Final notes from the inaugural “Your Weight Matters”ment that seeks to address issues around obesity is that our issue is not about — and shouldn’t be regarded as — fashion, but about health. Some obese people escape the many adverse health effects related to the condition, and people who are not obese do experience those conditions.

There’s a large, soft middle where there does appear — to me — to be a connection, but still, public health is a far sturdier platform to stand upon than the unfairness of what mean people think and do.

If you accept that, then “your weight matters” might not be the best moniker.

Bariatric bad girls

Among the 200-plus attendees were at least a half-dozen friends wearing t-shirts proclaiming their defiance against some of the behavioral suggestions they’ve been given to maintain their surgical gains.

I invited a few of them over to our booth to learn further, with only limited success — I’m still not sure, for example, if they were reacting to officialdom, or just officious fellow patients who, to them, are tight-assed worrywarts.

The one example I recall was someone who replied to my query about what makes them bad by saying, “Like, you can’t chew gum,” as her tongue poked out to brandish her defiance. Not in bariatric-only terms, but I tend to agree that chewing gum is not my friend, even if it’s sugar-free and I never swallow it. To me, chewing gum is strongly akin to lap dancers — both get the juices flowing but never deliver. After a while, I got the point that I was better off just not starting.

Even so, the bariatric bad girls were a hoot. You'll find their Facebook page here, if you're interested.

Especially for an inaugural, the conference was well run (to the extent that I’m qualified to make that judgment). Next year in Tennessee, I believe.