This is actually an interesting article on newish research into the complexity of obesity, but the word “obesogen” is making me laugh. Obesogens make you obese! This sleeping pill is chock full of the dormitive virtue!
We need a tag for lame Scholastic jokes.
The Edge of the American West 
24 comments
March 8, 2010 at 10:31 am
Jonathan Jarrett
What, like, ‘Come and ‘ave a go if you think you’re Abelard enough’?
March 8, 2010 at 10:34 am
dana
Is or is not Peter a man?
March 8, 2010 at 10:58 am
ben
Oxygen makes things acidic (except that it doesn’t)! Hydrogen makes water!
I’m not sure if the post is primarily jokey or if you have a problem with the term, which seems inoffensive.
March 8, 2010 at 11:11 am
dana
Entirely jokey. “We need something to call it… “makesyoufats” doesn’t sound smart…”
March 8, 2010 at 11:35 am
dave
What I want to know is who’s putting all the dumbogens in the drinking water…
March 8, 2010 at 11:51 am
NM
Another argument for God’s goodness: the guy who wrote about parts and wholes was missing a part.
March 8, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Kieran
You laugh at the idea of obesogens, but when the Superconducting Supersizer finally comes online in 2018 it will smash known obesogenic foodstuffs into one another at enormous speeds in order, we hope, to allow us for the first time to observe postulated fundamental particles of obesity such as Sleptons, Lardons, and of course the long sought-after Higgs Bacon.
March 8, 2010 at 4:37 pm
grackle
Little known sub-categories of the obesogene are the blimpogene, the rotundagene and the flabbithighogene, not to mention the potbelligene.
March 8, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Jason B.
One of the most effective ways to lose weight is to sweat a lot. If these people could just get prescriptions for Phlogiston, they’d be better off.
March 8, 2010 at 6:25 pm
Ben Alpers
So I take it that Paul Campos isn’t a regular reader of this blog…
March 8, 2010 at 7:31 pm
dana
“Lardons” is really quite brilliant.
March 8, 2010 at 9:47 pm
andrew
An obesegonic spirit embiggens the smallest man.
March 9, 2010 at 4:15 am
kid bitzer
kh’s entire comment was saturated with cachinnative powers. indeed, it had among the highest concentrations ever measured by our equipment.
i spent the first couple of sentences of dana’s post following the wrong scent, because i took “obesogen” for a german past participle i was unfamiliar with, maybe from absagen or obsiegen. false etyma. still, one can always coin anew: obgesogen, pp of obsigen (sich), to obsess about one’s weight.
March 9, 2010 at 5:14 am
kevin
Listen, everyone knows obesegon is a perfectly cromulent word.
March 9, 2010 at 5:15 am
kevin
Obesogen, too.
March 9, 2010 at 5:36 am
kid bitzer
no, an obesegon is a polygon all of whose angles have gone spherical.
March 9, 2010 at 5:49 am
Rebecca Clayton
Mark me down in the pro-phlogiston category.
I followed your link to MSNBC.com and read the “article,” which was nothing more than a promotional essay for a new diet book, and a tawdry magazine/website called “Men’s Health.” I was sadly surprised to find an “infomercial” slipped in with the news this way.
Heap more derision upon them, for their science journalism is laced with dumbogens!
March 9, 2010 at 8:05 am
ajay
Lake Obesegon, where all the children weigh more than the average.
March 9, 2010 at 9:38 am
dana
Ich hab’ mich ganz obgesogen!
March 9, 2010 at 9:48 am
kid bitzer
genau!
you see? isn’t it easy to read “obesogen” that way?
March 9, 2010 at 10:13 am
kid bitzer
“We need a tag for lame Scholastic jokes.”
suggestions:
quot angeli
facete dicta
quo nihil iucundius concipi possit
March 10, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Charlieford
I’m going to market an empty styrofoam burger box, and call it “Obesbegone.”
March 10, 2010 at 7:54 pm
mr earl
It’s Abelard’s Day’s Night.
March 12, 2010 at 1:40 pm
nnyhav
proper tag in this instance would be ‘genogens’, but that’s restricted to neologens … something more gouty needed for the general case