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No need to apologize. My comment was admittedly abrasive, but only to direct attention at the point of the article. I would never intentionally insult someone who struggles with their weight, any more than I would do so toward someone who struggles with alcoholism or any other issue. The key word is “struggle.” I have respect for anyone who is trying to do what they can to improve their situation; none of us are perfect, and we all have have some area in which we can improve. Those people who seem “perfect” are just better at hiding their imperfections.

What does irritate me, though, is when people try to make excuses for weight issues, or alcohol issues, or whatever, and expect the rest of society to pretend that everything is normal. I’m not talking about being a few pounds overweight, in this context, or having a weight issue that’s not a result of simple gluttony. But there are people out there who simply don’t want to do what is necessary to reduce their weight, and will instead try to rationalize it by claiming that they don’t overeat and can’t lose it no matter what they do. Except for perhaps some very rare medical conditions, that’s simply not true. Reduce calories enough and everyone will lose weight. That’s after all what bariatric surgery achieves. It just forces people to reduce caloric intake. Surgery doesn’t do anything that people are physically incapable of doing themselves, if they have the will. It’s just a shortcut. I have known many people who have done the surgery, and it has worked 100% of the time (although a couple of them unfortunately went back to eating too much and eventually gained back much of the weight).

My dad, who was in the infantry, said that the military was the best at taking people who were overweight, underweight, or somewhere in between, and getting them all into shape and relatively similar weight (this was long before today’s woke military). It CAN be done, through a combination of proper eating and exercise. But I realize it is not easy.