Deconstructing Self

If you haven't seen Sandy Szwarc's cogent analysis of the much-touted Self magazine eating disorders survey, get thyself over here right away and read it. Sandy's done a brilliant job at unpacking some of the most subtly disturbing elements of this "report" on women and disordered eating and on how it's been received. The cognitive disconnect she highlights refers not just to this particular study and the reactions to it but the disconnect we all experience of living in a society where food and eating and what we look like are bound up with so many judgments and with our most essential feelings about ourselves.

Food for thought indeed.

One Reason I'm not Voting for Obama

"Reducing obesity to 1980 levels will save Medicare $1 trillion." -- Barack Obama

Now a new study, as reported by Junkfood Science, calculates that reducing obesity actually costs governments more money in the long run.

What the study really points out, says JS, is the ridiculousness of coming up with such estimates in the first place. And I would add, the moral sledgehammer of using them in sound bytes, to make points that truly do not exist.

We've already had a president who fudges with spectacular ease and seeks to impose his own moral code on all of us. Please, let's not have another.**


**Oh, wait, do any of the candidates pass this test?