the monster girls were rather fit, but once they entered Earth through a portal, they indulged in Earth's plentiful delicacies and became overweight. And due to certain rules of the portal, they cannot return home till they've lost the weight. Which is easier said than done.
- In particular during chapter 13, the main character Elfuda had managed to nearly regain her slim physique, but she and Naoe got tricked into eating more fries for free by the main "villain" of the series. This resulted in them eating french fries for weeks until they became fat. Thankfully after the villain's scheme was thwarted, the duo was able to lose the excess weight and slim down to normal. Except for Elfuda of course, who got stuck with her potbelly again.
- Subverted in StrikerS Sound Stage X. Quattro apparently put on weight during her incarceration, though she claims that she's back to normal by the time it comes up. Given the fact that StrikerS Sound Stage X is an audio-only work, it's impossible to know if she's telling the truth or has gotten plus-sized.
- The titular Sakamoto from Sakamoto Days used to be a top assassin and had a rather normal built. Upon retiring and starting a family however he's put on some weight over the course of a few years. Hasn't hindered his ability to kick-ass even if he has to take a less lethal route to dealing with enemies now.
Comic Books
- Batman: Batman (Grant Morrison) featured the return of the Club of Heroes, a group of international Batman-inspired vigilantes who have long disbanded since their last appearance. Italian hero Legionary was once an Olympic athlete and had a build like a Roman gladiator, but then he got sloppy and started taking bribes from crooks. In the present day, he's a self-loathing Fat Slob who tries to act like he's a Big Fun character. However, he nevertheless goes down fighting against the person trying to kill the ex-Club members, taking multiple stabs in the back and still managing a decent blow against his attacker. He even manages to leave a clue directing Batman in the others in the right direction.
- Dial H: Nelson Jent was once a boxer, and though still quite strong and his arms remain muscular, he's very fat and unathletic today. He's also self-conscious about this and is embarrassed to go to the gym.
- Earth X: Shown rather depressingly in the Marvel comic series through Peter Parker, Wolverine, and Jean Grey. Peter fell out of shape after he stopped being Spider-Man following his wife's death and falling out with his daughter May over her becoming the new Venom (though Peter does lose a lot of weight in the sequels to the miniseries). Wolverine and Jean both let themselves go because their marriage was ultimately a mistake, while Wolverine stubbornly insists his healing factor won't let him get fat.
- G.I. Joe (Devil's Due): Bazooka is portrayed as this when he volunteers to return to active duty. Having spent the seven years since the Joes disbanded as a Mall Cop, he is overweight and out of shape (and balding). He later hits the gym and gets back into shape.
- Heroes Reborn: The Fifth Week Event in 2000 revealed that the Swordsman, in addition to being his reality's Deadpool, had let himself go after his Face–Heel Turn.
- Lobo: Lobo is shown to become obese in the future in both DC One Million and Kingdom Come.
- Various characters from Super Agent Jon Le Bon! such as Mr. Shorthand, Conrad, Gerard and Agent S are shown to be a lot more buff in their youth than in the present day. Though they all retired from field work so there would be no need to keep in shape. However, the last one is revealed to be a subversion as the real Agent S was killed during his climactic showdown with Big Beaver, who replaced him with a robot duplicate.
- The Ultimates (2024): Scheming trickster Loki has turned into a Fat Idiot after usurping control of Asgard as part of the Maker's Council, thanks to spending too much time sitting on his throne drinking and eating.
Comic Strips
- In Dennis the Menace (US), Mr. Wilson is showing Dennis an old photo album, and Dennis comments on one picture, "This is you, Mr. Wilson? This skinny guy with hair?"
- In Garfield, one of the possible reasons for Lyman's disappearance from the strip was that he "Ballooned to 270 pounds; wouldn't fit in cartoon panels."
- Walt from Zits played varsity basketball in high school and used to be an absolute beanpole. These days he's overweight and gets exhausted and has his joints ache while attempting to play basketball with Jeremy in the driveway.
Fan Works
- Amazing Fantasy:
- Peter subsists on nothing but junk food due to his budget issues. This, the constant stress from his declining personal life, and the rigors of superhero work have let him go to seed, giving him a noticeable gut that he describes as a "dad bod". He even lampshades this, muttering about how he thought he'd have a six-pack forever with all the exercise he does.
- Izuku is the inverse; the fateful spider bite made him a rock-solid and leanly muscular teenager after years of being plagued with a Geek Physique. He certainly isn't complaining about the results.
- Better Bones AU: Lionblaze gains a lot of weight after losing his powers, in addition to his mane disappearing and giving him the look of a washed-up former athlete. However, he is still a strong fighter even without his powers.
- The Bolt Chronicles:
- Describes Bolt during much of "The Coffee Shop." The dog has been in great shape most of his life, but in this story, he gets into bad habits when he starts accompanying Penny's mom to the title venue on a consistent basis. He develops a barrel-chested chubby look by begging for treats from coffee shop patrons, as well as raiding the home trash can for discarded leftovers. Penny eventually puts him on a strict diet, and he is back to his old svelte self by the end of the story.
- In "The Party," Mittens encounters her former fling Tom. The latter, who used to be a "strapping, rugged hunk of feline beefcake," has been adopted into a home and become a morbidly obese Big Eater and Lazy Neutered Pet.
- Kiana Khansmith's HANAMUSA depicts Jessie gaining weight after leaving Team Rocket and starting a relationship with Ash's mom Delia. Unlike most examples of this trope though, this is treated as a purely positive development, with Word of God stating that Jessie's previous skinny physique was the result of a lifetime of being underfed and not eating healthily (due to growing up in poverty and then constantly being on the road with Team Rocket). So the extra pounds are a sign of her settling into a much more happy and stable life. Plus, Jessie herself is never shown to be bothered by her weight gain while Delia seems to rather like her girlfriend's extra curves.
- The Legend of Genji: Bolin, now a middle-aged father of four, has put on a lot of weight after settling down with Opal and no longer has the same slightly bulky Heroic Build that he had in his youth.
- Manehattan's Lone Guardian: Downplayed in the case of Gray Ghost. She had been a police officer and S.M.I.L.E. agent in her youth, but sacrificing her careers in order to marry and raise her family did a number on her physical fitness. When running from a park back to their apartment, it takes her longer than her daughter to catch her breath; in addition, she states that her lack of fitness post-retirement wouldn't allow her to pull off her Dangerous Forbidden Technique — which requires her to be at peak physical health — anymore. After the story's antagonists make themselves known, she starts taking steps to get herself back into shape.
