Jennifer LaRue Huget, whose words have appeared elsewhere on this page for more than a year, has no doubt attracted plenty of traffic to her "The Checkup" blog at the Washington Post with her reaction to the UCSF researchers' call last week for regulating refined sugar.

Good for her, though I don't agree with her take; I shared my thoughts last week.

Her point is that people don't like scolds, and that the proposal, with which the authors' seek to address the nation's obesity epidemic, is the product of scolds. Her response to such clucking, she says, is not only to finish whatever dish was targeted, but to go have more, just out of spite.

I can relate to that response — most often, in the context of my mother; more than once, earlier in life, I rejected her ideas, even though I'd have agreed with them if she hadn't voiced them. These weren't my most mature responses, of course, and Huget's point, as I understand it, is about the best way to effect change, not an endorsement of immaturity.

As I said last week, I'm not sure if I'm down with the UCSFers' points entirely, partly for the ideas that Huget raises. But the proposals have the virtue of urging action, and we are — or urgently should be — past the point of talking about how to address this problem. Relying on personal responsibility, a tenet central to my message, has gotten us to where two of three American adults are overweight, and one out of three kids are. 

Not working!

In an interview with me a couple of weeks ago, healthy eating advocate Nancy Huehnergarth said "it's not sustainable until it's put into law." She was referring to voluntary actions by food companies to make their products less harmful, but it applies here too. 

We've tried it one way and this is the result. We have to try another way, if we're not to end up the way the movie "WALL-E" depicted the future in which no one walks because no one can (but at least their hovercrafts have cupholders). 

Especially in a crisis, it is not enough to say, "that's a not a good idea," if you don't have a better one.