A segment on chocolate. Specifically: The sustainable cocoa farming Dove supports in Brazil. And then a commercial for Dove chocolate, a sponsor of the show.

• A 54-year-old woman from Chicago has been charged with a hate crime for harassing a young Muslim woman in a grocery store. Valerie Kenney reportedly made loud references to the Fort Hood shootings before grabbing and pulling Amal Abusumaya's headscarf. If convicted, Kenney faces up to three years in prison and a $25,000 fine. •  A woman accused with trying to exhort money from former Knicks coach Rick Pitino has been charged for falsely claiming Pitino raped her. The FBI says there is no evidence that a rape occurred, although he admits to having consensual sex with the woman. • A new analysis of several different studies has found that women who quit smoking while in treatment for weight control fare better at both tasks. While conventional wisdom tells us that going cold turkey while dieting is impossible, researchers say now women won't "have to choose between the two." •  29-year-old Mario McNeill has admitted to the kidnap of 5-year-old Shaniya Davis. McNeill told investigators that he took Shaniya from her home to a hotel about 30 miles away. Police have not yet brought charged against McNeill, and don't plan to until jurisdiction questions are resolved. • Two college students were handcuffed and driven away in a police car after they refused to pay a mandatory gratuity service at the Lehigh Pub. "Gratuity is thanking you for your service," argued 22-year-old Leslie Pope. "You can't give us terrible, terrible service and expect a tip." • Japanese drug company Sciele Pharma Inc plans to file for U.S. approval of a spray that numbs the penis to prevent premature ejaculation. There is currently no prescription treatment for the condition, which Sciele estimates affects up to a third of American men ages 18 to 59. • The March of Dimes gave the U.S. a D on its premature births report card because one out of eight American babies are born prematurely each year. Some states were recognized for taking steps to reduce smoking among women or providing health insurance coverage for pregnant women, but no state got an A. • A study of 2,016 women by deodorant-maker Bionsen found that the average British woman "hosts" 515 chemicals on her body every day. Most of the pollutants come from deodorant, perfumes, moisturizers, and makeup the women put on themselves. • Separate studies found that the most talented male athletes also have attractive faces. In one study women ranked the best NFL players as more desirable, and another survey of New Scientist Twitter followers came up with similar results for men's tennis. Researchers concluded the same genetic factors may be linked to an attractive male face and athletic prowess. • The American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery has responded to the Senate health bill including a 5 percent tax on most of their procedures with six reasons they think it's a bad idea, including, "cosmetic surgery is not a specialty for only the wealthy or the vain," and "despite the fact that more men are seeking cosmetic procedures than ever, the largest portion of patients are still working women, who would be unfairly targeted by such taxes." •

