After all this time, for some reason it was this story that made me realize how incredibly rail-thin is the cartoon image of a woman that accompanies the Broadsheet section of Salon.

What message is this sending and reinforcing with every reading of this page? And I'm not asking this in a snarky way--I'm serious. In one little image, you're suggesting an ideal of thin, white, and affluent.

Perhaps this section of Salon could put its core beliefs ahead of a whimsical aesthetic, and make a change to better visually reflect its seriousness?

I go out of my way to eat healthy genuine organic food as much as possible. I am scared shitless I will be lying in a hospital at age 55 getting bypass surgery if I do not. Our food industry is one of the worst in the world in terms of the garbage that is allowed to pass as food.

Anyway, I have no belly. I actually have a chest now, which shocks me. Anyone who read my posts lo these past years knows I did have some belly as recently as last year.

One of the interesting things about comments such as those in The Economist (worth reading, if just for their badly spelled bitter rage) and here on Salon, is just how incredibly ANGRY women's weight makes posters -- mostly male posters. It's almost as if the weight of women THEY DO NOT KNOW is a personal affront, that it somehow causes them direct harm (i.e., "my eyes! my eyes!") and this permits them to heave insults and accusations at total strangers, something I feel confident they would never do if the discussion was about race, religion or poverty.

I feel sad for women, because taking weight off for women is more difficult than it is for men.

HAVING SAID THAT, I do feel women constantly judge men as failures if they are not rich, skinny or whatever enough. Even failures in the past that continue to manifest to the present will continue to be influencers to women and haunt men.

That men get angry over fat women is, in my opinion, a reaction to women's modern attitude that anything they are or do is good enough and does not need to change or to be examined. Men also get angry because while women say this, they are more than happy to STILL judge men adversely for the sam things they want men not to judge women for. Men are more visual too. We expect women to bother to try to look decent.

What is particularly galling is seeing tubby 12 or 14 year olds who obviously are either depressed or have no discipline or noone looking at what they eat and they do not seem to care or ask anyone how to fix this. It is laziness on their part and on the part of those overseeing them for them to waddle around and pretend everything is OK, if only for their own health.

Ignorance is a big part of this. Industrifood is evil. PURE EVIL. But everybody is looking forward to the next episode of Dancing with the Stars, so why bother actually trying to educate oneself?

This attitude would piss off ANYONE, not just men.

Like it or not, guys have a reputation for being obese and not caring, but many, if not the majority of men are deeply concerned about their weight and work to try to keep it off.

I guess we understand that women do have it harder to lose that weight, but we do wish women would at least try to make a sporting EFFECTIVE effort to bother anyway.

In 1999 I started taking kickboxing classes. Over the next 6 months, I lost 40 pounds, going from pudgy to pleasingly lean. During that time, I got a promotion at my hourly job and the rate for the new position was adjusted upward.

When I started working out, I know I was more energetic, was more focused at work, and got more done than I did (do) when I am heavier. So my experience is that my weight correlates with the things valued by corporations.

I nearly did not get that promotion because I nearly did not go for the job. The night before the posting was due, I got hit on in a bar -- which was new for me -- and I handled it in a very clumsy way. I was embarrassed and frustrated with myself and I couldn't face writing a document saying I was wonderful and competent.

A manager friend of mine interceded with the hiring manager on my behalf and walked me through the posting.

So another question to ask is how does weight impact our social connections? How does that vary by racial groups and between racial groups?

In addition to the "you can if you really WANT to," the "prove yourself" and all the other self-help that is more useful and more kindly meant, people have bought up the insensate, profane and semi-literate rage that is often expressed by men and women alike when the subject of obese white women is dragged into editorial columns yet again.

From the especially vitriolic women, I think it's a way of women establishing superiority over other women while expressing fear of losing status in their subtext. "I'm not like that. I'm not fat. I'm not disgusting. I'm special -- but, oh God, what happens if I gain weight? No, I've got to hate this so I won't and can maintain my special perfect thinness." Barf. And many of them do.

From the especially vitriolic men, it's "how dare these THINGS not do everything they can to 'prove themselves' in our eyes, but instead OFFEND those eyes. They're not LISTENING TO US." These characters, especially the semi-literates, seem to think it's the right of every man, regardless of how he looks, to have arm candy of his very own and to judge women who don't meet that standard for whatever reasons. Thyroid, anyone? Water retention? How about pregnancy? Want a woman with a big belly to hide out lest your eyes be offended? Repeat after me, and without four-letter words, IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU.

Oh, and anyone thinking of an "ad feminam," I'm no longer the size six I was back when size six was appropriate, but I still turn heads. My wardrobe is fantastic. My skin is that of a woman 20 years younger, and I'm very much at home in it. I have nothing to prove and no one to blame.

To the people who don't like that attitude, too damn bad. It's really none of your business.