I started writing "Fat Boy Thin Man" more than six years ago, and though the timing was mine, not measured to the zeitgeist, even then I thought that it was coming at a good juncture in history. 

I was right then, but boy, the pace is picking up. "Mike and Molly," the sitcom in which the main characters meet at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting, could hardly be a more mainstream example.

Last week when the Marie Claire blogger scare was going on, I was asked to weigh in at CommonHealth, a blog operated by WBUR. I was grateful to be asked and pleased to participate. 

The short version of this was, it isn't so bad, to me, that the blogger said she doesn't find fat people aesthetically pleasing. Honestly, neither do I. And here's the key point: Neither do most fat people I know! They aren't proud of how they look, and they don't much like seeing others. 

I wanted to acknowledge, but not spend too much time on, "Mike and Molly," a sitcom CBS has purchased for the fall. I watched its clip online and it appears it will be very much like pretty much every other sitcom, with extra fat jokes thrown in.

Fat jokes are a sitcom staple, of course, but usually they've come from the nebbishy fat guy, or the brassy fat woman. But Mike and Molly meet in an Overeaters Anonymous meeting, and hilarity ensues from there. Presumably.