As I am called to say frequently these days, I agree that for child obesity, any strategy that doesn't begin with family involvement is unlikely to be sufficient. Here's the problem with Kathleen Parker's misty-eyed paean to the family and how it holds the key to America's obesity problem: We're relying on it already — have been all along — and we're getting fatter.

Ordinarily, that's evidence that we need to try something more.

I'm not "for" a governmental solution, at least not by knee-jerk philosophy, and certainly not to the keen-jerk degree of those who oppose them. I start with whether a problem exists and then seek a solution if necessary. Here, Parker acknowledges the problem directly, as must any honest person who has been to a mall, an airport, or anywhere people gather.

For her solution, Parker trots out "personal responsibility." As I've said many times, I'm completely down with that. It has been my route to almost 20 years of maintaining a 155-pound weight loss, and I claim every bit of credibility that that history ought to convey.

The thing is, personal responsibility has been around a long time, too. It took me into my 30s to even consider that I owed even part of my condition to a failure of personal responsibility, and that came only from lots of personal, emotional, and spiritual education and effort.

Just as with the family "solution," availability does not equal utility: Just because it would help if these values were being deployed sufficiently doesn't mean they will be. Clearly, they're not. Just as clearly, they cannot be legislated, and such efforts are anathema to ideologues such as Parker anyway.

So does that mean we're reduced to Parker's finger-wagging? Is there no collective action we could take at all? Of course there is, and given the depth and growth of the problem, we have no choice but to try.

Just for example, not specifically as an endorsement: How about if we barred advertising of all food (no value judgements needed) to children? Our society has taken all sorts of actions to shield children from adult influence; would this one have such horrible implications for personal freedom that it could not be countenanced? The Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity says that fast-food marketers alone spent $4.2 billion in 2009; that's a powerful influence even in a world where families completely rule over what kids eat. And we don't live in that world.

There are many such actions we could take. Some ideas might be go too far; some might not go far enough. But to only pine for the old days when current conditions prove that old solutions are not meeting new problems is to consign us to a weak and flabby future. Undeniably, that's where our course is taking us now.