- In the fanfic RWBY Refilled Chapter Yellow: Yang suffered a rather deep depression after losing her right arm to Adam and Blake abandoning her during the fall of beacon. But in this alternate timeline, Yang never recovered from her depression and had let herself go by moping around her home and drowning her sorrows by doing nothing but eating tons of junk food and zero exercise. This sedentary and gluttonous lifestyle inevitably led to Yang steadily gaining weight, until after two years, the former huntress lost her once muscular and athletic physique and became fat. With Yang having mentioned a few times how she used to have a six-pack…before it melted away into a doughy gut. Yet later on in the story Glynda, Velvet, and Coco have intervened to help Yang get back in shape in order to gain another fighter to help in the war against Salem. But whether or not these efforts will be entirely successful has yet to be seen.
- The author has also stated how in this alternate timeline the rest of team RWBY and a couple other characters have put on weight and become either chubby or outright fat due to stress eating in some shape or form to cope with the tragic events of the fall of Beacon.
- trickcal "what if": In "Rudd's Downfall", the normally fitness-crazed dragon who, after losing to Silphir and subsequently fell further down the ranks against the rest of the dragons, becomes an obese couch potato who watches elven TV and snacks on deep-fried rocks, having decided that trying to reclaim her rank wasn't worth it.
Films — Animation
- All Dogs Go to Heaven: Implied with Carface, Charlie's business partner, who is already a Fat Bastard when we're introduced to him. However, Charlie remarks that Carface put on weight after Itchy busts him out of the pound.
- The Angry Birds Movie: When Red, Chuck, and Bomb arrive at the Mighty Eagle's cave, they find he has not only become fat from his years of isolation, but also a Jerkass.
- Batman: Assault on Arkham, the tie-in movie to the Batman: Arkham Series, invokes this with Amanda Waller. In her appearances in Batman: Arkham Origins and Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate Waller's appearance is more akin to her New 52 incarnation, and hence had undergone Adaptational Attractiveness and is slimmer. However, Assault on Arkham, being set two years before Arkham Asylum, hews closer to the designs in that game — so as with The Joker wearing his classic tuxedo and Batman sporting Underwear of Power, Waller has gained a lot of more weight, becoming more in-line with the traditional obese Waller. DLC for Arkham Underworld shows that not only did Waller survive Deadshot's attempt at revenge, but also reused her Origins design, putting her at the opposite end of this trope.
- Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: Mayor Shelbourne started off as fairly slim and tiny compared to most people, but as he gorges on the food from Flint's machine, he becomes morbidly obese to the point of needing to use a mobility scooter to get around.
- The Incredibles 1: Mr. Incredible is still strong enough to bench-press a locomotive (and does so when he attempts to lose weight) but has a hard time fitting into his old uniform when he gets a Call to Adventure. The scene where it first shows Bob at work is even titled "15 years and 50 pounds." Mrs. Incredible, the former Elasti-Girl, also notices that her butt and thighs got fatter when passing by a reflective surface despite being in better shape than her husband was. Even after committing to a rigorous workout regimen that slims him down considerably, Mr. Incredible can't completely escape the infamous Dad-bod and Edna Mode's cutting commentary about it.
- Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus: When we’re reintroduced to him, Dib is shown to have gained quite a bit of weight since the original series ended, though he slims back down to his usual self soon after.
- The Little Mermaid: Ursula. The tie-in (though not necessarily canon) book Disney Villains: The Top Secret Files depicts Ursula as being very skinny as a young adult, but also regularly overindulging at the gourmet banquets of Atlantica, making it clear why she's obese in the film proper. If you ask Ursula, though, by the time of the film she's "wasted away to practically nothing."
- Quasi at the Quackadero: This is apparently in store for Anita. Though she is thin in the present, the "Old Age" mirror in the Hall of Time Mirrors shows that her future self is much fatter.
- In Shrek Forever After, the Alternate Universe version of Puss in Boots has given up swashbuckling and is now Fiona's pampered housepet, so fat he can't even chase mice. Shrek mentions how fa...ncy he's gotten.
- In Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Peter B. Parker let himself go after fifteen years of superhero struggles, Aunt May's death, and his subsequent divorce from Mary Jane wore him down. He has quite the gut on him due to eating too much pizza.
- The Globglogabgalab from Strawinsky and the Mysterious House allegedly was once a slender elf before he got addicted to books and gradually became the slug-blob-abomination he is now.
- In Surf's Up, Big Z is the epitome of health. Flash forward a few character-developing moments, and he's the washed-up, fat, lazy Geek.
- Buster, Andy's dog from the Toy Story movies. In the second film, he's a spry young pup the summer after becoming Andy's Christmas present. By the third film, which takes place ten years later, he's slower and heavier to the point of nearly crushing Woody with his weight.
- Wreck-It Ralph: Altered Beast (1988)'s Neff is given a chubbier design, possibly to reference the obscure nature of his game and how long ago it's been released.
Films — Live-Action
- A Bronx Tale: Slick is a tall and thin seven-year-old but is noticeably chunkier than his friends at seventeen.
- In Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022), Peter Pan becomes overweight after getting blacklisted by Hollywood for growing older.
- The Cannonball Run: According to Bradford Compton, Shakey Finch used to be the finest long distance motorcycle racer in the country. When he meets up with Shaky later, he discovers Shakey has put on a large amount of weight, leading to this exchange:
Bradford Compton: Shakey, it's kinda tough to get close to you. Last time I saw you, you were a bit more svelte.
Shakey Finch: Yeah, well what can I tell you? In the pizza business, when things are slow you tend to eat the inventory.
Bradford Compton: Yeah, but listen, Shakey, that's not good for the Cannonball. You know that! I mean, you don't need a motorcycle, you need the Super Chief!
Shakey Finch: But even with the extra tonnage, I'm still the best there is! - Irving Blitzer, former bobsledder turned coach, in Cool Runnings.
Irving Blitzer: [gazing at a photo of him and his two-man bobsled partner] Heh, would you look at me then? [looking at a reflection of himself] Oof, would you look at me now?
- In Death Becomes Her, Helen Sharp becomes fat due to the depression she suffered from her former fiance Ernest Menville marrying her rival Madeline Ashton, drowning her sorrows in cake frosting while fantasizing about her revenge. She gets back to her original shape later on, though with a little magic potion that would give her eternal beauty and youth for as long as she takes care of her body.
- In DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story, White Goodman goes from fitness guru to blob of lard after being humiliated and losing his gym franchise. Also a subversion of Formerly Fat; White was fat to begin with.
- In The Great White Hype World Champion boxer James "The Grim Reaper" Roper has so easily defeated all his challengers that it has made boxing fans bored with him and his fights. Roper's manager Sultan decides that part of the problem is that Roper and all of his serious challengers are black, and in an attempt to get the largely white fans interested in one of Roper's bouts, Sultan recruits Terry Conklin, a white boxer who knocked Roper out when they were amateurs (which is the only boxing match Roper ever lost). Roper despises the gimmick for the fight since Conklin retired from boxing soon after their amateur bout and never fought as a professional, and as a result, Roper is convinced that he can easily beat Conklin. To show his contempt for the fight and the challenger, Roper barely trains before their bout and comes into the right with a huge paunch, a big change from the fit and focused Roper seen at the start of the movie.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- Black Panther: In a deleted scene, Zuri jokes that the late King T'Chaka retired from the role of Black Panther when he became too fat to fit in the suit.
