This notion that somehow it'll help obese people lose weight by shaming them has got to be one of the stupidest things I've heard in a good long time. And remember, we've just come out of a presidential election, so that's really saying something.

Some percentage of obese people got that way by turning to comfort food when they're down. And these crusaders think they'll stop doing that if you make them feel even worse?

And then there are the cases of people who have a metabolic condition that makes it genuinely hard for them to control their weight. What good will shaming do those people?

The article gave in to the reprehensible modern style of journalism, by portraying the issue in terms of extremes. I don't think much of the other extreme, like the "National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance", who'd like fat to become the new normal, and the new beautiful. That's wrong too, because obesity is bad for a person's health. Period, notwithstanding recent reports suggesting it's not relatively as bad as thought. It's still extra strain on the heart and cardiovascular system, still larger amounts of things in the blood that cause plaque build up and leads to strokes, still the large amounts of sugars and cheap carbohydrates that lead to diabetes.

But shaming sure as hell is not the answer.

Toward the end, the article acknowledges a "third way":

Instead of shaming people, social efforts should focus on forcing food manufacturers and marketers to stop creating what's been termed an "obesogenic environment."

"Calls on each of us to take more charge of our food behavior in an environment in which the promotion of fast, unhealthy foods is omnipresent and celebrity chefs extol the wonders of high-caloric meals on television hour after hour is to spit personal virtue against a tsunami of marketing coming in the other direction," Caplan said.

Still, Inge, the medical expert, says Callahan's call for more social pressure might play a role when it comes to prevention, particularly with parents of kids on the borderline of obesity.

"If we could somehow make an impact with an edgier approach with young parents who for convenience sake, or out of ignorance, poverty or whatever make very bad dietary and lifestyle choices for their unwitting toddler, that might be something very worthwhile," Inge said.

Of course there's such a thing as an "obesogenic environment". We start out life as infants being given food by other people, and that instinct lingers throughout life as a willingness to trust other people when they urge food upon us. We share food, we "break bread", we weave food into countless social rituals. Of course the way a culture treats food has a huge impact on whether its citizens become obese.

And I have to approve of the suggestion that shaming might have a positive affect on the people who urge us to eat, most especially parents. Yes, shame the hell out of obese parents who stuff fattening food down the gullets of their younguns. Hell yes tell 'em they're being irresponsible pigs; tell them whatever will make them stop abusing their children with food.

But lord, don't crank up the meanness directed at fat people.