Welcome to another version of "10 Words of Less," in which I ask brief questions of interesting people and ask for brief answers in return. Today's participant is a researcher on obesity and related topics on the faculty of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City. He said a few things I think are worth writing about further, but for today, please enjoy the interview. An edited transcript will follow in a separate post, and then maybe a little more after that.

I was Toastmaster at my local club a couple of weeks ago and shared about my quest to attend every Major League Baseball park.

It's rarer these days than it used to be, to get a radio call seeking an interview about "Thin Boy Fat Man," but I got one May 2 (and am only getting around to posting the audio from it today). Thanks to Michael Cohen from WILS in Lansing, Mich., not only for asking but for being very well informed. That's not always the case. Link to audio segment (about 7 minutes).

An exchange I had on social media leads me again to discuss Health at Every Size, the very strong, very spirited movement that maintains that obesity isn’t the issue society should be concerned about.

Forty seconds of frivolous fun.

h/t to Yoni Freedhoff, though who knows where he found it.

Immediately after I completed my presentation to about 50 students at Middletown High School in Connecticut Tuesday, someone I was working alongside offered, “Tough crowd. It’s hard to get through to teenagers,” and that may sometimes be. But when my wife asked how it went (she called special, in the middle of day; ain’t she sweet?), I said I just didn’t know.

But now I do, thanks to scans of student-feedback forms sent to me by the organizer, and it’s better than my evenhanded skepticism would have surmised. 

An impressive friend of mine, Dennis McCurdy, not only walks on fire, he hosts firewalking events so that others can experience its benefits. He has two events scheduled, for May 31 and Sept. 13, both in Sturbridge, Mass. For more information, go to find-away.com.

Here's the last quote from "Fed Up" I have to offer, but of course I didn't capture them all. See the film when you get the chance, and pick out the quotes that strike home for you. Here's one of several gems from Bill Clinton, who was asked why the government isn't doing more:

"I can't answer that. America is insufficiently alert to the damage we're doing due to excess sugar intake."

Clinton, who has notably gone vegetarian since leaving the White House, looks substantially more healthful in this movie than many might remember him.

The hits just keep on coming from "Fed Up," the documentary whose Boston premiere I caught a week-plus ago. Here's a quote from Michael Pollan:

"School lunches have evolved to serve the food processors more than the students."

This content is entirely out of context on this blog, but I was interested, anyway.

As a kid, I read “Yes, I Can,” Sammy Davis Jr.’s autobiography, several threads of which have remained in memory for decades since. (From a writer’s perspective, that’s impressive, and I hope words I’ve written may also stay etched in readers’ memories for that long.) One tale that, not surprisingly, has survived is the account of his auto accident that cost him sight in one eye.