- Black Widow: Alexei struggles to fit into his Red Guardian costume, and the women can hear him straining as he does so. When he emerges, he comments, "It still fits." Melina (who partnered with him in his supersoldier days) responds with a wolf whistle, to Natasha's annoyance.
- In Avengers: Endgame, it is shown that after the events of Avengers: Infinity War Thor, consumed with grief and guilt, went on a five-year bender and now bears a massive beer belly. By Thor: Love and Thunder, Thor got back in shape after joining the Guardians of the Galaxy and now has his Heroic Build once more.
- Boxer Jake LaMotta as played by Robert De Niro in Raging Bull. DeNiro famously gained a lot of weight to play the scenes from later in LaMotta's life.
- Light Weight in Shaolin Soccer, who used to be as athletic as Bruce Lee but has since become obese, slothful and greedy. He laments that everyone now calls him "lazy swine" — not just when they're annoyed with him, but as his normal form of address.
- In Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024), Doctor Robotnik has spent his time hiding underground (or rather, underwater) after his supposed death in the second movie, doing nothing but watching trashy telenovelas and stuffing his face with junk food, growing a large gut in the process. He can't even fit in his old outfit anymore without it needing to be resized. In the context of the films, it's part of the Running Gag about how he's been slowly resembling his game counterpart more and more closely with each film, as his game counterpart was a Fat Bastard from the beginning.
- Played for laughs in Spice World, when the girls imagine themselves as mothers, and Mel C (Sporty Spice) is very fat, and on an exercise bike.
- Wonka: The Chief-of-Police starts the movie with a relative normal figure, but becomes fatter and fatter over the course of the movie as he's bribed with thousands of boxes of chocolate by the Chocolate Cartel.
- In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Dukes (aka Blob) was a muscular man in Stryker's group. Years after the group disbanded, he became obese, more like the comic book version.
Literature
- At the start of the "Legends" series of the Dragonlance saga, the formerly athletic fighter Caramon Majere has become an obese, depressed, alcoholic layabout after being abandoned by his twin brother Raistlin.
- Troy from Fat Kid Rules the World is almost 300 pounds at 17. In third grade, he was a thin boy but after his mother died, he started overeating and gaining weight.
- In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Ludo Bagman is a retired Quidditch Beater, and when meeting him Harry quickly sees that he was a powerful man gone to seed. Later during the Pensieve Flashback Harry sees Bagman then in his prime of health.
- The Princess Bride: Annette, a French maid who worked for a Duke, used to be the World's Most Beautiful Woman until the Duke's wife, not liking the way her husband was eyeing their maid, stocked their palace with free chocolates everywhere and let Annette's Sweet Tooth do the rest. However, contrary to the usual portrayal of the formerly fit character angsting about their added weight, Annette doesn't mind being fat and gets Happily Married to an equally obese baker who provides her with all the sweets she wants.
- In the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire", both Watson and Holmes's latest client Robert Ferguson; they remember each other as athletic rugby players but find each other sadly changed.
- Near the start of Some Buried Caesar, Nero Wolfe is stranded in a field by a bull he knows he can't outrun and laments, "Twenty years ago I was an athlete." Generally he seems to have few regrets, though.
- The Soldier Son: Starting with Forest Mage, the main protagonist Nevare becomes this. After recovering from a mysterious plague, this trim and fit soldier sees himself gaining weight at an abnormal rate, to the point of becoming obese in just a few months. He is accused by all of having "ruined" his body with gluttony and laziness, but nobody believes the true reason for his sudden change: he became a vehicle for a type of magic that works on a Cast from Calories principle, and his newfound power engorged him with excess weight — that he then learns he can lose by casting spells. From this point onward, Nevare's "formerly fit" status becomes an important character development focus, as he struggles between the rejection of the military culture he was raised in (which perceives him as a Gonk and a Fat Bastard) and the acceptance of his enemy culture, the Speck people (those that practice the kind of magic he is now a practitioner of), who rather consider him a Big Beautiful Man and encourage him to become a Fat and Proud sorcerer.
- A Song of Ice and Fire:
- Robert Baratheon was once a great and feared warrior, but after Lyanna's death and his ascension to a throne he didn't want, he became so overweight from excessively eating and drinking that even his best friend didn't recognize him. One of his queen's attempts to assassinate him failed because he no longer fit in his old armor and therefore couldn't participate in the tournament where "accidents" might happen.
- Lysa Arryn was noted to be a lissome young lady, but her numerous pregnancies and miscarriages and years of isolating herself in her castle have gotten to her and when her older sister visits her, her narration negatively points out how fat she's gotten. Game of Thrones inverts this by portraying Lysa as someone overly gaunt and thin.
- Mace Tyrell was considered a handsome and muscular Hunk in his youth but has put on the pounds as he's grown older. Although he isn't near as obese as Robert Baratheon.
- Magister Illyrio Mopatis is one of the fattest characters in the series. In his youth, he was slender, athletic, and worked as a sellsword for a living. He keeps a statue of himself aged six-and-ten.
- This is a common trait of Lannisters as they get older, which Tywin escapes only by virtue of an obsessive exercise regime. His younger brother Kevan is merely on the heavy side but still in good shape, but their sister Genna has gone from voluptuous as a young woman to highly overweight in her fifties and their father Tytos eventually got so fat that he died of a heart attack climbing some stairs. It appears to currently be striking Tywin's daughter Cersei as well, despite her only being in her mid-thirties, as she is struggling to fit into her dresses and is repeatably stated to not be as attractive as she was only a few years ago.
- From a historical perspective, Aegon IV took a very similar route to his great-great-great-great grandson Robert-as expected given that they are both based on Henry VIII. A strong and handsome young man, he eventually became too fat to even walk.
- Hushpad starts off in Tailchaser's Song as a slender and tiny tabby. When she's seen again at the end of the novel, she's noticeably plumper, which is heavily implied to be because she was spayed. Tailchaser doesn't particularly mind, but he does mind her laziness.
- The Underland Chronicles inverts the weight gain: Gregor's father used to be "the picture of health" but by the time the heroes rescue him, he's wasted away to emaciation over his many years of imprisonment.
- In the second installment of "The Athenian Mysteries", Nikolaos is tasked to travel to Asia Minor to discover the murderer of the proxenos of Ephesus and to return Asia to her father, who just so happens to be Themistocles - the same man who defeated the Persians at the Battle of Salamis. Once Nikolaos is properly introduced to him, the very first thing he notices is that he has gained an unhealthy amount of weight, to the point that he needs help from his slaves to lift himself up. Justified as the narrative moved forward, which showed Themistocles hosting quite frequently feasts full of large amounts of fattening food, plus a lifestyle of limited mobility.
