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Opinion L.A.

Opinion: Big ears and big kids

By Michael McGough
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My colleague Eryn Brown has a story about a White House anti-bullying conference at which President Obama announced that he too had been bullied -- for having big ears and an unusual name. (On the latter point, maybe some of his schoolmates were incipient birthers.)

What the president didn’t say was that his wife, Michelle, in the cause of reducing childhood obesity, may unintentionally have encouraged the bullying of fat kids, and without achiving its goal.

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Chunky children were the targets of bullying long before the onset on the supposed childhood obesity epidemic. But, as I have written before, initiatives like Michelle Obama’s give anti-fat bullies a rationalization: They’re not just being cruel, they’re continuing a national crusade.

No one, after all, is calling for the elimination of big ears and peculiar names.

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-- Michael McGough

Opinion L.A.
Michael McGough

Michael McGough is the Los Angeles Times’ former senior editorial writer, based in Washington, D.C. He wrote editorials for The Times from 2006 to 2021. Before that, McGough worked for 30 years for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as a reporter, editorial writer, editorial page editor and Washington correspondent. He wrote about law, national security, politics, foreign policy and religion. McGough is a graduate of Allegheny College and also attended the University of Kent at Canterbury in England and Yale Law School, where he received a master of studies in law degree.

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