Quoting from the article:

A person is defined as obese if their body mass index (BMI), the result of a calculation involving weight and height, is above a certain level.

The BMI correlates fairly well with body fat.


Notice 'fairly well'. Not 'well', for example. There are plenty of people with an 'obese'-indicating BMI who are not fat. For example I happen to know someone who had anorexia, weighed around 6 stone whose BMI still proclaimed her fat - and that was by no means helpful in that dread situation.

Secondly, while there are certainly people who are very overweight -and I am quite overweight myself statistically speaking - it is both patronising and simplistic to assume it is because they either 'know no better' or are too weak willed to change they habits. Sometimes, yes, but also sometimes no. For example, I did a detailed investigation on what my life expectancy was when I reached 40 (and again at 50), with the perfect weight, amount of exercise and so on, together with the most likely causes of death. I then repeated the analysis with my actual life style (again with the most likely causes of death) and did semi-formal cost-benefit analysis in terms of the increased years together with what things I loved or hated that would have to change. And while I changed some things, the relatively few years difference was simply not worth the pleasures I would lose for many decades.

So the weight I am and my lifestyle is a very considered and deliberate choice. As the poem has it "There is a price to sinning, and I'll pay it."