As a former fat guy, I have to salute actor Ron Lester, who went on the Today Show yesterday showing off his slim figure (see the segment here). You may remember Lester as the really, really fat high school football player “Billy Bob” from Varsity Blues, or his identical character from Not Another Teen Movie. Back in 2001, he lost 315lbs. — 43lbs. of it extra skin that had to be removed — and even lost 2 inches worth of height (thanks to the weight lost from his head). He did this by gastric bypass surgery and it was primarily for heath reasons, but damn if he doesn’t look much better, too.

The problem is, according to the person submitting this story to Fark.com, he may now be handsomer but he may also have cost himself his acting career. Obviously he had been employed in the past for his physique more than his acting talent, and now he’s missing that thing that guaranteed his being hired (his only significant movie post-surgery was Karate Dog). Certainly he’d rather be alive, though, than typecast. It’s not like he just went out and got plastic surgery thinking he’d be better off in an industry obsessed with good looks. But I did immediately think of Jennifer Grey and Meg Ryan as two prime examples of how physical changes, which were intended to be favorable, ended up more damaging career-wise.

Then I also thought about Josh Peck, who I had previously known best as the fat bully from Mean Creek, and his own noticeable weight loss (via the old fashioned route of diet and exercise). He has managed to find plum roles, such as the lead in the recent Sundance success The Wackness. Perhaps it helped him, though, to lose the weight gradually while starring on a Nickelodeon show, where he could retain his millions of fans — many of whom are girls.

Either way, whether or not Lester manages to keep making it in Hollywood, he’s definitely better off.