An article on Kibbutz Afkim headlined the front page of The Boston Globe today. Kibbutz Afkim manufactures their own brand of electric scooters - Afikim Electric Mobilizers, and has found their largest consumers (no pun intended) in fat Americans who are willing to pay big bucks to avoid walking.

Centers for Disease Control claims that more than 60 million adults in the U.S. are obese, but as the article states, "That health crisis is Afikim's business opportunity."

The kibbutz factory, which designed its first scooters 15 years ago for elderly and infirm kibbutz residents who could no longer walk or bike to the store or communal meal hall, has super sized its latest top-line, four-wheel, battery-powered scooter, upgrading the motor and replacing a two-person bench with a single bucket seat. The model, which previously had been marketed in Israel to carry two or three passengers, has been reconfigured to move a single passenger weighing as much as 500 pounds.

While the majority of the Kibbutz' customers are the elderly, $2 Million in sales went to "heavy customers" in the past year.