- Wear Your Soul Round Your Neck: Thyssa has a gangly body with lots of exposed bones and nerves. She collaborates with Lili to become a human girl and finds herself "as sweet and plump as a ripened peach." Addicted to her new body, she fights to the death to keep it.
Live-Action TV
- In the All in the Family episode "Class Reunion", Edith reminisces about Buck Evans, a handsome track star with a fine head of hair. Archie is clearly irritated and jealous. When they actually meet Buck, he's fat and bald, though Edith finds him as charming as ever.
- The Big Bang Theory:
- Howard's unseen mother, implied to be hideously obese and in the words of Father Ted, prone to all the horrible ailments inflicted on middle-aged women, and that's a lot of horrible ailments, loudly laments that she was so good-looking as a young woman that hopeful young men would queue up to give her chocolates. ("Oh, why did I eat it all?")
- Another episode has the main group (and Stuart) dreaming up hypothetical situations about their lives if they hadn't met Sheldon. Leonard imagines that he would have moved in with Raj, who thinks that Leonard would have ballooned to a massive size due to his lack of a girlfriend and Raj's cooking. When Leonard protests, Raj pictures himself as equally fat in the scenario. Stuart then puts himself into the story in a desperate attempt to take part in the conversation; he makes himself obese as well, for no particular reason.
- Sheldon's Meemaw is shown to be overweight in the present day, but in the prequel show Young Sheldon she's in good shape and very attractive for her age. Sheldon's father, George Cooper, Sr. was obese in Sheldon's childhood and died of weight-related problems, but he once served in the army.
- One episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine starts with a pair of fit, handsome, and cool detectives doing a major drug bust back in the eighties. It's then revealed they're Hitchcock and Scully, the district's resident fat Jaded Washouts. The episode reveals they managed the investigation with the help of a witness who later got a job at a wing restaurant, and rewarded them with free wings for life...
Jake: No offence, guys, what the hell happened to you?
Scully: Are you body-shaming us?
Jake: No, I'm personality-shaming you. You were so alert and cool and job-doing. - This is implied to be the case with all the regulars at Cheers, in one episode Sam showed Norm his unpaid bar tab and claimed it went all the way back when he "was just the skinny guy at the end of the bar". In another episode Frasier claims he's invited a fitness expert to the bar to help them get back into shape, Norm mentions they already had one of those and when Frasier asks what happened to him they direct him to Paul the Barfly. Finally in an episode of Frasier when Sam meets Niles for the first time, he remarks "Wow...man, this is freaky. He looks just like you did when I met you. What happened, huh?" to which Frasier replies "Wasn't exactly a health club you were running there, Sam.".
- This was a running theme on The Cosby Show. In college, Cliff was a skilled runner known as "Combustible Huxtable", but years of a stressful job as an OB/GYN (plus a taste for salty, fatty foods) have made him lose his svelte physique.
- In the CSI episode "Bittersweet" one of the victims is a now-obese former male model who drowned in a vat of high-end chocolate. It turns out he became addicted to the chocolate after becoming their spokesperson and drowned himself in the chocolate to spite them by ruining the batch.
- In the Dinosaurs episode, "Steroids to Heaven", Earl reveals to Robbie that he used to be skinny in his sophomore year of year high school and that he was muscular when he was a young adult.
- Zig-Zagging Trope on The Drew Carey Show with Drew's hot fiancée Nicki. She was fat in her backstory but then lost 80 lbs., only 2 short of her target weight. When she starts going out with Drew, she gains the weight back, which we can see. When she and Drew try to make a sex tape, she sees how fat she has become and breaks up with him shortly before their wedding. A later appearance shows her back to her thin self again.
- In a Real Life Writes the Plot example, Rob McElhenney of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia deliberately did this with his character Mac in season seven of the show. McElhenney wanted to avert the Progressively Prettier trope that so often appears in sitcoms (largely because long-running shows are able to pay for better make-up, hairstyling, and clothing for their stars, while the actors themselves get bigger salaries and can afford things like personal trainers), and so gained sixty pounds of mostly fat (though he worked out with a powerlifting coach to develop an overall "broader" look as well). His character Mac did the same in the show, repeatedly claiming he was just "cultivating mass" when he was actually just plain obese. McElhenney then lost all of the weight after the season, turning him Formerly Fat for the next episodes. Interestingly, Mac would eventually get Progressively Prettier when McElhenny got ripped seasons later.
- In Enlisted, the aptly named Chubowski is obsese. It's revealed that he used to be a thin, fit soldier but Derek got him hooked on junk food as part of his wider strategy of crushing his squadmate's dreams for an easier life. Chubowksi describes him as "the author of my obesity".
- Discussed in an episode of Just Shoot Me!. An old friend of Nina's drops by and has gained quite a few pounds since they last saw each other. Nina obsesses over how to bring the subject up tactfully, but when she finally does, the friend admits that she knows she's gotten heavier, and doesn't really care; in fact, she's more concerned about Nina's fixation on her weight than the weight itself.
- In the Family Matters episode "Aunt Oona", when Steve Urkel's Aunt Oona, from Altoona, made her first appearance, she had a slim figure, but when Aunt Oona made her second appearance in the episode "Pound Foolish", she has gained a few pounds, and her admirer Reverend Fuller happens to think of her as pretty in spite of it.
- Frasier:
- Jane Leeves, who played Daphne, became pregnant in the latter half of the show's run. The producers first tried to cover her baby bump with looser clothes, but this proved ineffective. Instead, they added a subplot about Daphne indulging in sweets and baked goods to deal with the stresses in her life, and thus gaining weight (to add to the effect, the showrunners put her in padded clothing, making her appear bigger than she actually was). The episode "Hungry Heart" was the culmination of this plot — Daphne had become so large that she couldn't get up off the floor when she fell and was revealed to have hidden chocolates and pastries around the apartment to sneak snacks whenever she wanted — and ended with her going to a health spa to help her overcome her food addiction. After Leeves had her baby, Daphne returned to the show, now at her old size.
- Maris also dealt with this after Niles divorced her; it's played for laughs, as she was described in the first seasons as having a weight far below ninety pounds. Of course, we never see how she looks either way.
- Friends:
- It is revealed in a Whole Episode Flashback that Ugly Naked Guy used to be called "Cute Naked Guy" until he started to put on weight.
- Much like the The Big Bang Theory example above, an episode has the gang imagine what if Monica and Joey had hooked up instead of Monica and Chandler. Turns out the combination of the already Big Eater Joey and Supreme Chef Monica results in Joey becoming so fat that he gives fat Monica a run for her money!
- In the last season, Rachel learns that her sister Jill (played by the thin Reese Witherspoon) got fat after her breakup with Ross.
- The Full House episode "Yours, Mine and Ours" featured a vision of the future where Jesse is shown with a big belly.
