You're right SRS, there are a range of reasons, not all of them are related to lifestyle or diet. Some obese people can not lose weight and just because some ignoramus can lose 35 pounds, it doesn't mean that all other people who are obese are able to do the same.

Wesley S,

Those who can lose weight by diet and exercise are sometimes the ones who gained it through gluttony in the first place, so they perhaps should not gloat over their small success and put down others who are not able to do the same and have often spent a lot more effort and courage in the attempt.

If you can lose weight with a little exercise then you are lucky. Many obese people cannot, most obese people have tried over and over again with exercise and diet without success.

When Lou was dying of non Hodgkins lymphoma, her doctor was treating her (mild) obesity with a starvation diet. Of course it didn't work and she died.

She was not a glutton, it was not her lifestyle that caused her to gain weight, it was a cancerous growth.

You have a right to be proud of your own success, but you can thank whoever you pray to, that those 35 pounds were fat and not cancer cells.