•  According to an independent group in Britain, the number of abortions performed on fetuses with Down syndrome has been greatly underrepresented. They claim that doctors, in attempts to protect their patients from further pain, have been classifying abortions performed on fetuses with Down as "social abortions." • Excerpts of Anne Frank's diary were censored out of a school textbook in Lebanon after Hezbollah's Al-Manar television channel ran a report claiming the book promotes Zionism. MP Hussein Hajj Hassan said, "These respected, established schools are teaching the so-called tragedy this girl lived, and yet they are ashamed to teach the tragedy of the Lebanese people, the tragedy of the Palestinian people... the tragedy of the people of the south under the hands of Zionist occupation." • A new study has found that there is a significant gender-based pay gap among US faculty. "Our findings show that women who wish to challenge pay gaps at their own institution need to systematically and quantitatively approach the situation, especially during a time of economic downturn," said the author of the study. •  David Swain has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for the murder of his wife in 1999. Swain was scuba diving in the Caribbean with his wife Shelley Tyre when something went wrong and Tyre was killed. Although local authorities found no evidence of wrongdoing, a British Virgin Islands judge has ruled differently. • Female cancer or multiple sclerosis patients are six times more likely than male patients to be separated or divorced soon after their diagnosis. Researchers said men may leave a sick spouse because they're more hesitant than women to commit to being a caretaker. • Six years ago, Stephen Weston heard about a woman who had been prosecuted for not wearing her seat belt correctly while pregnant. For many women, the cross-body belt is uncomfortable, so Weston decided to solve the problem by developing an alternative belt for expecting mothers. The shoulder harness seat belt will hit the market in 2010. • The New York Times reports on the rising number of female officers in the Iraqi police force. While women were long discouraged from higher positions, many have come to realize that there are certain benefits to having female officers. "Everyone says men are able to do everything, but that's not true," said Lieutenant Farah Hameed. "In investigations, especially with women, women use their compassion with victims to get them to answer questions clearly." •  A recent study shows that yo-yo dieting may be more like drug addiction than previously believed. Researchers put a group of rats on "diet-cycles," and they found that after going without food, the rats suffered anxiety, and the deprivation effected the same stress symptom that kicks in during drug withdrawal. • Women are getting involved in Mexican drug trafficking in greater numbers and many are being jailed or killed. More women are becoming addicts, turning to dealing as a better alternative to prostitution, or being forced to smuggle drugs through military checkpoints by male family members. •  Prosecutors have offered former astronaut Lisa Nowak a plea deal. Nowak is accused of stalking and assaulting Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman, who was dating Nowak's ex-boyfriend. •  Wanna be happy for the rest of your life? Move West, young woman. Apparently, people are happiest in the Mountain states and on the West Coast, due mainly to the high concentration of wealth, education, and tolerance. • While experts believe that postpartum depression is still severely under-reported, there are several new programs that offer support and aid to women suffering from PPD. UNC has a particularly good program, which features a small postpartum inpatient unit. • In the next 10 years women are expected to become the majority of unionized workers, according to a report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "When you have a majority of women in the labor movement, issues like work-family balance, paid sick days and paid parental leave become more important," said economist John Schmitt. • "Weight-watchers everywhere can breathe a sigh of relief. Contrary to their image as slim models of restraint, French women, it seems, really do get fat," begins this article, on rising obesity rates in France. It's a good thing Mireille Guilano has a new shtick. • Some are calling for the website celebrityaddressaerial.com to be shut down after it was revealed that the people who allegedly robbed Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Orlando Bloom, used the site to gather information on their targets. The site, which lists the addresses and aerial photos of hundreds of celebrity homes, contains information that could be found on sites like TMZ and Google Maps in a more easily searchable format. • A new fiction genre described as "Beatrix Potter meets the Kray Brothers" or "Pulp Fiction meets Wind in the Willows" involves animals, or even dinosaurs, in gritty detective stories. • In an interview with a British journalist who says she dreamed of being a Playboy Bunny as a child, Hugh Hefner says, "My younger brother and I were raised in a home in Chicago with no real affection; we knew we were loved, but there was no display of affection. I think that my quest for romantic love and the adventure of romantic love was filling the space that was left because I didn't get the affection when I was young." • In this security video a woman on a Boston subway platform who appears drunk falls onto the tracks. People wave at an oncoming train to stop, the driver breaks, and the car comes to a stop inches away from killing her. •

