This will never make front page headlines

The news is good, but it’ll never make front page headlines.  It’s about how skim milk is not very good for you.  According to the article, not only may skim milk lead to weight gain, but also, that the process by which they make skim milk white (rather than that bluish tinge it used to have when I was growing up) may lead to cancer and higher cholesterol!

To turn skim milk white, “some companies fortify their product with powdered skim,” says Bob Roberts, a dairy scientist at Penn State. Powdered skim (which is also added to organic low-fat milks) is produced by spraying the liquid under heat and high pressure, a process that oxidizes the cholesterol. In animal studies, oxidized cholesterol triggers a host of biological changes, leading to plaque formation in the arteries and heart disease, Spanish researchers reported in 1996. “OCs are mutagenic and carcinogenic,” they wrote. In 1998, Australian researchers studied rabbits fed OC and found that the animals “had a 64% increase in total aortic cholesterol” despite having less cholesterol in their blood than rabbits fed natural sources of the substance. (A 2008 Chinese study with hamsters confirmed these findings.) Roberts says the amount of OC created by adding powdered skim is “not very much,” but until the effects on humans are known, it’s impossible to say what’s a safe level.

I’ve been saying for a long time that if we have an epidemic of anything (obesity, diabetes, heart disease) we need to look outside of the idea that obesity is causing anything.  Obesity is a co-morbidity with other illnesses.  That just means that it is there with other things.  That does not mean that it causes the other conditions.

I’ve also been saying that we should look at to what happened in the 1970’s, when the “obesity epidemic” was supposed to have started.  What outside conditions happened in the world to cause so many people to become fat all at once (relatively speaking).  What socio-economic conditions changed.  How did the availability of more food (and more processed food) in many countries contribute to a lessening of famine induced low weights?  We need to look not only at our waste sizes, but also at our height (and not in a BMI way, either).   As a general population, people in developed countries were obtaining adequate amounts of food.  Could it be that, since our bodies don’t have to worry about having enough calories in a day, they are just growing to their fullest potential, in all directions?

Or could it be that the food we are eating is actually making us fatter?  Studies are coming out that are showing some of the most highly touted artificial sweeteners (yes, I’m looking at you, Splenda) are being shown to actually make a person gain weight, rather than lose weight.  I know that the debate over high fructose corn syrup rages on, but when manufacturers started including that in everything that is pre-made, we have the first incidence of the “obesity epidemic” happening.  Could it just be coincidence that they both started in the 1970’s?  Maybe.  Who knows.

What I’m trying to say here, is that this issue is much more complicated than the “calories in, calories out” people like to believe it is.  That there are many socio-economic and environmental issues that contribute to not only weight gain, but also the alleged increase in other diseases that are co-morbities with obesity.  (I say alleged increase because, if you look at the CDC reports for the last few years, not only are USians living longer, but the statistics has been showing less heart attacks, strokes, or other so-called fat related illnesses as the cause of death.)

So, drink up your full fat milk (if you drink milk, that is), and don’t worry about what it’s doing to you.  Most likely, it’s actually doing what the commercial says it is:  Milk, it does a body good!

There are reasons I don’t listen to Glen Beck

And his remarks about Meghan McCain’s body only make up a small portion of them.

In a recent radio show, Glen Beck “suggested [she] should wear a burqa, since [he] believe[s] that’s probably the only clothing that could possibly fit [her].”

I don’t usually read Meghan McCain either.  But I have to say, I LOVE her response to Glen Beck.

As a person who is known for his hot body, you must find it easy to judge the weight fluctuations of others, especially young women. If any of your daughters are ever faced with some kind of criticism of their physical appearance or weight, they should call me, because women’s body image is another issue I feel passionate about, and have become accustomed to dealing with and speaking with young women about on my college tours.

So thanks for spreading the word, Glenn. And next time, instead of jumping straight to the “Meghan McCain fat jokes,” maybe try out some new material. Because the fat-joke thing, it’s been done so many times, I know a creative intellect such as yourself can do better than that.

Way to go, Ms. McCain!

Update:  And here is the video of the show where Glen Beck pretends to throw up while watching the commercial Meghan McCain did about skin cancer.  Real class act there, don’t you think?  (Don’t click the link unless you want to see an @$$hole in action!)

Just a thought…

Hey, Barnes & Noble, just a thought here, but putting a diet book as part of your “Mother’s Day Gift Guide” is not really a good idea.  Because, besides all the questionable science and all the shame society puts on fat women generally, NO woman wants to hear from their children/husbands, “Hey mom/dear.  Just wanted to tell you you need to lose a few pounds.  Love you!  Really!  No, really, I/we mean it!”

Source:   http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/05/07/barnes-noble-mothers-day-gift-guide/

Really?

In an article about a space/time experiment NASA did, there is this:

Time and space, according to Einstein’s theories of relativity, are woven together, forming a four-dimensional fabric called “space-time.” The mass of Earth dimples this fabric, much like a heavy person sitting in the middle of a trampoline. Gravity, says Einstein, is simply the motion of objects following the curvaceous lines of the dimple.
bolding by me

Really?  Really?  There’s not 1000 other ways you could have stated that without invoking fat stigmatization?  Because, I don’t know what trampolines the author of the article have been looking at, but they tend to “dimple” even when a normal weight person — or even, you know, an athlete get on them.  That’s part of the way they work:  the elasticity gives whenever any stress is put on it.  A person just standing (or sitting) still, and it just “dimples”.  A person walking and it pushes back a little.  A person jumps, and it pushes back a lot.

Ya’d think I wouldn’t have to explain this to somebody writing an article about a NASA experiment.