A couple of decades in recovery from food addiction has taught me that it's an illness best self-diagnosed, because — well, to speak for my own experience, until I conceded that I had it, I sure wasn't going to do anything about it.

Having said that, I think that Clifford the Big Red Dog may have issues.

Regular visitors will know that I think that write off the cost of advertising their crap on their taxes is absurd, and that all marketers are indeed liars, as Seth Godin coined it.

I've said some of this before, but a BBC health report (Obesity surgery "seen as quick fix") says it too, affording an opportunity to extend my remarks: Bariatric surgery might be the right choice for some obese people, but I have a very hard time regarding it as a complete solution for the people who qualify to receive it.

I didn't get to be 365 pounds with "only" an eating problem, and the size of my stomach was not a primary cause. So how could surgery that only would have made my stomach smaller resolve all?

Friday and Saturday, I'll be in Dallas at the first "Your Weight Matters" conference hosted by the Obesity Action Coalition.

I'm looking forward to meeting many of the several hundred folks who are registered, and hope to sell a few copies of "Fat Boy Thin Man" while I'm there.

I'll be sharing booth real estate with Meredith Terpeluk, a friend and colleague who has just released her book, "Healthy Voice."

The Stop Obesity Alliance has a guide for parents wanting to help their children who've developed or may be developing an eating problem. I think it is worthwhile, and recommend it to you, both for reading and sharing.

I've begun building a section of speeches I've given to my Toastmasters club on this blog, because ... well, I should be honest, it's at least partly because I'm a showoff. (Too much of one? You decide.)

But also, I am a professional speaker, and I want to highlight both my ideas and my speaking style for buyers and event planners who can't help but benefit from hiring me.

If you haven't seen this, then you should. And then, you should share.

It's just coincidence, but I'm published twice today by the Boston Globe, which for 14 years was my employer.

Maybe now I’m piling on, but I’ve got one more thread to pick out of the confrontation between Wisconsin fitness scold Kenneth Krause and news anchorwoman Jennifer Livingston. See my first two comments here and here.

In a previous post, I waded into the lives of Wisconsin news reader Jennifer Livingston and the unkind words addressed to her by a viewer, Kenneth Krause. As I said then, my inclination was to skip by it because I am constitutionally averse to the predictable, and my impression was that this was that.

But the more I considered, I realized that Livingston’s on-air retort, and the groundswell of support for her, were obscuring issues that are better off aired.