• Iranian police warned shopkeepers today not to use any mannequins with visible curves. Mannequins are also barred from appearing in windows without a headscarf. • In response to an abysmally low conviction rate for reported rapes, British officials have ordered a review of how rape victims are treated by authorities from the moment they report the assault onward. • Elizaveta Mukasei, who, with her husband, Mikhail, spied during the cold war for the KGB, has died at 97. The New York Times calls the Mukaseis "one of the most famous husband-and-wife duos in the history of espionage." • A new study reveals that more adults than previously thought (three out of five) have suffered from depression, anxiety disorders, alcohol addiction or marijuana abuse at some point in their lives. Previous studies had placed the number much lower, but they also did not follow participants over time, which doctors believe has lead to a more accurate picture of American's mental health. • Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor, who is a Yankees fan, is scheduled to throw out the first pitch on Saturday before New York's game against the Boston Red Sox. • A three-year custody battle over Dexter the pug has finally come to a close. A judge ruled that the dog will spend five weeks at a time with each of his owners. • Swedish female soldiers are demanding that the military provide them with combat-tested bras because the sports bras they're forced to buy unhook too easily. Men are provided with military-issue underwear, but there are no military-issue bras, so women have to buy their own. • According to the Census Bureau, 27% of gay couples say they are in a relationship "akin to husband-and-wife." This number is much higher than the number of gay couples who have been legally married, and analysts say it reflects the couples who would get married if they were granted equal rights. However, there were fewer same-sex couples reported this year than last, but that may be because fewer straight couples checked the wrong box on their forms. • Researchers have found that mice who are fed alcohol at a young age are more likely to make stupid decisions when they reach adulthood. Although this does not mean people who drink as teens grow up to be risk-takers, it does open up the possibility that the two things are related. • Tanning salons generally do not allow minors to visit without parental permission, but once they are in the door, they do not limit the number of tanning sessions allowed, a recent undercover operation found. •  A girls school in Pakistan was the target of another terrorist attack this Tuesday. Authorities believe the building was blown up by Islamist militants. • Researchers say when people are stressed they actually choose less familiar foods rather than "comfort foods." Study participants were asked to rate the level of change in their lives, then choose between American potato chips and British chips with odd flavors like Camembert and plum. Those experiencing more change were more likely to choose the unusual chips. • Australia's parliament will debate a bill that will decide whether two Kenyan woman can stay in the country as refugees, or if they will be forced to return and undergo female genital mutilation. Grace Gichuhi is seeking asylum because the Mungiki sect that killed her mother for refusing FGM wants to murder her for the same reason. She and fellow Kenyan Teresia Ndikaru Muturi both fled the country, but they'll be deported unless the parliament votes to expand refugee protection laws. • Researchers say people who are dieting should beware of naturally skinny friends who eat too much. 210 students participated in experiments in which a thin or overweight researcher ate snacks with them while watching a movie. The subject's portion choices mimicked the researcher's, but they adjusted and took a smaller portion if the researcher was overweight. • British Attorney General Baroness Scotland has been fined £5,000 for employing a housekeeper who wasn't allowed to work in the U.K. She didn't know it when she hired the housekeeper, but didn't keep a copy of her documents as required by law. • More women are murdered by men in Louisiana than anywhere else in the United States, according to a report from the Violence Policy Center. The national rate of women being murdered by men is 1.3 per 100,000, but in 2007 Louisiana's rate was 2.53 per 100,000. Alaska and Wyoming had the second and third highest rates. • A 19-year-old Indian girl confessed that she and her 20-year-old boyfriend strangled seven members of her family who opposed their relationship. They are charged with murdering her mother, father, grandmother, and four other relatives after lacing the family meal with a sedative. The family wouldn't let them marry because they belong to the same gotra, a group descended from a common ancestor. • Ron Paul on his appearance in the film Brüno: "I don't feel good about it because I was the subject of a trick, and nobody likes to be tricked. I understand they're not making a tremendous amount of money off this movie, so maybe the American people aren't as cynical as they assumed." •

Study author Susan Roberts defines "sensible" as no less than 1,200 calories a day for women, down from the 1,500 typically advised for a slower diet. In her study, those who tried to cut their calories down to this lower level had lost about the same amount of weight after a year as more conventional dieters, despite the assumption that crash dieting would cause binging and rebound weight gain. Roberts adds that "disinhibited eaters," those who easily break their diets when presented with the opportunity, "did really badly" on the more moderate plan. She says a dramatic change may be easier for some people than moderation, and "the trouble with slow diets is people tend to feel they are getting nowhere and give up. Fast keeps you excited and feeling like you're making progress."

Unsurprisingly, this crash dieting research has its detractors. Fat Is a Feminist Issue author Susie Orbach says, "diets depend on failure. They need to fail, otherwise there would be no repeat customers." And eating-disorder consultant Dr. Peter Rowan adds, "even a sensible weight-loss diet can trigger an eating disorder in someone who is vulnerable, but there is evidence to suggest that the more severe the weight loss, the more likely the diet is to trigger an eating disorder."

Even if crash dieting is more "effective" (i.e. promotes more sustained weight loss) than previously thought, we're not sure we can get behind the idea. Times writer Olivia Gordon describes her days of crash dieting thus:

I had a green salad and no cake for dinner on my 16th birthday. I lived through "Smashgate," a regime of Smash mashed potato, for days, until I realised that it was about 10 times as calorific as I'd thought. At university, it was all about calorie counting - anything from 700 to 1,200 calories a day. In my first job, I worked through a haze of starvation on the simple but deadly "stone in four days" plan. I picked Thursdays for the first night of a fast, so I could offset dinner hunger pangs by late-night shopping at Topshop.

Gordon says that with Roberts's new research, "we could all be about to head back to the weird world of crash dieting" — but we'd still rather have cake.

Can Crash Diets Be Good For You? [Times of London]

Kirstie Alley famously shilled for Jenny Craig. Jenny McCarthy has credited Weight Watchers with helping her lose her baby weight. Marie Osmond has taken time out of her "making creepy dolls for QVC" schedule to push Nutrisystem, and celebrities from Valerie Bertinelli to Oprah Winfrey are currently discussing their weight loss goals on the small screen; all under the guise of "helping other women" who may be struggling with the same weight/body image issues.

