Up to now, it would be wrong to describe this as sparring, because you have to have a partner for that. In the recent past, I’ve been opining, and someone whom I’ll keep nameless has been vehemently dismissing my perspective. Not just disagreeing, but dissing, and responding to claims I don't make and beliefs I don't hold.

OK, sure, it’s just another moment in social media.

But his last couple of comments have been worming into my serenity, until I decided today to address them. But I’m not just talking to him.

I spent a while with Sean Anderson, the velvet-voiced proprietor of Transformation Planet, last week, and this is what resulted:

IMO, you should listen just to hear Sean speak. He's got pipes! (Yes, he also has substance, tact, and sensibility.) Good guy, good talk.

... and I just don't know why anyone would defend a person's right to be live obesely.

This *isn't* me saying that obese people are bad. This is me saying I was obese, and there was nothing good about it. N-o-t-h-i-n-g-!

Even a quarter century later, I'm glad I'm not obese, and I'm willing to work against a return to it. It is easily(!) worth doing, and pays rewards every single day. 

In conjunction with Kick Sugar Addiction World Summit 2017 (link to the 2016 event), I'm offering a free food and weight consultation to you, or to anyone you know. We'll talk for 30 minutes, via phone, Skype, or other electronic conveyance, about the struggles you face, and what I can contribute to your overcoming them.

For all the time that humans have been afoot, we have been adjusting to “the environment,” very often on the fly, very often in the face of peril. So it’s risible that a study just released by the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery asked respondents to opine on the cause of obesity: personal choice or environment and genetics.

[This is a press release from the National Eating Disorders Association. I don't typical just "rip and run" press releases, but I am for this, which I consider important and significant.]

NEW YORK CITY, Aug. 24 — The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) applauds New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman and the New York Health Care Bureau for the milestone, mental health-parity decision announced yesterday, which awards a $1.6 million settlement against Buffalo-based HealthNow, New York, Inc.

I’m fond of Al Lewis, but we don’t always agree. In this HuffPost column, which I’m just catching up on, he equates all efforts to address obesity within wellness programs as fat-shaming. And that’s just overstatement born of inadequate understanding.

It’s OK, Al, I’m here to help, in the spirit of sharing.

In two prior posts, I’ve agreed with influential blogger Morgan Downey that the proposal in Puerto Rico to fine the parents of obese children is a bad idea, and that the food environment has a great deal to do with the globesity crisis.

But I balked at the implication that parents don’t have primary responsibility for obese children. I wouldn’t have said so before 5 or 10 years ago — because I didn’t get it — but now it’s clear: incorporating fitness and nutrition into children’s worldview is a basic ingredient of child protection.

If fines aren’t the right tack, though, what can be done collectively? I usually fail, but I’ll try to be brief. Clearly, the basic choices are to act or not to act.

In a recent post, I reacted to writer Morgan Downey’s mockery of a ham-handed suggestion in Puerto Rico to fine parents whose children are obese.  I think the suggestion is not helpful, but I objected to Downey’s giving not even a nod to the fact that parents do have a huge role in how kids learn to eat.

Downey focused his prescription on the food environment, and though we agree on its potency, I would put the onus on parents here, too, in part because in this world, a crucial role for parents is to educate their kids about media excesses — which is to say, “media.”

"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.