Like a lot of guys my age (63) I'm carrying a little extra, shall we say, baggage. My old Army uniforms have mysteriously shrunk to the point where I can't get into them anymore. But I do keep an eye on that, and my weight has been trending downwards, gradually; I'm active, but as I get older, I find my appetite isn't what it once was, and despite the few extra pounds I still manage to maintain a rural Alaska homestead with all the rigors that entails - not to mention spending the odd fall day hiking into the spruce woods looking for grouse and hares.

Lots of people struggle with some extra weight. And most people admit that carrying that extra weight is unhealthy. Extra poundage can cause stress no all of your body's systems, not least of all which can be your heart, lungs, and skeleton. What's more, this is a national problem.

But in some quarters, some insist that obesity is normal, healthy, even attractive. It's none of those things, but now we read that the city of San Francisco's Department of Public Health has brought in a consultant on "weight stigma & weight neutrality," and this consultant, one Vigie Tovar, is just what you'd expect.

San Francisco just appointed Virgie Tovar as their Weight Stigma Czar pic.twitter.com/C6BPRC9xLe

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) December 17, 2024

The new consultant states in the video:

Hi, my name is Virgie Tovar and I'm the author of "You Have the Right to Remain Fat" as well as a few other books on fat positivity and body acceptance. When I think about what people might be surprised by or what you wouldn't think of when you think of eating disorders, I immediately think of being a kid. I was a kid in a larger body, a teen in a larger body, and also I'm an adult in a larger body. And the message I always got from my doctor was "shrink your body by any means necessary." And it really felt like there was a sense of don't ask, don't tell, because I truly, truly, truly believed, and this is where I think the surprise comes in, I really believed that this wasn't about my health. I really believed that my doctor was right. Because why would I believe anything else, right?

Well, I have some feedback for Virgie Tovar:

Virgie, stop with the euphemisms. They are allowing you to normalize a serious adverse health condition. You are not an "adult in a larger body." You are obese, from appearances, dangerously so. Your doctor is correct. You need to take steps. Your current lifestyle is unhealthy, and telling folks otherwise is a disservice to them. No matter what you believe, no matter what the city of San Francisco's City Council thinks, you are advocating for a fundamentally unhealthy life choice that is literally killing our citizens.

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This normalization of obesity has to be reversed. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the presumed new head of Health and Human Services, has repeatedly stated his intentions to "Make America Healthy Again," and that's a worthy goal. Part of that is to make sure fewer Americans are carrying around far, far too much weight.

America is, as I wrote a while back, fat and sick. One of the first steps we must take as a society to deal with this is to admit there's a problem. The city of San Francisco, in bringing in this "consultant" to proclaim that this emperor has no clothes, is doing a grave disservice to the people of that city.