- In Galavant, after the woman who he believed was his "one true love" leaves him early in the first episode to live a life of wealth and luxury as the wife of the Manchild King Richard, the show's main character Galavant goes into a depressed tailspin and spends most of the next year eating and drinking until he seems more like a town drunk than a legendary knight and hero. By the time that Princess Isabella comes to recruit him for a quest to save her homeland from Richard, Galavant is in no shape to accomplish brave feats. (Supposedly. The show made no serious effort to make Galavant actually look out of shape, and the main difference is that he’s just wearing dirtier and looser clothes when he’s supposed to be out of shape.) One of the earliest episodes features a Training Montage so Galavant would have a reason to be ripped and in great shape again for the rest of the show.
- In Living Color! parodied the famous supermodel Fabio by doing a sketch about a formerly fit superstar male model named Magnifico, who's now fat, obsessed with food, and very gross.
- Referenced in an episode of M*A*S*H. Radar decides to start lifting weights in order to build up his muscles to attract girls. Col. Potter recommends against it because when he's older all the muscle will "turn to flab."
- Modern Family: In the first episode of the seventh season, Claire and Haley are unable to prevent Andy, the latter's former boyfriend, from proposing to Beth. Later, Claire and Phil commiserate about their inability to stop the proposal...and Andy inadvertently overhears them. The stress of dealing with a wedding while knowing Haley still loves him (and that he might still love her) leads him to start eating sugary foods non-stop to cope. By the end of the summer, he's ballooned to a much bigger size because of his stress-eating.
- In The Office (US) it's revealed that the overweight Stanley was a fit and muscular Black Power activist in his youth.
- In the finale, Stanley retires and is replaced by a much younger and thinner man. Phyllis starts providing him with a ready supply if sweet treats to make him gain weight so he'll resemble Stanley.
- One Foot in the Grave: Nick Swainey notably gained weight following the death of his mother in "Endgame", which Victor acknowledges. He's back to normal weight by the time of his final appearance in "The Dawn of Man" however. This is a case of Real Life Writes the Plot as Owen Brenman had needed to gain weight for a role and was unable to lose it before filming.
- RuPaul's Drag Race All-Stars: It's not unusual for returning queens to have put on a bit of weight since their last appearance on the show, as they could be ten years older or more. Alexis Matteo and Jinkx Monsoon in particular have "graduated" to Big Beautiful Women. This gets lampshaded by Detox in her reappearance on All-Stars 2:
Tatianna: Did you get ass implants?Detox: No girl I got fat!
- A Saturday Night Live sketch parodied the old Hercules movies by this happening to him (Bill Murray).
- In Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, the central male character Gaz gets dispirited after losing his girlfriend. He gets so flabby his best friend says he'll never get Donna back looking like that. Gaz looks for exercise he loves doing in order to get his body back into shape again. As this is the sort of unglamorous British sitcom predicated on squick and the lowest common denominator, Gaz duly masturbates his way back to fitness...
Music
- In a parody of both Rocky III and the Survivor song "Eye of the Tiger", "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Theme From Rocky XIII (The Rye or the Kaiser)" is about a Rocky Balboa who ends up "fat and weak" after getting too lazy. All is not a downer for him, though; he has a new career as the new owner and operator of the neighborhood deli and makes a decent living from it.
Pro Wrestling
- While Jim Cornette will profess to never having been an athlete, he used to actually be slim and in possession of good cardiovascular stamina. Then he broke both of his knees from falling off a scaffold and ballooned up.
- In the 1970s, Kevin Sullivan had a ripped, chiseled muscular body. Around the early 1980s, he let himself go and developed a perpetual beer gut.
Video Games
- Banjo and Kazooie in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts really let themselves go years after last defeating Gruntilda. But by the end of the prologue section, the Lord of Games decides to magically slim them back down so that they can take on the upcoming challenges.
- In Captain Rainbow, Little Mac from Punch-Out!! has gained a physique like King Hippo due to being out of practice. One of the player's goals is to help Mac get back into shape.
- Gigaman in GigaBash has gained a dad-bod during his eight-year retirement, though this doesn't stop him from being one of the faster characters in the game. His "Rising" skin depicts him with the slimmer physique he had in his prime.
- Toni Cipriani, the main protagonist of Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, was relatively thin, and both his boss, Salvatore Leone, and Toni's mother, Mrs. Cipriani, comment that he may not be eating right. Three years later, Toni has put on a lot of weight, possibly caused by the stress of being in a war with the Triads.
- The hero from Grow Comeback is pretty muscular in the intro but becomes fat when the game starts after a Time Skip. The goal is to make him fit again and give him the motivation to fight a monster one last time.
- Guacamelee! 2 justifies its Bag of Spilling this way. Seven years of peaceful living as a husband and father have left Juan with a noticeable gut, and caused him to forget all the moves he learned during the first game. He instantly regains his former Heroic Build upon regaining his Mask of Power, though it doesn't help his memory any, and he has to relearn all of his old moves from scratch in addition to new ones.
- In The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Ganondorf returns after being defeated at the end of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time; he's explicitly stated to be the same Ganondorf and not a reincarnation. This Ganondorf, however, is noticeably heavier than the super-muscular warrior from Ocarina, with a rounded gut, less angular face, and generally softer body. He's still not to be underestimated, as he packs a great deal of Stout Strength and is remarkably fast for such a large man, but his overall weight gain is a hint that he's become Older and Wiser during his long imprisonment in the Sacred Realm.
- Ryuji Sakamoto from Persona 5 is a downplayed example. He used to be the star of the track team, but after Kamoshida overtrained him and broke his leg in claimed "self-defence", Ryuji has been out of shape and no longer as fast as he used to be.
- Street Fighter V sees Birdie had let himself go since the days of Street Fighter I and Street Fighter Alpha and is now a Big Eater with a noticeable gut.
- In the increasingly behind-schedule supplementary comics for Team Fortress 2, the Demoman goes from fit and athletic to rather pudgy after losing his job and drinking even more heavily than usual.
Soldier: Hello, Fat Demoman!
Ms Pauling: Demo? Um. What — hello. What happened?
Demoman: Och, wael... have ye heard aboot the Beer of the Month Club? Well, I joined the Beer All At Once Club. - In the tie-in comics for Star Wars: The Old Republic, many of the Sith Lords met in-game are shown radically different from how they are in the present as the result of years of Dark Side Corruption. Fat Bastard Darth Baras used to be calm, collected, and rather slender but years later he's gained a great deal of weight, lost his hair, and taken to wearing a mask as a result.
- In the Tekken franchise, Bob was once a very thin and pretty young man but found his mass inadequate for fighting larger opponents. He trained for years and came up with the solution of gaining lots of fat, but losing none of his speed. While his fangirls (in-universe) were initially upset, Bob's performance, charming personality, and genuine heroic nature eventually won them back. Bob is also an inversion. In some of his endings, he accidentally loses all of his bulk and goes back to his slim size. However, his combat performance notably suffers as a result. Players can even use his slim form via Downloadable Content.
