Our booth neighbors over the fence at the Obesity Action Coalition's "Your Weight Matters" conference in Dallas last weekend represented Take Off Pounds Sensibly, or TOPS, as it is known. Read more »

Regular visitors will know that I think that write off the cost of advertising their crap on their taxes is absurd, and that all marketers are indeed liars, as Seth Godin coined it. Read more »

The Stop Obesity Alliance has a guide for parents wanting to help their children who've developed or may be developing an eating problem. I think it is worthwhile, and recommend it to you, both for reading and sharing. Read more »

I can't say this post has much substance, but I stumbled across it and thought it mildly interesting. Take from it what you will, if at all.

The headline from front page of The Milwaukee Sentinel, July 28, 1925: "Corsetless flapper shames sister, all laced up, at weighing in." (Yes, they chose page 1 stories differently then, and wrote headlines differently, too.) Read more »

I've begun building a section of speeches I've given to my Toastmasters club on this blog, because ... well, I should be honest, it's at least partly because I'm a showoff. (Too much of one? You decide.)

But also, I am a professional speaker, and I want to highlight both my ideas and my speaking style for buyers and event planners who can't help but benefit from hiring me. Read more »

It's just coincidence, but I'm published twice today by the Boston Globe, which for 14 years was my employer. Read more »

Maybe now I’m piling on, but I’ve got one more thread to pick out of the confrontation between Wisconsin fitness scold Kenneth Krause and news anchorwoman Jennifer Livingston. See my first two comments here and here. Read more »

I was thinking of skipping over the kerfuffle about the obese Wisconsin news anchor’s response to the comments by the critical, personal-injury-lawyer fitness freak, but I haven’t blogged all week, and that’s what’s up right now.

My reactions — at least the ones I want to share — are not the typical ones. But if they were, that’d only be greater reason to take a pass. Read more »

Ask anyone, and “protecting our kids” is one of our highest values — we have child endangerment laws, and even well into their teens, we ignore their “consent” for some behaviors because we don’t think they’re old enough to know better.

But we only worry about intrusions on their bodies, not their minds. Read more »

I was talking politically with someone recently who advised me to back off on my desires and especially my expectations of what policies people will go for, and that raises a pretty fundamental question of advocacy.

Is it better to ask for what you want, or for what you think you can get?

I’m sure community and issue organizers have explored the question exhaustively. that they have concluded that no answer is always correct, and that they know when to zig and when to zag.

But I ain’t them. Read more »