Bettina Eilas Siegel, proprietor of The Lunch Tray blog, also addresses — quite well— Kathleen Parker's Washington Post op-ed about how family leadership is the route of salvation from the epidemic of obesity.

One commonality I note is that we both agree that family involvement is necessary but neither of us thinks it is sufficient. Our prescription is multifaceted.

As I am called to say frequently these days, I agree that for child obesity, any strategy that doesn't begin with family involvement is unlikely to be sufficient. Here's the problem with Kathleen Parker's misty-eyed paean to the family and how it holds the key to America's obesity problem: We're relying on it already — have been all along — and we're getting fatter.

Ordinarily, that's evidence that we need to try something more.

I saved a portion of the survey I wrote about previously because it touches on a subject I've been slow in approaching: Is government intervention the best way to reduce the alarming level of obesity in America?

This story from foodnavigator-usa.com has plenty to comment on, and we'll see what I get to, but I want to start with the fifth paragraph:

Nevertheless, only 44 percent said they incorporate at least one healthy food into their diet.

Where to begin? Is one going to get healthy, or even healthier, by incorporating "a" healthy food into one's diet? Isn't the goal to eat healthily, not to incorporate a healthy food?

If you're "incorporating a healthy food," doesn't that presuppose that what you're eating now is unhealthy? That can't be a good starting point for anyone.

More than half of the survey respondents aren't even incorporating one healthy food! 'Course, considering that only 39 percent say they're "very concerned" about eating healthily, maybe that's not such a bad number.

In this dispatch from foodnavigator-usa.com, the soda industry is reported to complain that New York City's effort to bar food stamps' use for sugary beverages is discriminatory.

To which I say, "Of course it is! But what's your point?"

A comparison between increases in the rates of obesity and of soda consumption:

No, it doesn't mean one caused the other. But you can decide if it's mere coincidence.

Some people oppose any public suasion of any kinds on food choices — and even some of those do so honorably, instead of being motivated merely by their paycheck. I suspect they would object to the above.

But here's the thing, even putting aside the question of whether sugary soda is even food, or, in the coinage of Michael Pollan, a "foodlike substance." If any currently "acceptable" food or drink product warrants this sort of treatment, it is sugary soda.

First, I want to recommend to you the Lunch Tray blog, written in Houston by Bettina Elias Siegel. She really works it, and is a constant source of information and courant perspective. This morning's case in point (for me; she posted this April 26) is an interview she did with retired Air Force General Norman Seip, a member of Mission Readiness, a bipartisan coalition of 200 retired senior military leaders who bemoan — and more importantly, work to redress —the fact that 75 percent of Americans ages 17-24 are unfit for military service, because they have criminal records, haven't graduated high school, or are physically unfit.

You may remember that a couple of weeks ago, I published an interview I did with Zack Jordan, whom I met when he reached out to me on Facebook after reading my book. He told me he was a "gay gainer," someone who tries to gain mondo weight because he thinks it would fulfill him.

This morning, I got this from him, which I'm sharing with his permission:

It's a question any addict might ponder: If they told me that, beyond a medical certainty, I had just a few weeks or months to live, would I continue to abstain from the foods I've chosen to eschew?