"When I was growing up, Kiara," Nala said quietly, in sharp contrast to her hot anger of a few seconds ago, "The pridelands were going through some really bad times. We barely had enough food as it was; I had to be in good enough shape to hunt just to make sure that no one else starved to death."

"But that's not a problem now, mom!" Kiara said. "We have plenty of food."

"I know we do, sweetie, but if something were to happen again, we'd need everyone to pitch in, and you can't do that if you're too fat to move." Kiara looked down again, feeling ashamed of herself for the first time.

"Dear, you know I love you," Sarafina interjected, "but I think you're being too paranoid. Scar's reign was an unhappy accident, but that was the first time anything like that had ever happened, as far back as anyone knows. I asked Rafiki about it, and if anything of that magnitude had ever gone wrong before, you know he would have known about it."