Great story, love it. One of the best parts is the way you write fight scenes - sure, I've seen better, but most of them are serious war fics. In super-powered fics, I get Pissed at the constant, eternal, unending posturing. Why, of why, do they never kill people? Or even worse, kill the faceless goons with a textbook perfect one-hit/kill, but just slap the bad bosses around and let them go. RUARH!
Sorry, your fic was just so great that my frustration with the poorly written BS multiplied exponentially. Despite what it does to my enjoyment of the other fics available, keep writing, please.
PS: Cultural attraction - even as "late" as pre-WWII, diet pills were designed to add those extra five kilos "for a full and curvy figure", rather than the opposite. By the same token, in many cultures it is considered attractive, both for men and women to have a considerable gut. Because fat equals plenty of food, equals wealth and/or great skill/respect. Look at the earliest fetility fetishes; to us they look like impressionistic art of really fat women, to the primitive cultures where they were made they represented health and prosperity. Something to think about.