Fatty boombalatty

Posted by Smokey Stover on September 20, 2007

In Reply to: Fatty boombalatty posted by Amy T on September 17, 2007

: Does anybody know the origin of the phrase "fatty boombalatty"? It shows up here and there, but I don't know where it originally came from...

It does indeed show up here and there, and has become a favorite of bloggers on Youtube and Myspace, usually as a self-description. Bloggers on these forums often repeat words or phrases they find "cute" or whimsical, and Fatty fatty boombalatty has the virtue of being whimsical, of rhyming, and of being an easily spoken line in trochaic tetrameter. I imagine it originated in a children's taunt, but someone here may be better informed.

One of the blogs that caught my attention was about watching out to see that children didn't become too fat. The BMI, or Body Mass Index, is often used to determine this. So mom wrote:

"If your number is over 25, you are officially (in medical parlance) a fatty fatty boombalatty; if your number is under 18, you are officially dead."
SS