Let's get one thing straight.
Piri Weepu is not obese, not even fat. Yes, he has very obviously put on a few kilograms since he helped the All Blacks to their Rugby World Cup win but not enough to warrant all the attention to waistline since he joined the Blues for their Super 15 campaign.
Why on earth one of the country's biggest-selling metropolitan daily newspapers would make it front page news is beyond me.
Surely there was a lot more newsworthy things happening around the globe than the seemingly dodgy eating habits of a rugby player.
Maybe it was worth a sentence or two on the sports pages when the Blues' erratic early-season form was being discussed but that's where it should have stopped.
I am not trying to excuse Weepu for not doing the hard yards to bring his fitness levels up to an acceptable standard.
Professional rugby players get paid good money and they should do everything in their power to reward those who invest in them.
Weepu let himself and his employers down.
All Blues management needed to do was announce Weepu did not consider himself quite ready to enter the Super rugby arena and was going to have a few early-season club games to assist that process.
Then Weepu would have been able to beat the battle of the bulge without the paparazzi watching his every move and the Blues would have avoided the embarrassment of fielding a player who was never going to be able to live up to his high profile.
But let's get back to the real point of this column.
Two questions need to be asked: isn't it a sad indictment of our society that something so trivial makes front page news and do we NZers really think rugby is that important to our national psyche?
For me, the answers definitely should be a yes and a no.
As one who, like many Kiwis, has had a lifetime involvement with the oval ball game, I do understand the emotion it creates.
The euphoria of that World Cup success at Eden Park was clear evidence of that.
When it all boils down, however, we should always remember it is no more than a game, that no matter what the results little in our everyday lives will change.
Putting rugby, and rugby players, on some sort of pedestal just doesn't make sense.
They are simply not that important, not by a longshot.