But as Jan Hoffman points out in the New York Times, these celebrity weight battles may just be doing more harm than good, as they present the notion that women MUST be thin in order to be considered beautiful. Disparaging comments made by celebrities at their heavier weights often lead viewers to feel bad about their own bodies, as Sarah Morice tells the Times: "I can't believe this is still getting to me. I see what Kirstie Alley says about herself and how easy it is for that to become my script. It's easy to lapse into ‘Oh, my body's ugly,' and ‘What's the use?' She triggers all those messages for me."

Not only do these celebrities contribute to the notion that thin=healthy and successful, fat=disgusting and lazy, but they also present women with ridiculously unrealistic notions of what it means to be healthy and happy. Oprah has always gotten on my nerves for her approach to weight loss: for Oprah, it's always been about the numbers on the scale, instead of the actual health value. She obsesses so much about getting back to a former size or losing x amount of pounds that she loses the point completely: diets do not, and never have, worked. Oprah's insistence on attaching her value as a person to her weight destroys any messages she may want to give about "getting fit" or "getting healthy," as Oprah still doesn't seem to understand that one can be both without being 115 pounds.

Dodai previously expressed her frustrations with Oprah's weight-loss obsession: "Of course, there's another issue here: Fat-shaming. With those two words, "I'm embarrassed," Oprah makes plus-sized people - and yes, that includes me - feel like they should be embarrassed, too. Because Oprah is amazing, and Oprah knows all. So if Oprah weighs 200 lbs. and is embarrassed then you'd better be ashamed of yourself if you're anywhere near or over that weight, right?"

When celebrities engage in this "I'm so hideous, I need to lose weight" behavior, it only reinforces the notion that everyone who may not fit the twisted societal ideal of "health" or "beauty" feel as if they've failed in some way, or that their bodies are "disgusting" as well. It's become so insane that when a celebrity does gain weight, and makes no apologies for it, as Kelly Clarkson has done recently, the media immediately begins to wonder "what's wrong" with the celebrity, and "why she let herself go." God forbid anyone consider that Kelly is comfortable with her body and perhaps the slimmer image she held a few years back was actually the result of being caught in a "thin or nothing" mindset.

Adding to the madness is the fact that we only see these women through distorted lenses, through screens and photographs, and our perception of their bodies is based only on what the media presents to us. We hear their weights, their cup sizes, their waist sizes, etc, and feel as if it's something to strive for, when in reality we have no idea what their bodies really look like. We begin to believe that in order to be beautiful and loved, we need to ave 0% body fat and a "bikini bod." We put all of our trust in women who are clearly uncomfortable with themselves and their body image. We take tips from people who still haven't made peace with their own skin. It's never really about getting healthy or getting fit: it's always about a damn bikini or a smaller pant size or a need to shed a "disgusting" shell in order to fit the socially-acceptable view of "beauty."

We also begin to judge the bodies of others, based only on what we've seen on tv or in the magazines, as Lesley Kinzel of Fatshonista.com points out: "When you have famous people turning their weight tribulations into mass-media extravaganzas, they're contributing to a culture where passing comments on strangers' bodies is considered O.K." I've often seen this happen in the comments: "But isn't being that heavy just unhealthy?" "I'm sorry, but she's obese, and that's a health issue." "I'm sorry, but being lazy and fat isn't glamorous, it's unhealthy." We begin to believe that we have the right to pass judgment on the health, bodies, lifestyles, and motivations of others, simply because we've been so trained to believe that the only healthy body is a body worthy of a magazine cover.

Thanks to the efforts of the Kirstie Alleys and the Oprah Winfreys of the world, overweight women are expected to apologize for their bodies, as Kate Harding points out: "The culture rewards that self-disgust. Once you acknowledge that your body is not O.K., then people love you, because that's what expected of fat people all the time."

We often have battles break out in weight-related threads, namely over the concepts of thin privilege and the judgments passed by those who think that fat=unhealthy. The truth is that we're so screwed up as a society, in terms of how we view weight, that we can not let go of whatever messages have been drilled into us by popular culture. Everyone is busy judging everyone else's weight because so many of us are uncomfortable with our own, and when we see someone who is, we immediately become suspicious or declare that that person is "clearly unhealthy" in their approach to body image or weight. Here is where thin privilege comes into play: fat=always bad, thin=always good. People do not want to factor in genetics, the concept of being heart-healthy at a higher weight, or the notion that not all women are designed to weigh 110 pounds.

