"Puerto Rico doesn’t have the answer" is the headline of Morgan Downey’s recent post about an island proposal to fine parents whose children are obese. Worst idea ever, he says.

Right up front: I don’t want to fine parents of obese kids either. Bad idea, in every way. But the post has enough meat to chew on that it’s worth checking in anyway. Here’s Downey’s comment upon disclosing the idea:

"Oh, that will help! 'Parents: Starve your children and you save a few bucks!' Wow, what a deal! That will overcome the cries of hungry children.”

I’ll dispense with the dumb crap before getting to the worthwhile issue: Starvation? Cries of hungry children? Is there no middle ground between starvation and obesity? One doesn’t starve children into good health, any more than one does to overfeed, or poorly feed, or exercise no control over food choices.

This came into my view thanks to @yonifreedhoff. It's a Funny or Die spoof of a Chipotle ad that Dr. Freedhoff set up as, "if you've seen that, you've got to see this." And I'm sure he's right. But I *haven't* seen the Chipotle ad, and I still say "you've got to see this."

The first time I saw this, I just sent a tweet, pointing out that Zagat blog — which one would think would understand about food — was ignorant on a major point, that “guilty pleasure” and “fast-food ‘addiction’” are not the same thing. But now I see, via my Google Alert for “food addiction,” that it’s a series, and they’ve got to stop.

Perhaps it’s stating the obvious, but like just about everything else is capitalist America, money is at the center of our obesity crisis.

For the food industry, the issue is profit, of course. In such a thin-margin business, the only way to increase profit is to increase sales. No wonder they spend tens of billions on marketing annually.

But as a recovering food addict, I have an entirely different perspective on food and money, and that’s the untold thousands I spent to get my substances, completely disregarding prudence.

I was one of those who expressed qualified praise for McDonald’s Happy Meal changes: Apple slices, smaller French fries, slightly better beverage options. Other commenters, particularly “Appetite For Profit” author Michele Simon, drew different conclusions, which she discusses in a blog post headlined, “Who Put McDonald’s In Charge of Kids’ Health?" at appetiteforprofit.com.

I don’t know her, but I follow her Twitter feed and respect what she writes, including this one, even though I find enough disagreement in it that I feel compelled to rejoin, even on a day when I should be writing other stuff.

Let’s start with the headline: To my mind, we did. Doing nothing more than taking full advantage of the capitalist process, they advertised and promoted until we made them, via our billions and billions of purchases, the leader in fast food. They could have spent all that promotional cash and if we hadn’t bought what they were peddling, they would have failed. But we have bought, and now they have enormous influence.

The Twitter is atwitter with McDonald's announcement that it now has a "comprehensive plan aims to help customers — especially families and children — make nutrition-minded choices whether visiting McDonald’s or eating elsewhere."

One of the dodges that food-industry lobbyists and apologists use is that those foods are fine when eaten occasionally as part of a balanced food plan. I would dispute even that, because crap food is crap food, regardless of how often it is consumed. But certainly, consuming more of it is worse than consuming less of it.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest has sued McDonald's in California over the fast-food giant's use of toys as come-ons to kids to purchase their products.

According to an NPR dispatch, "The lawsuit asserts that under California's consumer protection laws, McDonald's toy advertising is deceptive. It targets children under 8 years old who don't have the ability to understand advertising."

Faced with fresh assaults on fast food from politicians and anti- obesity activists, the restaurant industry is gearing up to fight back, emphasizing the role fast-food businesses have played in providing jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities.

That's the lead paragraph from a story in the Los Angeles Times yesterday, and I just have to laugh at the attempt to misdirect.

Actually, my headline is wrong. Fast food is absolutely a battlefront in the culture war. But that's part of the misdirection I wrote in my previous post.