Starting tomorrow, the D.C. market will play guinea pig to a commercial by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine that, in essence, blames Mickey D's for the high number of heart disease-related deaths in the District.

I'm sure the tobacco industry loves this ad.

According an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, the radical PCRM explains why it's targeting D.C. for its provocative take-down of the rainbow colored clown:

PCRM is airing the commercial to draw attention to heart-disease-related deaths in Washington. It says that the city has the second-highest rate of such deaths in the country, behind Mississippi, after adjusting for age, and that heart disease kills more than 1,500 Washingtonians each year. It also says the district has more McDonald's, Burger King and KFC restaurants per square mile than eight other similar-sized cities.

The spot will be broadcast on local news stations and on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" in the Washington area. PCRM says it is also considering running it in Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami and Memphis in coming months.

Susan Levin, PCRM's director of nutrition education, says the group is singling out McDonald's because "they epitomize fast food and the permeation of fast food in the country."

The group also plans to write to Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty to seek a moratorium on the construction of new fast-food restaurants in the city. In 2008, the Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance imposing a moratorium that wound up lasting two years on the opening of new fast-food chains in a 32-square-mile area that includes some of the city's lowest-income neighborhoods.

I should note that PCRM has an active campaign to convert you to veganism.

Reagan National landed at the very bottom of this year's Airport Food Review, the annual survey in which the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine scours the nation's busiest airports, looking for the ones that serve the healthiest cuisine. The best airports for keeping your cholesterol grounded are Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, which tied for first in the PCRM's survey. Ninety-five percent of the restaurants at both airports serve at least one "low-fat, high-fiber, cholesterol-free breakfast, lunch, or dinner option," which is the criteria for being labeled a "healthy" eatery.

You have to admit, that's a pretty damn low threshold—I mean, just one dish all day long—and still only 60 percent of Reagan National's restaurants make the grade. PCRM tried to throw Reagan National, that last-place dog, a bone for not being a complete sniveling mess:

While National Airport remained in last place for a second year, the airport was also the most improved. National had the largest increase in percentage of restaurants offering healthful options—from 42 percent in 2007 to 60 percent this year.

The whole survey got me to thinking about why National doesn't rate better, particularly when measured against the two main airports in Texas (DFW and Bush Intercontinental, which were first and third on PCRM's list), where folks measure their success by the size of their ranches, their belt buckles, and their bellies. So I decided to check Men's Fitness magazine's latest survey on America's fittest and fattest cities.

Sure enough, Dallas, Fort Worth, Chicago, and Houston all placed on the magazine's list of the fattest cities. Fort Worth is No. 4, Dallas No. 6, Houston No. 10, and Chicago No. 20.

So what conclusion can you draw from this thin data? Well, that maybe chubby cities are trying to control their citizens' widening waistbands by mandating healthier eats at their airports? Yes? Possibly? I mean, don't these towns get embarrassed by these annual surveys labeling them the fattest asses in America?

Well, it sounds like a logical theory until you look at Las Vegas. Men's Fitness calls it the fattest city in America. Its airport is also one of the poorest performers on PCRM's list, coming in at No. 10.

So much for that theory.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Thombo2.