- Captain Blue in Viewtiful Joe, to the point that his costume no longer fits. It's especially noticeable when comparing him to his younger self. That said, it's something of a downplayed trope as he can still kick some ass when the situation arises.
Visual Novels
- Danganronpa: Byakuya Togami, the Ultimate Affluent Progeny, is slender in the first game, but a short time later in the second game he's gotten very fat. Subverted, since this fat Byakuya turns out to actually be a different student called the Ultimate Imposter. The Imposter is much fatter than Byakuya and the various other people he's impersonated, but is so good at impersonation that this doesn't prevent him from fooling anyone. He probably had an even easier time fooling his classmates since none of them had ever met the real Byakuya in person. When the real Byakuya turns up during the game's ending, he's shown to still be lean.
- Moe Mortelli from Daughter for Dessert, an overweight veteran cop, was in much better shape when he first joined the police force. Justified, as the irregular schedule of police work leads to many real-world cops eating unhealthily.
- Idol Hakkenden: Tooru Watanabe was known for his good looks once, but he put on too much weight and decided to become a Kooky Komedian. After seeing his reflection, Tooru sweats so much that he turns back to normal.
- In Otometeki Koi Kakumei Love Revo, the female protagonist was so cute as a little girl that she regularly won beauty contests. However, winning all these beauty contests caused her to get a lot of sweets as prizes and gifts and she gorged on these sweets so much that by the time she's in high school, she's become massively overweight.
Web Animation
- The start of the second Adult Arthur short begins with Arthur noticing he's gained weight. This results in him joining a gym in order to lose weight.
- ATTACK on MIKA:
- I saw my former classmates at a class reunion, and...: Callaco was the beauty of high school and had the highest grades and bullied Koki for surpassing her to the point of exposing his bald headnote . Years later at the school reunion party, she has gained a lot of weight and her looks deteriorated.
- An uneducated father surprises the smart bratty daughter...: When Benta Gakuta came over to the Suzukis' house, Kozue remarks that he looked skinnier 15 years ago. He replies that he gained a lot of weight and went bald out of the stress of taking on debts after losing his company.
- I reunited with the girl that used to make fun of me, but she didn't know it was me...: Tenko ends up gaining a lot of weight after her failure to become a model and there were also several rumors of her bullying Yuta being spread through her school.
- I saw my former classmates at a class reunion, and...
- Etra chan saw it!:
- Yuri eats a lot of food to get fat so she can get out from an Arranged Marriage with a 41-year-old Akamatsu. She starts losing her weight when Akamatsu retracted the marriage proposal after seeing her overweight appearance.
- Hiiragi dumped Karin after his mother discovered Karin's family is blue-collared. Several years later, Karin met Hiiragi again and he gained a lot of weight.
- This also happens to Akane in one episode where she reappears after having abandoned the family for 15 years to try and collect her inheritance after her father Tokusa dies.
- Azami has unreasonable standards for a future partner and rejected many men who confessed to her. A few years later, she was able to find Kuroki who met her standards, and they became engaged. However, he broke off the engagement after finding out that she went to a host club. She eventually gains more weight as an unmarried middle-aged woman and tries again searching for a man who meets her standards by writing marriage letters to her neighborhood. Unsurprisingly, nobody takes her offer due to her appearance, causing her to harass more people in her neighborhood and the police arrest her for her trouble.
- Akane gains more weight during her pregnancy after marrying Hiiragi and this leads them to have a cold relationship throughout their marriage.
- Akamatsu gains a lot of weight after his girlfriend Yuzuriha broke up with him after she found out that he was cheating on her.
- Akamatsu becomes overweight because he eats a lot at home to cover up the fact that he is cheating on Yuzuriha with Akane.
- Azami used to be thin and beautiful but after getting married to Akamatsu, she decided she didn't need to take care of her appearance anymore and completely let herself go. Akamatsu eventually forces her to go on a diet after she starts embarrassing him at work but she just keeps getting fatter and messes with the scale in the bathroom so he wouldn't notice. Azami eventually realizes how selfish she's being by disregarding her husband's concerns and regains her former beauty.
- Yuri
- Homestar Runner:
- Implied with Bubs. He claims to have the ability to fly but after putting on weight, he can hover off the ground three inches tops.
- Storybook-style flashbacks show The King of Town as the "svelte, young Prince of Town", being much slimmer than his current counterpart. It's implied that his descent into gluttony started with him laying claim to a lifetime supply of fish sticks Strong Bad left lying around.
- Manga-Waido: Yoshika dumped her boyfriend Kazuyuki for supposedly leeching off her. When they meet again years later, she had gained a lot of weight.
- MoniRobo: Ryo and Hanayo were Childhood Friends that were separated from each other due to Hanayo's family moving away for her father's work. When she returned to high school years later, Ryo had gained a lot of weight and was bullied. He became ashamed and refused to let Hanayo see him. He eventually lost weight and became better though.
Web Comics
- A brief cameo in Alternate History (rufftoon) shows a chubbier Song twenty years in the future. This is a call back to how she mentioned to Zuko that her mother makes a lot of food.
- Diamond and Dazzle: Double Subversion with Big Eater Dazzle. Initially, his metabolism allowed him to eat whatever he wanted without gaining a pound. His eating habits later caught up to him, to the point where he had to shed off some excess weight before a vet appointment.
- The Order of the Stick: The dragon known as the Empress of Blood used to be fighting fit when she was in an elite squad of evil adventurers. After winning a throne, she thought that since dragons become larger and Stronger with Age, becoming larger should make her stronger, and force-fed herself into a grotesque blob in a bid for power.
Western Animation
- In Adventure Time Finn and Jake rescue a group of zombie like businessmen who they found frozen within an iceberg. Unable to remember who they were and without purpose, Finn and Jake decide to become their bosses, which leads to the businessmen doing all their chores and letting Finn and Jake relax more often. However this seeds laziness with the duo as they have the Businessmen start helping them save princesses when getting too tired as the fighting prolongs. Eventually The business men begin doing all the work for Finn and Jake as they simply eat ice cream and play video games on BMO all day long. Unfortunately, by becoming so sedentary, Finn and Jake begin to lose their edge. Not only do they become lazier, they've grown fatter from sitting around their tree house and eating ice cream for weeks, to the point where they can make "gut images" of others such as Ice King and Princess Bubblegum. Not even Lumpy Space Princess crying for help from a Swamp Giant on the hero vision monitor are enough to force them back into action and would rather continue lazing around. However when the Business Men start taking things too far and basically become villains themselves, the out of shape Finn and Jake are able to eventually stop them thanks to ironically to the latter's fat imploding their mechanical weapon. Finn then orders the business men to refreeze themselves again and float back into the lake. Afterwards Jake instantly shrinks back into his normal size, reducing his fat. Finn tries to suck in his gut like Jake, but unfortunately, it doesn't work and has to lose the weight the old fashioned way.
