I don’t know if you guys have been, but my gf lived in Honk Kong for a few years. They are a very lean people, and they have horizontal moving sidewalks on the streets. In a mall setting, an escalator makes sense in that consumers purchase bags of goods, and don’t want to lug them up 4, 5 6 or 7 stairs even. I’m in good shape and I wouldn’t.
Blame the civil engineer who designed the offset in the floors, not “typical fat American’s”.