I was conversing the other day with my autodidact pal, Ron, when we stuck on a point about eating: He considers "food addiction" and "compulsive eating" to be the same thing, and I don't.

You may remember that a couple of weeks ago, I published an interview I did with Zack Jordan, whom I met when he reached out to me on Facebook after reading my book. He told me he was a "gay gainer," someone who tries to gain mondo weight because he thinks it would fulfill him.

This morning, I got this from him, which I'm sharing with his permission:

I point you toward dullsubjects.com, where proprietor Scott Davis has filed the first part of his "Confessions of a compulsive eater." This excerpt should tell you that he and I are of an ilk:

Connecticut-based insurer CIGNA is about to embark on a seven-month series of free telephone seminars to help people better understand eating disorders.

The first is next Tuesday, and will feature Stacie McEntyre, executive director of the Carolina House residential eating disorders treatment center.

One reason skeptics scoff at the notion of food addiction is that they eat, and so they think they know. And they do know their own experience, but they don't know mine or others' like mine. It's one reason I write on these topics.

Well, I've just completed a collection of short stories by someone who does understand, and whose wider distribution will achieve the goals I'm pursuing — to help people get it.

In the mediocre film "Lunch Line," which I saw a week ago Sunday as part of the Museum of Science's "Let's Talk About Food" series, famed "lunch lady" Ann Cooper makes the observation that "many registered dietitians don't have a strong background in cooking and food."

I suppose it's a mark of achievement for Marie Claire's online component that I feel moved to comment again on something it published, considering it's not a site I visit.

Back a while, there was the firestorm that ensued after an MC writer confided her revulsion when she saw fat people. It brought thousands of horrified retorts within days, and I was asked to comment by a Boston-area health website.

For the second time in a week, I find myself flummoxed by the declaration of an "expert," and so I must disclaim again: I'm neither a doctor nor a scientist, but I do read a lot.

I don't know Rick Berman, a PR guy who shills for the restaurant and food-processing industry, and have not before read anything he's written, but given that his piece was recommended to me by the discredited "Center for Consumer Freedom," I expected to encounter half truths and blinding lack of insight. And, I did.

My first impulse for the headline was to write something more caustic, but that never helps. Besides, the utterer of this absurd-to-me statement is the "expert!"