I agree with you, that's a sad state of affairs. I am not a small person by any means, I am built to be a "bigger" person - even at my healthy body I am considered "overweight" HOWEVER I knew I was healthy because I could walk or run for miles and be okay. I may have had to wear a size bigger in clothes than I…

This is true. Look at other countries. Asia for example where fast food was not as prevalent in the past because there were no MickyDs or KFCs there. The population was overwhelmingly thin or fit. Nowadays with capitalism, those chains have increased in quantity and obesity has risen much more rapidly in part to…

I shudder thinking of that poor kid's teeth. :(

Sometimes people are just heavier. I read the other day that you can be genetically susceptible to gain and carry weight easier. You're probably healthier than a lot of "normal" weight people, like my miraculously skinny friends who eat 10x more crap than 160-lb me.

It's barely even their fault, either. If you don't have access to reliable health info, all of the advertisements would lead you to believe you're giving your kid a healthy diet by making them drink fruit juice and vitamin water. It's really a shame what advertisers are allowed to get away with these days.

i await the day the employee doesn't roll their eyes at you when you ask for the salad option without the meat in it. what's the world coming to when even salad isn't vegetarian?

Ugh! Juice and Kool-Aid! I used to do healthy living workshops for people with intellectual disabilities, and they ALL believed those (especially juice) were better for you than soda. It was such a difficult misunderstanding to correct. Some juices are even higher in sugar per serving than soda, just take a look at…

I went to a private school and the soda machine was off limits for everyone except facult and high schoolers. I never realized public school kids were getting sodas or really sweet drinks b/c all we were allowed to drink was lowfat milk, lowfat chocolate milk, and some kind of poor man's Tang, or water. But was in…

How dare Michelle Obama cut into our diet industry profits! Thanks, Obama.

Obesity is as bad for your health as smoking, but nobody is defending smoking anymore. Some ppl smoke until they're 85; some fat people are perfectly healthy. That doesn't mean these things aren't bad for you.

I basically said the same thing. I don't get the arguments against health education. Fat shaming is bad, but promoting health is not fat shamming.

All that acidity from that soda, too. His poor calcium levels.

Look, as someone who used to be 275 lbs at 5'4, yes, there is something wrong with carrying that extra weight. It made me sluggish, unable to move without pain, exacerbated my sleep apnea, I seemed to catch various "bugs" easier and more often, my blood pressure was insanely high, and my weight put me at a high risk…

My wife had a patient who was 10 or 11 and was already morbidly obese, showing signs of joint damage and diabetes. He drank liters of soda every day. They told the parents to cut it out and give him water only.

"Stop fat shaming children and poor people, Michelle Obama."

It's well known in medicine that obesity can lead to health issues. Anyone who argues otherwise is basically in the same league as the global warming denial types. "Correlation is not causation" is the same argument they made.

Wait... federal policy can have positive effects?

I've already gone through this many times: there are definite cases where obesity is causative for disease. From sleep apnea to diabetes, obesity can cause disease.

Yup, there are zero associated health risks.

As someone who has worked in agriculture, food security, nutrition education and yes, obesity prevention for years, this is great news. There has been a huge (albeit often mis guided) push to educate people on how to keep themselves and their kids healthier food and weight-wise and it is really great to see that it…