“Couch Potato”
I have been actually wondering where the term “Couch Potato” came. Why, in so many things in the world, we were associated with potatoes? Who was the one responsible of this term? As I have searched for the answers to these questions, this is what I have found:
The term “Couch Potato” was first coined in 1976 by American underground comics artist Robert Armstrong. In the early-1980s, he would register the term as a trademark with the US government; he would also co-author a book with Jack Mingo, called The Official Couch Potato Handbook, which delve into the lives and secrets of Couch Potatoes.
The term would eventually enter common American vocabulary, generally defining one with a habit of eating potato chips while watching TV. The phrase was entered into the Oxford English Dictionary in 1993. Though this derivation of the phrase may have currency, the idea of a couch potato stems from the idea that they (potatoes) given enough time and left alone tend to sprout. People living on a couch tend to sprout all kinds of funk.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/
So, it was the comic artist Robert Armstrong. Like potatoes, a “couch potato” just sprouts in due to his lifestyle that lacks physical activity. Thus, he grows bigger in that couch just as potatoes grow from where it is planted. Hmmm, good thinking there by Mr. Armstrong.