- In All Grown Up!, Betty DeVille had put on some weight compared to her muscular build in Rugrats. In the All Grown Up episode "Runaround Susie", she admits it when talking about her wedding dress for her upcoming vow renewal. "I just let the old one out a little. (pats her stomach) Okay, a lot."
- Played around with in American Dad! in the second season episode "The American Dad Afterschool Special." Stan Smith's always been a bit on the hefty side but is still a CIA agent who can do stuff like run through an entire mall and jump out a third-story window without breaking stride or getting winded. However, when Stan becomes consciously aware of his chubbiness after mocking his son's girlfriend, Stan becomes obsessed with losing weight. The episode initially shows Stan relentlessly exercising yet he becomes increasingly fatter until his boss suspends him for passing out during the CIA's annual fitness test. It eventually turns out Stan was in fact anorexic and was hallucinating his increased weight, meaning he passed out from exhaustion due to being extremely underweight.
- Amphibia: When Sasha and Grime go into hiding after Toad tower gets destroyed, Grime is shown to have grown increasingly fat and lazy due to depression.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender:
- Avatar: The Last Airbender's General Iroh was a strapping, powerful firebender in his youth. However, the death of his son led him to abandon active military service. He retained his firebending skills, but his excessive eating habits led him to get way out of shape. He uses a brief stint in captivity to work off the excess fat and reveal a powerful physique underneath. However, in the years between the end of the war and his eventual death, he appears to have regained the weight.
- The Legend of Korra meanwhile has Tenzin's brother Bumi, who was a fit Commander in the military during his One-Scene Wonder appearance in the first season. By the time the second season rolls around six months later, he's retired and gone to seed, and in the fourth season, he manages to work most of it off again.
- For books 1-3, Korra had started off with a brawny and robust build that was noticeable and subtly shown off throughout the majority of the series. However, after suffering a devastating injury at the end of Book 3, Korra was left unable to walk for a long time and eventually required years of healing and therapy before she regained her full mobility and ability to keep up with training and physical activities. But by the time book four rolled around, Korra had lost a good amount of her bulk and had become slimmer than before. But when she is able to continue her training once again, Korra managed to regain most of her lost muscle mass.
- Gaz Digsy from Ballmastrz: 9009 used to have a very lean stomach in her game career, but her time in rehab made her put on a few pounds, giving her a muffin top, but those pounds were lost before the end of season 2.
- Subverted in The Batman (2004) with Cluemaster. As a kid, Arthur Brown was a chubby Insufferable Genius prodigy who repeatedly won a quiz show challenge—but when he lost and was given a lifetime supply of chocolate bars as a consolation prize, he went insane and spent decades doing nothing but binging on the sweets and plotting revenge on the people he (incorrectly) thought "cheated" him. The combination of endless candy and lack of exercise transforms him into a Fat Bastard that makes his childhood self look like Nothing but Skin and Bones in comparison.
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold: After years of retirement, the formerly slender and muscular Elasti-Girl has become quite overweight, and is re-introduced as lounging by a pool being fed bowls of various fatty foods and snacks by numerous servants. When under attack, she's initially too lazy—and too large—to even get up to fight back. Batman chews her out and says she's not an over-pampered, overfed baby, inspiring her to return to her old size and profession. Interestingly, she immediately slims down to her former size after deciding to get back into action, suggesting that she always had the power to resume her original weight but lacked the concentration or motivation to maintain a thin form.
- Beavis and Butt-Head: A minor example for the 2022 revival. In their youth, both Beavis and Butt-head were never athletic or physically strong but they were still trim and relatively thin (possibly because they didn't have a car back then and walked off all the calories). However, in the alternate world where the duo grew old naturally, both Old Beavis and Old Butt-head are shown to be very out-of-shape. Old Beavis noticeably has a gut while Old Butt-head is incredibly fat, and some episodes show him needing a scooter to get around.
- BoJack Horseman:
- The titular main character was much trimmer and muscular in his youth during his glory days on Horsin' Around in the '90s. After the show's cancellation and years of heavy drinking and binge eating, he's developed a potbelly.
- In Season 6, Diane begins taking anti-depressants, which make her gain a significant amount of weight, which she knew would happen ahead of time as it happened to her when she briefly took them in college. This time around she doesn't mind it as her mental health improves.
- Bob's Burgers: In "The Deepening", Teddy reveals that he was once fit enough to play the role of Handsome Lifeguard #3 in The Deepening 3, but he let himself go after the mechanical shark operator played a prank on him and embarrassed Teddy in front of an actress he was hitting on. Teddy's harbored a vendetta against the shark ever since, even though Bob points out that he should be more angry at the operator than the animatronic.
- Brickleberry: As a child, Connie was in shape, albeit from being given drugs and bulimia by her Stage Mom. As soon as puberty hit, she rapidly gained a lot of weight (along with her voice deepening). Although she slimmed up in the army, she gained all that weight back due to being force-fed multiple Thanksgiving dinners by the general as punishment for her failures.
- The Cleveland Show:
- Cleveland Jr. returns here from Chuck Cunningham Syndrome in Family Guy, having put on a lot of weight. Unless that isn't the real Cleveland Jr....
- In the episode, "Cleveland's Angels", Kendra, Lester's wife, who is morbidly obese and diabetic, was revealed to resemble Marilyn Monroe in her youth before the drastic weight gain.
- Family Guy:
- The second "Viewer Mail" episode has a segment where everything's shown from Stewie's point of view. Before bedtime, he decides to have a quick time travel adventure and travels back in time to the '90s and interrupts Kurt Cobain's suicide. He instead gives him Haagen-Daaz ice cream to fill his emotional void, and when Stewie returns to the present, he finds a CD of a still-very much alive Cobain, still headlining Nirvana but now enormously fat and riding a rascal scooter.
- Jess Schlotz, Brian Griffin's ex-wife, was once very slim, but upon finding out her cancer is now in remission, she puts on a lot of weight from binge-eating since she doesn't have to keep it down anymore. She eventually dies of a heart attack off-screen.
- In "The Former Life of Brian" Brian has a flashback to one of his old girlfriends, Tracy Flannigan. He goes to see her in the present and discovers she has become a fat slob.
Brian: Wow, you sure look different than the last time I saw you.
Tracy: Yeah. Haircut.
- Fugget About It: Jimmy used to be in pretty good shape before Cookie got pregnant the first time. He immediately ballooned in weight under the stress of fatherhood (ironically gaining way more weight than Cookie).
- Futurama:
- Happens very quickly in the What If? episode where Bender becomes human. Bender, who's used to alcohol simply being processed into energy for his robot body and no experience with food at all, immediately becomes The Hedonist, even more so than he was as a robot, indulging in every food, booze, and sex he can until he's turned into a massive blob of a human. He finally dies while having a huge party with his friends and a bunch of scientists, going out in a blaze of glory in less than a week.
