Paula Caplan: 'If you wanted to make someone feel helpless, hopeless, even crazy, one good way to do it would be this: ...give them a pill that may calm them down or pep them up but will have a good chance of increasing their weight. This has been the fate of women in untold numbers but certainly in the millions, and women’s position in American society makes them more likely than men to feel ashamed for their part in what is being called this country’s obesity epidemic."