XXXL: Why are we so fat?

This year in an attempt to broaden my horizons I have subscribed to several magazines new to me. One being The New Yorker, primarily because it has wonderful covers. I have a reprint of this one hanging in my entryway:

I have a confession to make: I rarely read the magazine. At first I read the theater reviews (some day I might make it to New York City and actually attend a play) and at least skimmed all the articles. But they’re sooooo long and honestly often above my head or in conflict with my…dare I say it…values.

Well, after a wonderful if exhausting week in Washington DC I’ve been catching up on my reading, including the July 20, 2009 issue of The New Yorker. It has an article by Elizabeth Kolbert titled “XXXL: Why are Americans so fat?” Since I am both American and fat, I read this entire article — all 4 pages/11 columns of it.

According to the CDC’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, in the early 1960s 24.3% of American adults were overweight (BMI > 27). Ten years later this rose modestly to 25.4%. But by the 1980s this figure had risen to 33.3% — “Americans had collectively gained more than a billion pounds.” Oh my. Here are a few points that also caught my attention:

• An ice cold Coca-Cola used to be a treat. Today, 7% of all calories ingested in the U.S. come from soft drinks, making them the “number one food consumed in the American diet.” — Eric Finkelstein & Laurie Zuckerman in The Fattening of America
• “…research on rats…proves that the animals’ brains react to sweet, fatty foods the same way that addicts respond to cocaine.” — referring to Dave A. Kessler’s book The End of Overeating
• People have “no idea how much they want to eat or, once they have eaten, how much they have consumed. Instead, they rely on external cues, like portion size, to tell them when to stop. The result is that as French-fry bags get bigger, so, too, do French-fry eaters.” — Brian Wansink in Mindless Eating
• “…current data reveal that in Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Greece, Malta and Slovakia, the proportion of overweight adults is actually higher than in the U.S.”  Those that live just above poverty level who appear to be gaining weight the most rapidly. — Francis Delpeuch et al in Globesity
• “It is possible to be overweight and malnourished at the same time.”
• Obesity is becoming one of the biggest drains on national health care budgets — adding about $90 BILLION to the country’s medical spending.

Anybody want an Oreo?

 

So This is Why I’m Not Blogging

Ask 11 year old K-man what he did at school, Boy Scouts, his friend’s house, and the answer will almost always be “Stuff.” Well, this summer I had plans to accomplish lots and lots of ’stuff”, mostly things creative. The only creative thing I’ve done all summer is a 2 day scrapbooking retreat where it seems I spent more time figuring out what to take,  loading/unloading it, and getting it set up on my table than I actually did on getting the photos on a page. I don’t have a job, for crying out loud, so why is it such a challenge for me to actually dive into writing, quilting, sewing, photography?

After perusing the New York Times’ Freakonomics: The Hidden Side of Everything blog this morning I think I’ve figured it out. In his post “Read This if You Hate Meetings” journalist Stephen J. Dubner touts an essay by programmer Paul Graham that divides the world into two kinds of people — makers and managers.

Here’s an excerpt (emphases mine):

There are two types of schedule, which I’ll call the manager’s schedule and the maker’s schedule. The manager’s schedule is for bosses. It’s embodied in the traditional appointment book, with each day cut into one hour intervals. You can block off several hours for a single task if you need to, but by default you change what you’re doing every hour.

When you use time that way, it’s merely a practical problem to meet with someone. Find an open slot in your schedule, book them, and you’re done.

Most powerful people are on the manager’s schedule. It’s the schedule of command. But there’s another way of using time that’s common among people who make things, like programmers and writers. They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can’t write or program well in units of an hour. That’s barely enough time to get started.

When you’re operating on the maker’s schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in. Plus you have to remember to go to the meeting. That’s no problem for someone on the manager’s schedule. There’s always something coming on the next hour; the only question is what. But when someone on the maker’s schedule has a meeting, they have to think about it.