Perhaps instead of holding up celebrities for "battling" with their weight, we should begin celebrating celebrities who refuse to apologize for their bodies, and who embrace positive body image. It won't be easy, as most celebrities would rather be rewarded for being thin than celebrated for being comfortable in their own bodies, but one hopes that eventually, famous women will stop tearing themselves down, as all it does is make things that much harder for the rest of us.

Binging On Celebrity Weight Battles [NYTimes]
Kelly Clarkson: Weight Debate [Star]
Earlier: Oprah's "Embarrassed About Her Weight"; I'm Pissed Off

The trend started in 2004, when Kraft introduced their 100-cal packs of Oreo Thin Crisps (they also introduced an infuriating commercial to promote these cardboard wafers), Wheat Thin Minis and Nabisco Mixed Berry Fruit Snacks. The next year, Kellogg and General Mills followed suit. Kraft's individually packaged bags of cookies and crackers sold extremely well: more than $75 million in sales in their first year (a figure that does not include Walmart sales).

In the past year, however, sales of the mini-packs have drastically fallen. Although Kraft maintains that its products are still selling well, dollar sales of Kraft's Nabisco 100-calorie Oreo Thin Crisps fell 30.5%, and other items show a similar trend. Some believe that the 100-cal packets are over:

Tom Vierhile, director of product launch analytics for Datamonitor, said the segment has run out of steam. Vierhile's research shows that there's still a lot of products on the market making the 100-calorie claim-190 were introduced last year and 68 have come out so far this year, but they may be too late to market. "This has been a big trend the last couple of years, but has dropped off this year and at this point it looks like we're going to come in below where we were last year," he said.

It seems that most people have realized that 100-calorie packs aren't at all useful. They don't taste as good, they fill our landfills with useless packaging, and they provide servings that are way too small to sate most cravings. Phil Lempert, a food analyst who calls himself the "Supermarket Guru," says that one reason the 100-calorie snack craze has fizzled is due to the ability of "newly frugal customers" to measure servings by themselves.

Furthermore, it appears that the strict portion control imposed by 100-calorie packs may not actually work for weight loss. A study conducted last year found that participants given 100-calorie snacks while watching TV ate significantly more than those who were handed a regular-sized bag. Brand Week also points out that portion control dieting may be on its way out, to be replaced by the already annoying weight loss buzz word "satiety."

100-Calorie Packs Pack It In [BrandWeek]

Related: 100-Calorie Snacks Are The Downfall of American Civilization
100 Calorie Packs Turn Women Into Crazy, Screaming Lunatics

The company that manufactures Hydroxycut, Iovate Health Sciences Inc, has already started recalling the product. According to Linda Katz of the FDA, "The FDA urges consumers to discontinue use of Hydroxycut products in order to avoid any undue risk. Adverse events are rare, but exist." The Hydroxycut website has already been changed to redirect to "Hydroxycut Information," which currently shows information regarding the recall. [Reuters] [Hydroxycut]

•  Dr. Fabiola Carrieri says she was not offended by the comment made by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi ("I wouldn't mind being resuscitated by you") while she was working in an Abruzzo field hospital. She said it was merely a "gallant" compliment intended to lighten the drama of the situation. •  Police in Saudi Arabia are investigating an elaborate hoax that involved sewing machines, cell phones, and a non-existant substance called "red mercury." •  A Swedish man has announced that he plans to display what he calls "Scandinavia's largest collection of erotic items" in his Stockholm garden. He owns over 15,000 "erotic items" to combat society's "anti-sex" leanings. • If you're looking to build your own erotic collection, be one of the first 100 people to stop by Babeland on tax day and receive a free Gold Digger vibrator. • Dr. Aronne, author of new dieting book The Skinny, explains to the Wall Street Journal why a big meal makes you want to eat more. He also sets up a daily diet plan that advises groundbreaking weight loss measures like breakfast and salads. •  The Houston Chronicle explores yet another stupid trope for ladies in Hollywood: the high powered, but still mentally unstable, career woman. • Judith Krug, the founder of Banned Book Week and former director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, has sadly passed away. •  The Iraqi government has been working quietly on a draft law that seeks to protect victims of sex trafficking and punish the abusers with fines and prison sentences. Currently Baghdad offers no protection to victims of trafficking. • Allen Andrade, 32, is scheduled to go on trail today for the murder of Angie Zapata, a transgender woman. Andrade is believed to be the first person tried for a hate crime under the sexual orientation section of Colorado's hate crime law. •  The Parks and Recreation office of Spokane, WA, have employed an exterminator who plans to detonate some 100-150 squirrels that hide in the ground with a special machine called the Rodenator Pro. •  A man from Texas has been ticketed for cursing at his neighbor about his cat, who liked to "defecate" in his yard. "I used the slang word, the four-letter word to describe what the cat was doing," he later explained. • In attempts to escape prosecution in a fatal drunk driving case, the defendant published his own (fake) obituary. He was later found alive, hiding under a pile of rocks in New Mexico. •  A polar bear from Chicago has been brought all the way to Detroit to mate with two females at the Detroit Zoo. • Spokesmodels at the New York Auto Show have been forced to field questions about the bailout from attendees, despite the fact that they are employed by temp agencies and don't actually have anything to do with the auto industry. • 

