Quit fat shaming. Quit fat accepting. Try minding your own business.

I called a man an ass today. He's a famous conservative media personality with a blog and a webcast and I usually agree with almost everything he says. But today, I called him an ass. And I meant it.

He was taking on a government initiative designed to combat fat shaming. And on some level, I agree that the government shouldn't do it. No where in the constitution is the federal government empowered to guide our girth. Like so many pies it has its thumb in, fat is none of Washington D.C.'s business.

Unfortunately, he took it one step further and started attacking fat people. Maybe he thinks calling people fat, fat, fatty is funny. He certainly imagines their blood sugar numbers and cholesterol are a national crisis. He's disgusted by the idea that any of us might ever feel... *gasp* sexy.

Just like the people out there insisting that fat is great and we should embrace it, he's wrong. Yes, overeating and under-exercising are character flaws. Faced with the question - "should I lose weight?" - you should be honest. You should try to teach your kids portion control and an active lifestyle.

You should also teach your kids to respect other people and not reduce them to their waistline. When you see a fat woman ladling soup for the homeless, you should focus more on her kindness than on her dress size.

My impulse here is to explain the complexity of weight issues. To point out the million hard choices you have to make to turn your eating and exercise habits from bad to good. To list the health issues that can turn a very healthy person into fat, fat fatty.

The real issue, though, isn't what we think of obesity. It's what we think of our fellow man. Is a person only worthy of kindness if they are healthy? Would you walk up to a person with a brain injury and tell him how stupid he was to be riding in the car with the guy who drove them into a light pole and them laugh about how he's even stupider now? Would you tell someone with a burn scar how they deserved to be ugly because they fell asleep with a candle burning? Those things might be true, but they are mean and no one benefits from them being said.

Rest assured, for every person who decides they can't stand to be called names anymore and takes up diet and exercise, there are hundreds who go home and comfort themselves with food so they can make it through the day. Most people who succeed at losing weight and keeping it off do it not to avoid an insult, but because they finally felt strong enough and confident enough and supported enough to keep going. Feeling worthless and hated doesn't inspire you to do things that will prolong your life.

Weight, like so many things, is a subject best limited to conversations between close friends, family and medical professionals. When it comes to strangers, even if they are public figures, you'd be doing to world a favor if you just listened to Thumper's mother. If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all.