For someone on the maker’s schedule, having a meeting is like throwing an exception. It doesn’t merely cause you to switch from one task to another; it changes the mode in which you work.

I find one meeting can sometimes affect a whole day. A meeting commonly blows at least half a day, by breaking up a morning or afternoon. But in addition there’s sometimes a cascading effect. If I know the afternoon is going to be broken up, I’m slightly less likely to start something ambitious in the morning. I know this may sound oversensitive, but if you’re a maker, think of your own case. Don’t your spirits rise at the thought of having an entire day free to work, with no appointments at all? Well,that means your spirits are correspondingly depressed when you don’t. And ambitious projects are by definition close to the limits of your capacity. A small decrease in morale is enough to kill them off.

I am a total ‘maker’.  So what do I do about it?

Click here to read the entire post.

 

How to Impress a Southern Girl

If  you didn’t peruse the July 2009 issue of Southern Living, you missed a cute column by Amy Bickers called “15 Ways to Charm Her”. Here is Amy’s list of things Southern girls still expect from men. As a Virginian-Floridian-Georgian-Mississippian-Tennessean-Texan,  I agree with just about every single one. How about you?

1. Stand up for lady.

2. Know that SEC has the best football teams in the nation.

3. Kill bugs. As Suzanne Sugarbaker on Designing Women said, “Ya know…when men use Women’s Liberation as an excuse not to kill bugs for you. Oh, I just hate that! I don’t care what anybody says, I think the man should have to kill the bug!”

4. Hold doors open.

5. Fix things or build stuff.

6. Wear boots occasionally. Not fancy, expensive boots but I-could-have-just-come-in-from-the-field boots.

7. Take off your hat inside.

8. Grill stuff.

9. Call us. If you want to ask us out, don’t text and don’t email. Pick up the phone and use your voice.

10. Stand when we come back to the dinner table.

11. Pull out our chairs.

12. Pay the tab on the first few dates.

13. Don’t show up in a wrinkled, untucked shirt. Care about your appearance but not too much. Don’t smell better than we do. Don’t use mousse or gel. You shouldn’t look like you spend more time in front of the mirror than we do.

14. Never get in bar fights.

15. Know how to mix our favorite cocktail just the way we like it.

4. Hold doors open.

 

Doesn’t Matter If It’s True

My beloved told me about a story he’d heard or read recently. I thought it was interesting, so I checked it out on Snopes. They aren’t sure if it’s true or not, but does it really matter? The take-home point is still worth pondering.

…the story of an economics professor that said he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked–that it was a great equalizer. No one would be poor and no one would be rich.

The professor then said OK, we’ll have an experiment in this class on socialism.

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F.

The scores never increased. Despite the bickering, blaming, and hard feelings, no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great surprise, they all failed. The professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great; but when government takes all the reward away, few will try or want to succeed.

 

Lovebirds

The spouse and I just returned from a week in Ithaca, NY where he had a meeting and I got to play tourist. It took three flights and 9 hours to get there but we were greeted by rain (a treat for Texans this time of year), 70 degree temperatures, and an Avis upgrade to a brand new silver 2010 Chevy Camaro. We peeled out of that parking lot bummed only that neither one of us could figure out how to get the sun roof open.
Charlie spent the next 5 days in mostly in meetings. I spent my days eating at Moosewood Restaurant, driving around Cayuga Lake and having a grand time. My status on Facebook this week said:

If you were my hood ornament yesterday you would’ve seen two things: 1. the beautiful countryside around Cayuga Lake (Ithaca NY); and 2. me with a super big grin on my face driving around in a silver 2009 Camaro, singing to bad 1970s songs on the XM radio, and feeling pretty groovy after stopping off at three wineries.

By Wednesday afternoon, Charlie was free so we drove up the west side of Cayuga Lake, had lunch at Thirsty Owl Wine Company (but sadly due to rain we weren’t able to sit on their deck with a spectacular view of lake),  did a short hike to Taughannock Falls, and then drove to the charming town of Aurora, NY where, tired and totally unenamored by the Camaro’s cramped interior, we proceeded to have a little tiff.