Researchers at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine studied the body mass index of 200 pairs of female identical twins for two years, reports The Telegraph. Doctors chose twins so that they could control for genetic factors and focus only on environmental factors. The study found that twins with a BMI 4 points higher than their twin looked younger by two to four years. Doctors say this is because people who have lost weight have less volume in the face. "This loss of volume creates jowls and makes wrinkles develop," he says. "The older we get, the more the face gets depleted. When you lose weight, this look is enhanced and aging is accelerated," says Dr. Bahman Guyuron, lead study author, according to The New York Daily News. Guyuron said the findings apply only to women over 40, and that, "For women under 40, gaining weight obscures the facial definition that is inherent in a younger woman."

According to the study, women who are concerned about aging should focus more on maintaining a healthy weight than extreme dieting. "Even though being really thin is perhaps in vogue, we are not advocating that you lose too much weight because even though your body may look thin, your face will look older." Doctors say that yo-yo dieting also ages the skin by creating volume loss and repeatedly stretching facial ligaments.

The study also identified being divorced and being on antidepressants as factors that made the twins look older, in addition to the known culprits of thinness, smoking, heavy drinking, and exposure to the sun. "The twin who is divorced appears about 1.7 years older than the twin who is not divorced," said Guyuron. The research suggests that stress could be to blame, as well as the relaxation of facial muscles, which can be a long term effect of taking anti-depressants.

"The idea that being in a happy relationship is going to keep you looking younger, for me is a no-brainer. Being in a happy marriage, or indeed any social support system, has a protective effect on our health and our looks," said Dr. Linda Papadopoulous, a psychologist who studies body image according to The Telegraph. Papadopoulous said the findings of the report were positive, "but only if we read them in context." She added, "it is really encouraging because it suggests that if you learn to cope with stress, and learn to accept your body, then you cannot only change the way you think, but the way you look, too."

Dieting 'Makes You Look Older' [The Telegraph]
Study: Being Too Thin Will Age Your Face [The New York Daily News]
The Secret of Ageing Beautifully - Just Like Nigella! [The Telegraph]

[Image via Flickr.]

Casey Schwartz writes for The Daily Beast:

Studies suggest that changes in the state of the economy can influence what men find sexually attractive in women— and when the economy's bad, it's good to be fat. Or, at least, a tiny bit fatter.

Researchers polled students about the size of their ideal woman. Male subjects who were made to feel insecure about their finances reported a preference for women who were, on average, roughly two pounds heavier than their financially confident counterparts. Subjects on their way to lunch wanted a woman who was three pounds heavier than guys quizzed when they were full. Whether or not any of this actually translate into the real world, whether or not dudes are actually accepting of women with three pounds more on their frames is not the point. This story is designed, really, to make a woman carrying some extra weight feel a little better. Like her time has come. And in a world where we're bombarded with diet ads and skinny models, some soothing is welcome. (Schwartz writes: "Pass the enchiladas.")

But on the other hand, Mindy Laube penned a scathing piece for a blog associated with Aussie paper The Age, in which she writes, "The human body is meant to be lean and fit." She claims "the fat lobby" attempts to "re-rate our body shape standards to suit an unattractive mean."

The average Australian woman is 5'4" (163 centimetres) and a size 14. These dimensions may be typical but they do not make a woman normal, they make her FAT. […] A fat body is not a normal body. It's an aberration that we countenance to the detriment of our looks, health and self-esteem. Shifting the aesthetic goal posts to normalise a disproportionately high fat-to-muscle ratio on the basis of that figure type's ubiquity is equivalent to rewriting home building regulations to accommodate shoddy workmanship. Prevalence is no justification for acceptance.

