‘But what the trolls don't realize—or they do and are too lazy to care—is that Gordon has built a career of debunking all the "proof" they offer to support their claims. If only they read one of her books or listened to her brilliant, hilarious podcast, Maintenance Phase, which she cohosts with Michael Hobbes, would they realize they've been tricked into believing dangerous, hateful lies for generations in part so the weight loss industry can continue raking in billions of dollars every year.’

I’ll reiterate here what I repeatedly wrote in that comment thread: I do not understand the Stranger’s insistence on normalizing unhealthy behaviors. Persons with medical problems need medical treatments, not false assurances that everything would be a-ok if they just remain in denial. Do you really believe there is no link between obesity and heart disease, or a host of other medical problems?

In your excoriation of the “trolls” in that comment thread, you somehow forgot to mention the only citation to actual medical research, which I’ll put again here.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23455838/#:~:text=Whole%20blood%20viscosity%20significantly%20increases,vs%203.29%20±%200.09%20mPa.

“This study shows that fatness by its own is associated with increased red cell aggregation, that abdominal fat increases blood viscosity due to a rise in hematocrit, and that overall body size as assessed with the BMI is associated with increased plasma viscosity and red cell rigidity.”

In simple terms, obesity makes the blood thicker, putting more strain on the heart. Does that sound healthy?

@2: It’s not like there’s any real scientific debate over whether chronic obesity creates a host of health risks. Your quibbling about the details would look silly even if you could someday get one of them right. (At least you’re not ranting about decades of lies by the weight-loss industry. Yet.)

The Stranger’s obsession with normalizing clearly unhealthy behaviors doesn’t help anything in Seattle, either. Maybe that little problem might concern you more than your personal obsession with name-calling anyone who gets the better of you in an argument? That’s an awful lot of names to call, don’t you think? Of course not.

(Why is it persons who disagree with you and the headline poster here can provide citations, but all you two can do in return is call names? Doesn’t that pattern begin to suggest something to you?)