The Advice Huckster: No way.

From today's Hax, which is adapted from an online chat from a month ago:

Dear Carolyn:

Oh, help. Please. I need to lose a lot of weight: 60 pounds for a healthy BMI, but honestly 30 is a goal I'd be thrilled to reach. I am doing many of the right things in terms of portion control and exercise and am working my way up to more. So far it's yay, go me.

Here's the problem: I have been told my whole life that I was fat. My mother spent her life beating herself up for having hips and breasts, and it's only in recent years that I've been able to see past this inherited self-loathing. I was told by family and peers that I was a pig long before I ever got fat -- pictures of me in high school show a pretty, miserably insecure teen who had no idea that she was STACKED, not a hippo! If I had really been able to see myself in the mirror, I don't think I ever would have put on the weight to begin with.

So between that, and all the weight-loss stories about size 8's dieting themselves down to size 2, and drivel like the scathing piece about the "fat" (size 12) would-be beauty queen on the Web, I feel like I'm doomed before I even start.

I know, objectively, that every little bit helps and that I need to do this for my own health and well-being, not in hopes that some jerk on the street will for once refrain from calling me a heifer. But what it feels like on the inside is: What's the point? People will always think I'm a pig. So how do I stay motivated when for me the big goal has to be a size 12 or 14, not a size 6?

I wish people would finally realize that publicly shaming and ridiculing the overweight isn't helping any of us.

Weight, Weight, Don't Tell Me

I sympathize, and agree that most public discussion about weight is useless -- and that's only when it's not actively counterproductive. It goes without saying, too, that people who call you a pig are the ones who belong in a sty.

Yes, we are in the midst of an obesity surge, and it's shaping up to be (sorry) a public health crisis. However, losing weight is about as private an issue as there is. You are at the store, you are stocking the pantry, you are holding the fork.

So, my advice is to stop talking about this, stop reading about this, stop clicking the links to size 12 beauty queens.

You will pick up some ambient noise about weight, inevitably, but block out as much as you realistically can. Make it about the store, your pantry, your fork. Every time you hear something destructive, schedule -- and then take -- a walk to counteract it.

Also consider seeing a reputable counselor who specializes in body-image issues. Most of the weight you're carrying now can't be measured on a scale.

You also can seek out allies in a weight-loss support group. Just make sure they're affiliated with programs that aren't diets, but instead lifestyle changes. Food didn't abuse you, people did -- you included. Look at this as firing everyone, and learning to care for yourself.

Look, I empathize and sympathize with "Weight," am rooting for her in her struggle against obesity, and think that the people ridiculing her are douchebags. I wholeheartedly agree with Carolyn's response to the woman. Ignore the name-callers who will only set you back. Get healthy in terms of your love for yourself. It's something many people struggle with, fat or not. Get healthy for yourself and find a body size that's ideal for you, not Gwyneth Paltrow.

All that said, it sounds to me like "Weight" is in a bit of denial. She says, "[I] was STACKED, not a hippo!" Well, I hate to say it, but you might have been both. I'm all for a healthy self-image, but denial isn't the way to get there. That's just going to replace old problems with new ones.

"Weight" also put the word "fat" in quotation marks when discussing the "would-be beauty queen on the Web" and said the overweight beauty queen was a "size 12." I can only assume we're talking about Chloe Marshall, a 17 year-old beautician who was a finalist for the Miss England competition earlier this year. According to the Daily Mail, Marshall was a size 16 (in UK sizes, which translates into size 14 in US sizes, so I'm being a tad nitpicky there), stands 5'10", and weighs 12 stones 8 pounds, which is 176 pounds. Lookit. Marshall is a lovely woman. Very pretty face, killer eyes, full lips, lustrous hair, etc. And she's a different person when she's fully-clothed as opposed to in a bikini:

What she undeniably is, however, is large. She's fat. There's this notion in this country that the word "fat" is almost a slur. It's not a nice thing to say, granted, but we need to get over that. We have a HUGE problem with bodyweight and healthy eating in this country and we're not going to address the problem by avoiding calling people fat when that's what they are.

You gonna finish that?

I'm not saying that people should be reed-thin, either. Amy Winehouse used to look kind of hot before she traded in her fish and chips for a crack pipe.

What I am saying is that it doesn't help anyone not to call a spade a spade. Chloe Marshall is a very brave, self-assured young woman who is setting a good example by telling young girls to have a healthy outlook on their own bodies, but what she also is, is fat.