[New York, November 26. Image via AP]

Mary Linen, of New York, left, stands in line with others as they wait to partake in a free Thanksgiving dinner at a Salvation Army center in the Harlem section of New York, Thursday Nov. 26, 2009. (AP Photo/Tina Fineberg)

That was Gail Zweigenthal, a former editor who covered things like important cruise ship christenings for Gourmet, and who lives — of course — on the Upper East Side. Zweigenthal proudly tells the paper that she lifts weights and walks three miles every single day.

New York, which is already one of the thinner states in the country, is home to Manhattan, where overweight people comprise just 42% of the population. (The national average is 67%.) These data are, of course, derived from the Body Mass Index — and strangely, the fact that while obesity is a serious health problem, BMI is an unreliable indicator of a person's health, goes unmentioned in the Times story. In any case, the reason Manhattan is New York's thinnest county is undoubtedly because it is also one of the state's, and the country's, wealthiest places. In poorer neighborhoods of Manhattan, like Harlem, obesity rates and the prevalence of obesity-linked diseases, like Type 2 diabetes, are higher.

Maybe the fact that food choice — not to mention the choice to join a gym — is in America largely a function of social class and income level is what led reporter Anne Barnard to concentrate exclusively on interviewing skinny rich ninnies for this piece. We have:

• Brian Ermanski, a 28-year-old "slender yet muscular painter" who lives in SoHo and, from a bench outside the restaurant Balthazar, says things like, "It's probably more like 20 percent overweight down here." Ermanski smokes to stay thin.
• Manager of the Madison Avenue Intermix — a store which does not sell clothes above a size eight — Lynne Bacci, who works out "to fit into skinny jeans and tank tops."
• The aforementioned Zweigenthal, who continued, "If I feel fat, I can't enjoy eating. This is unhealthy — that if I gain a few pounds, I'm not happy — but it's the truth of me."
• Exhale Gym and Spa director Susan Tomback, who calls exercise for her clients "a lifestyle thing. It's like a club. They go to brunch afterwards at Sant Ambroeus." Sant Ambroeus is a restaurant whose brunch menu includes a filet of sea bream that costs $39. Exhale Gym and Spa is a gym and spa where membership can cost up to $285 a month.
• One denizen of the Upper East Side who says that she was raised to explicitly connect social class with weight. "My mom always says, 'The smaller the dress size, the bigger the apartment.'"

Then Barnard quotes a 52-year-old plumber from the Bronx named Chuck Ortiz, who, at 6' and 220 lbs, would be classified as just under obese according to the BMI. Ortiz, who eats a $5 chicken gyro for lunch, doesn't understand why wealthy New Yorkers pay for a gym "when there's a park right there."

That's the sort of outer borough logic that doesn't get much play in the land of lunches at Balthazar and $285/month "lifestyle" gyms and stores that abjure a size 10 dress.

Where Thin People Roam, And Sometimes Even Eat [NYTimes]
Top 10 Reasons BMI Is Bogus [NPR]

[New York, June 30. Image via Getty]

NEW YORK - JUNE 30: A girl shields herself from a rainstorm with a cardboard box outside a tribute to Michael Jackson at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, where the deceased pop star first performed at age 9, June 30, 2009 in New York City. Thousands of people lined up outside the famous theater to pay tribute to Jackson, bringing flowers, singing, and performing impromptu dances. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

Either way, this year, neighborhood newcomer American Apparel says it didn't get the memo. It operated as normal on May 19, which would have been Malcolm X's 84th birthday, until the manager actually registered the marchers' presence, at which point the shop hurriedly closed.

A group of about 20 people who took offense at the California clothier's actions picketed the store this weekend, shouting "No disrespect for Malcolm X!" and calling for a boycott of the store. (In past years, when the birthday marchers encountered stores that had remained open, they have gathered outside and shouted for a boycott until the stores have rolled down their grates.) This weekend's protesters added one new twist: handing out leaflets mentioning American Apparel's recent $5 million settlement to Woody Allen, whose image was used without authorization on the company's billboards and online.

The march organizers, a coalition of community groups called the Malcolm X New Millennium Committee, characterize the 20-year tradition of store closings as a retail "moment of silence," says spokesman Omowale Clay. He also says the committee hand-delivered a letter to American Apparel, which has operated its West 125th St. location for less than one year.

125th St. has in the past few years been transformed from a shopping corridor with a panoply of pokey small businesses and 99c stores, to a shopping corridor with such totems of gentrification as an H&M, an Old Navy, and delicatessens that sell imported beer. But even though businesses line the road at street level, there is worrisomely low occupancy in most buildings above the first floor — partly because of property hoarding by landlords. Events like the Malcolm X birthday march have been a traditional flash point for conflicts over changes in the neighborhood that many longtime residents don't believe necessarily benefit them and their needs, and nor, do they feel, are they even intended to. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what a group of residents chanting "Whose street? Our street!" are driving at.

American Apparel, a west-coast clothing brand that largely still reflects the image of its white, hipster founder, and which named its zebra-print the "Afrika" print (with, as Dodai pointed out, the colonial 'k' — one can imagine what Malcolm X might have thought of that), made itself an easy target. It's easy to imagine Omowale Clay, or one of his fellow committee members, earnestly and probably a little self-righteously handing off their letter to one of the chain's typically disaffected staffers, only for that sales clerk to shrug and get back to talking about that really great party coming up where she was told there'll be coke. As quaint as getting exercised about gentrification seems, post-crash, now that all those glass-sided uptown condos are languishing unsold and the giant empty lot on the corner of E. 125th and Park Avenue festers like an opportunity that nobody has the money to take, it's equally strange to read American Apparel's profuse and sensitive-sounding apology, which gives the impression that the assassinated black leader's birthday was this totally awesome thing that they absolutely would have been down for, if only anyone had, like, told them:

"We want to apologize for any offense taken by marchers who thought American Apparel was not in support of their rally for Malcolm X...As you may know, every May 1 since 2003, our factory in Los Angeles is closed so that our employees can march in the May Day Rally for immigration rights, a cause that is both important to us and the L.A. community as a whole."

Image via Jordan Parnass Digital Architecture
Should Harlem Stores Close For Malcolm X's Birthday? [Cityroom]

Earlier: What's The Difference Between Inspiration And Insult?

Christine King Farris, sister of civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., center, is mobbed after a cable news channel projected Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama as the winner during an election-night party at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)