Lots of us have been saying this for a long time. The first anecdote in this story, about a stranded child not asking for help because nobody wants a fat child, is something I can relate to directly. I remember feeling just like that, because I had family members telling me fatness was worse than almost any other trait I might have—and they weren't so crazy, because that's a message society sends girls and women every day.

Can we stop doing this to each other now? Fat-shaming is real, and it's the opposite of effective social policy. Period.

"As long as we have this belief that obese people are lazy and lacking in discipline, it will be hard to get support for policies that change the environment, which are likely to have a much larger impact than trying to change individuals," said psychologist Rebecca Puhl of the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.