Fat saves!

It seems salad dodging brings at least one survival advantage:

A 35-year-old Orlando man can thank his 300-pound girth for helping save his life after he jumped off a cruise ship and drifted 20 miles for more than eight hours with a collapsed lung before rescuers found him in the Atlantic Ocean.
[...]
His 300-pound girth likely helped him float easier than someone leaner, said Richard Rotundo, a professor at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine specializing in cell biology and anatomy.

"Someone who is really overweight and has excess fat, their body density would be less than water," Rotundo said. Layers of fat also would insulate Mankamyer from the water, the professor said.

I guess this also provides an example of nominative determinism - a professor specialising in fat people, with the name 'Rotundo'.