Some recent research suggests that the media need not take on this role, anyway. A 2003 US study found that the quality of life of severely obese children and adolescents was about the same as those with cancer.
Following up on this five years later, Auckland researcher Sarah S. Carne found the situation reversed: "Community/school, friendships and ethnicity appeared to act as protective factors against the stigma of being overweight, and friendship appeared to be linked to weight status and was implicated in the participants' attitude towards their own weight."
In other words, everyone around severely obese children were telling them it was okay.
There are many risk factors for obesity, including poverty, genetics and stupidity. Letting it be seen as normal is a powerful one.
This is not a matter of aesthetics, of what looks good or doesn't. It is a matter of the fat person's well-being and the economic costs to the community in terms of healthcare and lost productivity. A growing number of fat people refuse to acknowledge the health risks of their size, which include type 2 diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, some cancers, sleep apnoea, osteoarthritis and gout.
Like any good campaigners, weight-diversity activists agitate around clear issues. They resent that they can't get health insurance because of their weight, which is like smokers complaining that they can't get coverage for lung cancer. They want wider aeroplane and bus seats to be the norm, installed at the carriers' expense.
The most prominent activist, Californian Marilyn Wann, was motivated to act when she saw a billboard for a gym that showed an alien and the message: "When they come they'll eat the fat ones first."
That slogan would give offence to any intelligent person.
Any beings smart enough to get here from another planet would definitely be smart enough to choose a low-fat option.
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Everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it, someone once said. Given the sheer volume of weather we have been experiencing this "summer", there has been more than usual to talk about. But I for one have not been slow in doing something about it.
I have decided to look on the sunny side. While this would obviously be easier if there was any sun, it is still possible to find reasons to be glad about the weather.
The sunburn rate for the season will be the lowest since records began.
Not only has it been good for the garden, but those averse to weeding have been let off the hook.
A whole generation, who would otherwise have missed out, has learned the rules of the card game 500.
Users of iPhones and iPads have finally found out what all those apps they downloaded ages ago and never got around to using are actually for.
Many people have gone back to work sooner than they intended, getting the mighty wheels of the economy moving earlier than ever.
There has been a box-office bonanza as people go to see movies they would never have dreamed of going to otherwise.
Everyone gets to see how bad TV is at this time of year - enlightenment normally only available to invalids and other housebound souls.
No mosquito bites.
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Benevolent Japanese scientists, who happened to be on board a ship killing whales, have agreed to release the latest bunch of anti-whaling campaigners to come their way - three Australian protesters who boarded the Shonan Maru No2 in the dead of night.
For years, brave souls in their frail craft have been throwing themselves in the path of much larger, menacing vessels. One can only admire their grit, tenacity and determination. Their sheer courage and willingness to put their lives on the line for the whales is a credit to the human spirit.
In fact, the only point on which one might conceivably find fault with them is that, over all these years of hair-raising heroics, they have made not one jot of difference to Japanese whaling practices.
