Weighing in Against Risks of Obesity

Although I agree the typical model and certain TV stars are way too thin (“Going to Extremes: XS and XL,” June 2) and project an impossible image for young women, I think you do these same young women a disservice by referring to Camryn Manheim, Kathy Bates and Queen Latifah as having more “realistic” figures. Any way you look at it, these women are obese and as bad a health risk as the flip side of the coin.

--JIM SULLIVAN

Oceanside

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Is Kelly Brownell, co-director of the Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, actually claiming that skinny actresses are responsible for the rise in obesity in this country? That’s ludicrous. Actresses have not gotten all that much skinnier in recent years, but the people in this country have certainly gotten a lot fatter. We’re the fattest civilization in the history of the planet. I can barely make it down the sidewalk in my neighborhood.

We have multiple generations of people who expect to live to be 100-plus years old who are never going to make it and, on top of that, are going to have a long, debilitating decline into death (with commensurate health care costs), but we don’t dare say a word about them. Instead, we harp on the same group of actresses time and again. Why? Because they look good and they know it, and some of us don’t like them for it.

Don’t get me wrong, eating disorders are no laughing matter, and they certainly deserve our care and attention, but where is the care and attention to the rampant obesity that is tipping the other side of the scale?

--JOHN GATTI

San Diego