- Hermes Conrad was once a fit professional limboer taking part in the Olympics until he retired after a kid broke his back trying to limbo. He's currently in poor shape to limbo in the current Olympics with his large belly in his way, which he chalks up to the result of 12 years of "the munchies" but can still limbo as well as his past prime self.
- In the classic Disney cartoon Tomorrow We Diet!, Goofy is depicted as a fat, hungry man who, at one point, shows old photos of himself athletically fit.
Goofy: I was an all-around athlete!
Goofy's Reflection: That's right, only now you're just all round. - Harley Quinn: Commissioner Gordon is depicted this way. He's already stocky in season one, but then the supervillains take over Gotham in season two, the rest of the police force abandons him, and Batman disappears. He winds up as a fat, alcoholic slob who's hiding in his daughter's college dorm room, doing nothing but drinking and eating chips all day while feeling sorry for himself. Later in the season, a flashback to several years earlier shows that he'd been in excellent shape before the start of the show: a combination of work-related stress, alcoholism, and a crumbling marriage took a toll on him. He loses some of the extra weight once he decides to clean himself up and get serious about retaking Gotham.
- Bill Dauterive in King of the Hill was a fit star offensive lineman in high school who was nicknamed "the Billdozer" and helped take his team to state. Flashbacks of these glory days showed him as pretty buff but not fat, and with long thick hair (fashionable then) "like Roger Daltrey". By the time he's a middle-aged adult on the show, he is obese, balding, hygienically a slob, and pines for the mentally abusive ex-wife who left him long ago interestingly named Lenore. Double subverted when we learn that the U.S. Army tested experimental drugs on Bill and other soldiers with the intent of giving them a layer of seal-like blubber for combat in Arctic regions. It turns out that Bill was actually given a placebo, and all of his problems are his own making.
- In The Loud House episode "A Flipmas Carol", we find out that Flip used to be skinny in his middle school years.
- Megas XLR once featured a flashback sequence showing how Coop spent most of his life playing video games to explain his mastery of Megas' controls despite him being something of an idiot. The sequence also starts off with us seeing that as a kid, Coop was somewhat skinny before gradually fattening up to his current size beginning around the time he befriended Jamie.
- Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures used this gag in the episode "Mighty's Wedlock Whimsy", where Mighty Mouse's dream of being married to Pearl Pureheart has Pearl go from being thin and curvaceous to being huge and obese.
- In My Adventures with Superman, Black Boss Lady Amanda Waller is shown to have been an Amazonian Beauty when she was in the Army two decades prior, before her desk job and aging turned her into the Fat Bastard we all love to hate.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Downplayed with Mrs. Cake. She has always been chubby but before she got married, she was slightly trimmer as seen in "The Perfect Pair".
- The Owl House: Willow's fathers both played Flyer Derby when they were her age. While Gilbert has aged rather gracefully, Harvey has a visible gut in the present day.
- Paradise PD:
- Randall Crawford was in his prime in his earlier years as a police chief. Nowadays, he is overweight and has health issues (including constipation).
- Dusty Marlow used to be an extremely fit, musclebound NAVY soldier, as revealed in "PARAD-ISIS". It's not until Gina force-fed him donuts that he became the 560-pound man he is today.
- Supposedly, Mrs. Marlow (Dusty's mom) used to be thin and pretty before gaining 600 pounds. In "Blind Drunk", Dusty laments about this being the reason Strawberry left her.
- The Regular Show episode "Power Tower" reveals that Muscle Man earned his name by being a pro bodybuilder. He retired after being bored of winning competitions all the time and became the fat groundskeeper he is today, though he's still quite strong, even if he doesn't look it.
- On Robot Chicken, Jared was locked in a bakery.
- The Simpsons:
- In one episode mob boss Fat Tony is killed and replaced by his cousin Fit Tony. The stress of being a mob boss leads Fit Tony to eat more until he becomes known as "Fit Fat Tony", and later on just "Fat Tony".
- Ned Flanders is normally shown to have a well-sculpted body, but a brief gag in one episode shows he's let himself go thanks to following Homer's glowing reviews as a food critic. Near the end of the episode, Ned's somehow lost the extra weight.
- Rainier Wolfcastle is well known for his muscular physique as an action movie star, to the point he even helped Homer get into shape in one episode. He at one point is seen stuffing himself with junk food and sporting a huge gut but claims it's for a role as a fat secret agent. Several seasons later, Wolfcastle's shown to have gotten fat again and is at a fat camp with Bart, Apu, and Kent Brockman.
- South Park:
- There's an episode in which Terrance and Phillip briefly end their collaboration after the former accuses the latter of doing none of the work. It seems to have hit Terrance really hard, as he continues to do a one-man act after becoming morbidly obese.
- In "Make Love, Not Warcraft" the kids, who, aside from Cartman, are normally fit, all become morbidly obese after playing World of Warcraft non-stop for several months. Cartman in particular becomes grotesquely obese.
- Heidi Turner becomes as obese as Cartman because of the latter's toxic influence on her. Though once she manages to break up with Cartman, she eventually goes back to her original slender self.
- Star Wars Rebels: When we see Captain Rex again, he's put on a fair bit of weight after being mostly retired since the end of the Clone Wars, much to the bemusement of his allies. He's not that fat and can still fight perfectly well, but he's definitely a lot slower than he used to be, and not just because of his age.
- "The Fire of Hercufleas," an episode of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, saw this happening to the titular character (an Expy of Hercules). He was originally a great warrior, but after being tasked with guarding some mystical flames, he no longer needed to stay in shape and so became incredibly fat and lazy. When King Koopa shows up, he easily defeats the obese Hercufleas, prompting a Heroic BSoD. Thankfully, the Mario Bros. are around to provide some friendly Training from Hell.
- A flashback in the TaleSpin episode, "On a Wing and A Bear" reveals that Baloo used to be quite fit.
- In Total Drama's Season 2 finale, Heather and Harold are both the subject of tabloid highlights featuring their post-fame weight gains. Harold gets a gut from too many burritos to "expand his diaphragm" for his beatboxing career. Heather is revealed to have gained three ounces (aka a small layer of tummy pudge) which Gwen is happy to laugh at her about as the camera zooms on Heather's stomach.
- Transformers: Animated: Ratchet possesses a noticable paunch in his earth form which he lacks in his cybertronian form as seen in multiple flashbacks throughout the series.
- In Young Justice (2010) Season 3, Roy "Will" Harper aka Red Arrow has retired from the superhero life and runs a private security firm called Bowhunter Security while raising his daughter Lian. He's noticeably chubbier and less sculpted than he was in his prime, having gained a "dad bod". He's still able to fight as well as he did back then, as seen when he helps foil Brick's attack on his shipment. He's actually in better shape than he was in Season 2, where years of neglecting his own health left him underweight and lacking in muscle tone.