Laube references the bestseller Why French Women Don't Get Fat and argues that the real reason French women are not chubby is because they don't let themselves get fat. "French women - and men - prize looks and style over gluttony and sloth," she says. Don't you love it when being fat is equated with being lazy?

While it's true that humans were not designed to eat fast food and sit at a desk all day, this is the reality we live in. Times have changed, so the human body has changed. And some of the most industrious, hard-working people are overweight. Our environment is not what it was in the 1950s, so why should our waistline be?

So which is it? Should overweight women be proud and happy of their size, especially in a recession? And since each generation keeps getting bigger and bigger, will we eventually have an "average" size that is 20 or 24? (Wall-E, anyone?) And is there anything wrong with that? Or is the average (overweight) woman doing herself — and the world — an injustice by keeping the pounds on?

Hot And Heavy [The Daily Beast]
The Pudgy Country [The Age]

"Only In A Woman's World," Frito-Lay's new Sex and the City-inspired commercials have already started running on TV and more print and online advertising will be rolled out early this month.

Though the four cartoon women are shown gabbing over Frito-Lay products, it's a little unclear what's being advertised in the commercials. Mainly, the commercials focus on the friends worrying that bikini season is approaching, obsessing about hot guys, and crying hysterically at the loss of their hairdresser or "skinny mirror."

In the worst commercial/webisode, Episode 2, two of the friends visit "Cheryl," who is home sick and hasn't been able to eat in days - but lost four pounds. The other two swoon and say she is "so lucky." One remarks: "You guys are whack jobs, you know that right?" Maybe so, but Cheryl says she can almost fit into her skinny jeans!

The unbelievably involved website also features commercials, games, and e-cards. In the "meet the girls" section, we learn tons of information about each character's job, weakness, and relationship status. Is knowing that Anna's favorite author is Toni Morrison, that Cheryl, the stay-at-home mom, "puts everyone else's happiness first," or that Maya "hides how much she spends on shopping from her husband" supposed to make women want to buy chips? The one thing that would make us life-long Frito-Lay customers (aside from, of course, the company producing delicious snacks) is an ad campaign that shows women eating potato chips like normal human beings, without making a self-loathing comments about their weight.

Earlier: The Complicated Business Of Getting Women To Buy Crap

While researchers have found that both medication and psychotherapy can help patients suffering from BDD, they are still uncertain about which one is the most effective treatment for BDD — or whether patients could be best served by a combination of the two. Jonathan Ipser, the lead researcher on the study of BDD treatments, says that "Both approaches seem to be acceptable to patients with this condition, as shown by low drop-out rates in trials. There was also some suggestion that psychotherapy could reduce the risk of future relapse, although we need more data on long term treatment effects to confirm this." Alone, drugs are enough to help patients, but when combined with therapy, they could be even more effective. Unfortunately, Ipser says research on effective treatment is still lacking, and until further research is conducted, it is impossible to say what works the best for most patients.

A separate study found that reducing stress levels can lead to weight loss, and that dieting may not be the best way to lose weight. Researchers found that a health plan involving diet and exercise is not as effective as one that utilizes yoga and meditation. They speculate that reducing stress stops cravings for fatty foods and sweets, leading people to chose healthier options. The study examined the overall health of three groups of women, one that took part in yoga, meditation, and positive visualization, one that focused on exercise and nutrition, and a third that received nutrition information in the mail. They found that the women in the first group were the only ones who maintained the psychological and medical symptom improvements.

Body dysmorphic disorder: Research on effective treatments still lacking [EurekAlert]
You don't have to diet to lose weight.. just relax instead, say experts [Daily Mail]

Image via HumanIllnesses.com

I have nothing against New Year's Resolutions. I make some every year, and then break them. Last year, I made a resolution to break my resolutions before Valentine's Day. I started biting my nails on January 2 at 9:15 AM, after sleeping in and neglecting to get that "early morning run" in. Mission accomplished!