Charlie (feeling a bit car sick): “Let me out at the next corner. I’ll get a ride back.”

Me: “Fine.”

I stopped at the edge of the village. He climbed out and began walking along a rural road headed toward a boarded up old church. I sat at the corner for a few minutes, then snickered and drove after him.

Me: “Are you ready to get back in the car now, you big baby?”

Charlie: “Apologize.“

Me: “What?!”

Charlie: “Apologize!”

Me: “I’m sorry you’re such a big baby.”

Charlie (as he hops back into the car): “Good enough!“

I TOLD you he was a funny, funny man.

 

It’s Safe Now

Our anniversary was about two weeks ago. What did I get? A .22 rifle. After 21 years, my husband thinks its now safe to have a gun in the house. But just in case there’s a rough patch ahead, he bought me a bolt-action rifle. Said it gives him a much better chance of survival than an automatic.

 

Appleseed Shoot

A few weeks ago I took a handgun class. Next up: Appleseed Shoot. Wanna join me?

 

Ha Ha Ha

It doesn’t even matter that it’s not in English.

 

Feeling Poor?

This is too good not to share this entry from Mary Hunt’s Everyday Cheapskate:

Feeling Poor is Not a Financial Condition

It’s no secret that Americans are in credit card debt up to their eyeballs. To what can we attribute this colossal “living beyond our means” phenomenon? I don’t think it’s because we’ve had too many emergencies, and that’s why we all have credit cards, right? It’s because we don’t ever want to feel poor. Let me define the term, “feeling poor.” It’s a sad, sorry feeling of inferiority. It’s that feeling you get when faced with an invitation to join all of your rich co-workers for a chi-chi lunch, and you’ve got $8.43 to last until payday. It’s that feeling you get when you see a commercial for the coolest car on earth and all you have is a 10-year old clunker.

When you feel poor, the worst thing you can do is spend money. Sure, that might make the feeling go away for a time. But as soon as you realize you’ve plunged yourself deeper into debt and made your situation worse, you’ll feel even poorer. It’s a vicious cycle that comes to no good end. I have a better idea. Stop feeling poor in the first place. Here are three things you can do that will help change your attitude:

1. COMMIT TO A CLEAN CAR. No matter how old, how scratched or how ugly, if you keep your car sparkling clean inside and out, you won’t feel poor. Remove every coffee cup, every paper and every item other than the emergency equipment in the trunk every time you leave the car. Wash it weekly. Make sure the windows are spotless, the tires scrubbed and the chrome shiny. You’ll feel like a million bucks.

2. CURB THE CLUTTER. I don’t care how clean your house may be. If you have clutter, it’s pulling you down. Clear your closets, drawers, cupboards, garage and counters of everything that you do not need. Open space, tranquility and simplicity will chase away feelings of poverty. Clutter invites chaos which leads to depression and feelings of deprivation.

3. TUCK A C-NOTE. A “C-note” is a $100 bill. I want you to get one, fold it neatly and tuck it into a secret place in your wallet. Just like that, you will no longer feel poor. That C-note will make you feel prosperous and you are not likely to spend it on a whim. In fact, you are not likely to spend it at all. Breaking a hundred dollar bill is a big deal. You wouldn’t do that for a hamburger and fries, and you sure wouldn’t do that to convince the co-workers that you can afford to eat sushi with them instead of the bagged lunch you brought to work. That would be ridiculous, right? If you don’t have $100 to spare, start with a twenty. Then, trade it for a fifty. Before you know it, you’ll have Benjamin in your pocket, hidden away.

Feeling poor is not a financial condition. It is a state of mind, and something you can change.

 

Funny Bumpers

My friend Martha just introduced me to a website that sells funny bumper stickers (among other things). Here are a few of my favorite stickers on Cafe Press.com: