Laugh out loud...

With this quote from kev_bot:

Let’s put this in perspective for just a second here, okay? You each paid one hundred dollars for tickets to a Bruce Springsteen show. You then proceeded to miss half the show to go get drinks, then consume them in record time, then one of you passed out and vomited. I marvel at these people. Do they really just have this much expendable income that they can just do stuff like this and it doesn’t matter? Or are they just pure-d stupid assholes?

You can read the rest at http://kev-bot.livejournal.com/626454.html

Relaxing the food police might be a good thing

A well-written essay by Harriet Brown. I've got the full thing here, but most of it is behind cuts:

( ... )

In Arkansas, for instance, children's report cards now include their B.M.I., or body mass index, along with their grades.( ... )

Never mind that B.M.I. is only a measure of height against weight and does not take into account muscle mass, body type or other factors. (Tom Cruise has a B.M.I. of 31, which puts him in the "obese" category.)

( What about special programs to promote nutrition and exercise at school? )

Researchers concluded that pupils whose school lunches offered 25 percent fat (compared with 31 percent in the control group) were compensating for the reduction by eating higher-fat foods at home.

Big surprise. Anyone who's dieted for a day, a week, a month and then overeaten to compensate is familiar with the deprivation-binge-deprivation cycle — and with the weight gain that often accompanies it. One Harvard study showed that 39 percent of nurses who lost weight through dieting regained it, and in fact wound up 10 pounds heavier on average than those who didn't lose weight.

Early in my children's lives, I was a no-sugar, no-fat mom, the legacy of my own childhood with a constantly dieting mother. I thought I was doing the right thing, until a friend told me that every time my children stayed at her house, the first thing they did was ask for ice cream. With sprinkles. And chocolate chips. And gummy worms. By rigidly restricting their sugar intake, I had made it a highly sought out pleasure — the last thing I'd intended. ( ... )

What worries me even more than the words being thrown about in the food wars are the unspoken messages we're giving our children about their bodies, themselves and the food they eat. Prohibiting that second slice of pizza sends a message that pizza is bad, that there are good foods and bad foods, safe foods and dangerous foods — a perceived dichotomy that every anorexic is all too familiar with. ( As one expert puts it, )

"Maintain the structure of meals and snacks so children can count on getting fed — and fed enough." ( . )

Source: New York Times RSS feed