The Boston Herald has a story on food addiction today, and mine is the photo they used to illustrate it.

Apparently they had someone else lined up to shoot, but she backed out. I gather that it was because she's in a Twelve Step fellowship and they have an anonymity clause, which hadn't come up earlier in the paper's process.

So they called me. It's fun, and of course, I'm glad to have a mention of "Fat Boy Thin Man" before so many people.

One of the photos they feature has my niece laying on my chest; she's 24 (yesterday!), but she was in her first year when the picture was taken, and I was about 350 pounds; it is one of my "best" fat pics. It was published once previously, too, in a Virginia newspaper that picked up from the wire something that I wrote for Globe a few years ago.

The story, written by Jessica Fargen, covers the bases fairly well, touching on brain chemistry and behavior. For expert input, she turned in part to Phil Werdell, a good friend whom I met when I went to his Acorn treatment group, and who now is a friend and colleague.

The early comments from readers, meanwhile, are just as you'd expect — or I should say, just as I would expect, from my experiences writing about food addiction in the daily press — complete troglodytes.

This one is particularly insightful:

These slobs who are mainlining godiva chocolates and snorting ice cream, and then driving around the grocery store in those little golf cart things because they are too fat to actually walk make me sick to my stomach. ... put down the chalupa and "diet coke" and start taking walks.

He (someone who so imperious and disdainful is almost certainly a guy, no?) uses the language of drug abuse, while mocking the idea that something drug-abuse-like is at work. 

Additionally, he falls into a trap I have stumbled into myself, when he he says that the people in carts are there because they're too fat. That might be a valid interpretation of what we see, but so is this: They have become disabled by something we don't know about, making it impossible for them to exercise and exacerbating the obesity. What I remind myself is, when I go there, is that regardless, this is someone who is disabled, and viewing him or her disdainfully is hardly a christian response. 

This is BS. I have been overweight off and on for almost 40 years. Usually the weight goes on due to job stress or similar issues - and off when things settle down. Regardless, it is simply giving in to Cheeze-Its, Peggy Lawtons, Ben and Jerry's, etc. - when I really should just bite the bullet (no pun intended) and say "no". I have no "disease"; yes, it would be nice to have a pity party like the alcoholics and drug addicts; however, it is just plain will-power, or better put, lack of drive to keep it (weight) off and exercise and eat better. ... Using the term "disease" is a cop-out. Same for dope as well. Whether it is dope, booze or Oreos, most of us DO make that choice to put it in our mouth. When it's time to dry out (and eat rabbit food for 6 months), it's simply "that"; namely, getting on the wagon and exercising a little discipline and will power.

It's called self control. Next week the Herald should do an investigation into fingernail biting.

This, one, too, reveals a thing or two: Even if compulsive overeating and food addiction were analogous to mere bad habit, his analogy would still be ignorant. Fingernail biting and its effects do not constitute a threat to human welfare and fulfillment, to national security, or to exploding healthcare costs.

Obesity does constitute these things and, as such, deserve exploration. As I often say to troglodyte nation: How're your ideas working? Are they working at all? Two of three American adults are classified as overweight or obese. Is that a problem, in your eyes?  Does it deserve attention? Perhaps new ways of thinking? Or do we just want to blame the fatties and see the problems worsen?