Seriously, obesity is a horrible, horrible problem, but Dom DeLuise is almost an INSPIRATION to fat people everywhere. He lived to “old man age” while being morbidly obese, quite an accomplishment. It’s sad he’s gone, but he seems to have lived a long, happy, and productive life.

The average person in this world currently lives to about 70, so Mr. DeLuise scored five points ABOVE average in the game of how-long-can-you-live. Unlike, say… John Candy.

The original draft of that post had a further three paragraphs about a very close friend of mine in college who was morbidly obese, and who finally, after years of struggle to lose weight, finally had gastric-bypass surgery. Without the operation, her doctor warned her, she was 3-5 years from death; her joints were failing, she had constant terrible rashes, blood problems, and on and on. When I saw her again two years ago, post-op, I was astonished by the transformation. Underneath all that fat, was a beautiful woman. Which she herself was now discovering — at age 40. It’s a good story now, but it was a sad tale before then.

I didn’t mean my post to be an “attack,” just a (much too?) spirited response, spurred on not only by your blog post but by a lot of other things I’ve read on the internet since Mr. DeLuise passed away. I’m sorry you took it as an attack.

“Yes, Dom DeLuise was productive, seemed happy, and lived to the U.S. average male age (which is 75, not 70 as you claim).”

I didn’t claim that, I said “the average person in this world,” not “the average male in the United States of America.” (Though even there he hits the mark.)

Again, I’m not saying it was GOOD that he was obese or anything of the sort (I’m 100% opposed to obesity as I deal with it every day of my life). I guess I felt I needed to say how impressed I was that he actually lived so LONG. Because so many of the things I’ve been reading have focused so much on his weight, and have almost seemed to imply that obesity killed him at a young age (without actually saying that). Mr. DeLuise certainly died TOO SOON, but at the same time, he was 75 years old.

When George Carlin died at 71, everybody said how great he was. I don’t remember that many people dragging out sad stories about how he was too skinny to sumo-wrestle.

(That probably last part does not make any sense except within my brain.)

But again, my apologies. It was a late night knee-jerk response to much more than only your post.