DALLAS, Texas – When two men showed up a few months ago at the adult soccer league in suburban Dallas, Mr Anthony Williams took their measurements – height, weight and waist circumference – and came back with disappointing news.

“I told them, ‘Sorry, you’re not fat enough’,” Mr Williams, one of the league’s coaches, recounts recently, as he watches two of the league’s teams – Fat Man United and Totten-Ham and Cheese – battle in an indoor arena an hour’s drive from downtown.