Anyway, it makes sense to me that people use the New Year as a means to motivate themselves to change their habits, patterns, and focus on their health, and that's a good thing, really, but the constant barrage of diet ads and diet articles that spring up around this time of year (and around mid-March, when "bathing suit season is just around the corner!") are a reminder of how messed up our society's views on weight and healthy habits are. January is a time for changes; February is a time for saying "fuck it" and eating half a box of Valentine's Day candy before you even leave the Rite-Aid, thanks to a month long "diet" of rice cakes and grilled chicken breasts. We are a nation of spurts; we all get psyched up as the year changes, discouraged as it moves along, psyched up again once it gets hot enough for us to realize that we can't cover ourselves with 8 layers, and discouraged again once we peel off the layers to see what we've been hiding all winter.

It's a tough situation for those of us who have struggled with eating disorders; the rest of the world is suddenly focused on weight to an even greater degree than usual at this time of year, and at times it feels like the rest of the world has temporarily picked up our illness, or at least certain quirks of it, under the guise of "healthy changes." It is incredibly strange to watch and often difficult; I imagine it's a bit like being a recovering alcoholic who watches her friends get trashed at a party; those friends can get drunk, but stop drinking and eventually come back to normal. For ED patients, "just dropping 10 holiday pounds" often spirals into trouble, if not a full-out relapse.

I realize that weight is a touchy subject for mostly everyone, and I don't begrudge anyone their rights to get healthy and feel better about themselves. I just wish that the weight loss push that happened at this point every year would focus more on overall health than on dress sizes or fitting into a stupid bikini or impressing your husband/boyfriend/girlfriend/random person you went to high school with. Perhaps the best resolution any of us can make is just to be kind to ourselves, to treat our bodies not as numbers on a scale or sizes on a rack, but, as Fiona says, "extraordinary machines" that require a little love, patience, and a decent mix of spinach and Snickers bars.

Of course, Glamour has never explicitly asked her to lose weight or forced her to participate in anything. And even though she writes a blog about it, there should be no value judgment on her choice to lose weight or not, as it's really not our business. However, Margarita has received a promotion since she started the blog. In her first days of blogging, Margarita was an executive assistant, and she's now an assistant health editor. "I'm tired of feeling that, if I want to, I can’t make it as a health editor or a fashion editor because I don’t fit the mold," she wrote. But it was only after she lost a good bit of weight that she felt "empowered" enough to ask for the promotion. Though the weight loss was never forced, one has to wonder whether the culture of the office is reinforcing the idea that her success is tied to her weight and writing about it.

Even more than that, I wonder if diet blogs can be positive at all. It's good for women to have spaces where they can speak freely about their issues and feelings, but whenever we do posts about weight, discussion always devolves into people posting their heights and weights down to the decimal point. In fact, many commenters seem to think these discussions trigger their worst feelings about weight and self. Is it possible to write about your weight struggles for a living and emerge unscathed?

Am I The World's Worst Daughter? [Glamour]

Earlier: The Last Days Of Mademoiselle: Cocaine, Cigarettes & Calorie Counts

Bacon's research has shown that the "Health at Every Size" approach is more effective than weight loss as an ultimate goal. She ran a trial where half the women were in a HAES group and the other half were in a traditional, weight-loss focused dieting group. While the HAES group did not lose weight, the Times notes, "their healthier behavior led to lower blood-pressure and cholesterol levels, which stayed low even two years later. In the weight-loss group, more than 40 percent dropped out before the six-month low-calorie diet ended, and at the two-year follow-up, the average dieter had regained all her lost weight, and the only measurement that dropped was one for self-esteem."

Low self-esteem can be a big problem for obese women who are attempting the HAES approach, as a new study presented at the Obesity Society's annual meeting shows, many very overweight women avoid exercise because they feel self-conscious about working out.

Another weight-oriented study, this one involving tweens, shows that heavy girls aged 9-13 who read a book with an overweight heroine lost more weight than girls who read a book without weight themes. Time reports that the girls who read Lake Rescue, a novel "whose protagonist is an overweight preteen who struggles with low self-esteem, feelings of isolation and teasing because of her size," lost .71 from their BMI, while those who read the non-weight oriented Charlotte in Paris lost only .33 from their BMI. The heroine of Lake Rescue ends up learning to make healthy food choices and embrace physical exercise.

Even though these girls lost weight, it seems that presenting them with a heroine who is ridiculed because of her size is not an ideal way to get them to eat healthily. Like 12-year-old girls don't have enough shit to deal with; maybe they should be getting Linda Bacon's book instead.

Losing The Weight Stigma [NY Times]
Obese Women Face Many Exercise Barriers [UPI]
Can Reading Help Kids Lose Weight? [Time]
Health at Every Size [Amazon]