[Aurora, Colorado; December 1. Image via Getty]

AURORA, CO - DECEMBER 01: An immigrant from Mexico holds her four day-old son during a newborn care class at a community health center for low-income patients on December 1, 2009 in Aurora, Colorado. The Metro Community Provider Network (MCPN), which has 11 health centers in the Denver area, has seen a 138 percent increase in patients during the last year of recession. Non-profit community health centers such as MCPN could play a major role nationally if health care reform is passed, with increased subsidies from the federal government as well as millions of newly-insured low-income citizens seeking care. Health coverage for immigrants remains a contentious issue in the reform debate. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Edward Wyatt of The New York Times writes that Ryan Benson, who lost 122 pounds to win The Biggest Loser's first season, has gained the weight back and "thinks he has been shunned by the show because he publicly admitted that he dropped some of the weight by fasting and dehydrating himself to the point that he was urinating blood." Indeed, show officials have tried to keep other former contestants from talking to the press, and trainer Jillian Michaels says, "Contestants can get a little too crazy and they can get too thin. [...] It's just part of the nature of reality TV." However, Dr. Charles Burant of the University of Michigan says "the nature of reality TV" may not be compatible with the nature of, you know, health:

I have had some patients who want to do the same thing, and I counsel them against it. [...] I think the show is so exploitative. They are taking poor people who have severe weight problems whose real focus is trying to win the quarter-million dollars.

The gimmick of many reality shows is to take something that usually happens slowly — like finding a spouse or losing a large amount of weight — and speed it up for the benefit of the audience. Producers shoehorn whole periods of people's lives into a handful of TV hours, and it's no wonder that they squeeze out a little blood in the process. Gawker's Hamilton Nolan says that rather than watching The Biggest Loser, overweight people should "eat a few hundred calories less than you burn every day; exercise for no more than an hour five days a week, with a sensible mix of interval cardio workouts and basic weight training; lose a couple pounds a week; continue until satisfied." But for a lot of people, it isn't really that simple, and it would be kind of nice to see a TV show that promoted Health At Every Size. Jill at Feministe says, "a real show about health - where in the end there would still be some healthy fat people and some healthy thin people and some healthy in-between people - would make really boring TV," and she may be right. The truth is, what entertains us is rarely what's good for us, and the subtext of Jillian Michaels's statement is that the nature of reality TV is to exploit suffering and pain.

I don't want to be all get-off-my-lawn-y — really, criticizing reality television is so passé it's almost retro — but I will say that back in the days of scripted programming people only pretended to do things that were bad for them. Now we get to watch real people — people who, in the case of The Biggest Loser, probably feel marginalized by society — abuse themselves for free. It's probably too late to turn back the clock on this phenomenon, but it's not too late to call it what it is: a cheap way of exploiting the vulnerable. Not to mention a shitty way to lose weight.

On ‘The Biggest Loser,' Health Can Take Back Seat [NYT]
Shocker: "The Biggest Loser" Promotes Unhealthy Weight Loss Practices [Feministe]
Biggest Loser: Basically Killing Fat People For Your Amusement [Gawker]

In the past, cervical cancer screening has been recommended starting at age 21 or within three years of a female's first sexual experience, whichever comes first. Now, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) says women can start getting screened at the age of 21, regardless of when they began having sex, and that women older than 30 who have three consecutive normal Paps can get screened every three years instead of every year. ACOG also says some women can put screening on hold between ages 65 and 70, and that women with no history of abnormalities who have their cervix removed through hysterectomy can stop screening entirely.

Like the mammogram guidelines, these new Pap smear recommendations are meant to reduce the harm caused by false positives. But doctors say the risks of Pap smears are greater than those of mammograms — they often detect cervical lesions in young women that would go away on their own without ever progressing to cancer. Removing these lesions can damage the cervix and increase the chances of premature birth.

Dr. Cheryl B. Iglesia, chairwoman of the panel that developed the new Pap smear recommendations, calls their timing — coinciding with debates on mammograms and on healthcare reform overall — "an unfortunate perfect storm." And cervical cancer survivor Patricia Juirc told the Washington Post,

It seems a little bit of a week where women's health is taking a beating, considering the suggested guideline changes for mammography and all. Like they no longer want to be proactive and only see or treat us when we get sick.

But Cindy Pearson of the National Women's Health Network says,

There's something about health reform and guidelines that makes people think they're telling women to do less screening to save money. But we don't have any concerns that women are being asked to give up something that is helpful. These recommendations are sound.

And Thomas Herzog, a gynecological oncologist and spokesman for ACOG, adds, "in this case, if anything, we're taking money out of our own pockets." Part of the skepticism about screening guidelines is no doubt caused by fears surrounding the health care debate. But in part, these guidelines have been so controversial because they go against the prevailing medical culture. The Times's Kevin Sack writes,

For decades, the medical establishment, the government and the news media have preached the mantra of early detection, spending untold millions of dollars to spread the word. Now, the hypothesis that screening is vital to health and longevity is being turned on its head, with researchers asserting that mammograms and Pap smears can cause more harm than good for women of certain ages.

Are we about to see a shift in the way we think about our health, in which the benefits of early detection are weighed against the risks of detecting and treating something that never would have harmed us? This shift might be beneficial — especially if we believe ACOG — but it's not going to happen overnight. And a healthcare debate in which phrases like "death panel" get thrown around isn't going to make it happen any faster. In addition, the new Pap smear recommendations may seem strange to women who take birth control, given that doctors often require yearly Pap smears as a condition for such prescriptions. Girls and young women who want the Pill have long had to submit to screening before even the more conservative three-year recommendation, and the new guidelines are unlikely to change this practice. Beneficial as screening can be, using birth control as a carrot to lure women into the stirrups is a little paternalistic, and reflects an approach to women's health in which the women themselves don't have much power. This approach is evident in the debate over reproductive rights as well — over the years, so many people have tried to exert control over women's bodies that it's no wonder we've become a bit suspicious.

Cervical Cancer Screening Can Wait Till 21, Group Says [Washington Post]
Medical Science And Practice In Conflict [NYT]
Guidelines Push Back Age For Cervical Cancer Tests [NYT]

Researchers asked 5,893 people, 54% of them women, to choose their present body size and ideal body size from a chart depicting nine human figures. The discrepancy between the two was used to measure how satisfied the participants were with their bodies. Two to three percent of the subjects overall chose an "above-normal" size as ideal, but close to one in 10 obese people apparently felt that their size was normal and healthy.

However, say the study authors, 35% of obese people who felt this way had high blood pressure, 15% and high cholesterol, and 14% had diabetes. Time to freak out, right? If these people only knew they needed to lose weight, they'd be so much healthier. Except according to lead study author Tiffany Powell, these problems occurred at comparable rate in obese people who did feel like they were too fat. They just occurred along with a "healthy" dose of guilt.

The study did reveal a few benefits of "knowing you need to lose weight." Those who wanted to drop pounds were more likely to have seen a doctor in the past year (and yearly checkups are smart for many people), and also more likely to exercise. But since neither exercise nor going to the doctor has been proven to result in weight loss, isn't it time we stopped using fat-shaming to force people into these behaviors? Couldn't we find some way of promoting a healthy lifestyle that doesn't start with classifying people as abnormal?

Some Obese People Perceive Body Size As OK, Dismiss Need To Lose Weight [EurekAlert]

NBC's Andrea Mitchell and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, herself a breast cancer survivor, talk above about one of the biggest concerns sparked by the new guidelines: that insurance companies will now choose not to cover mammograms for women under 50. Doctors say this won't happen immediately, but is certainly possible, and the National Committee for Quality Assurance is already changing its system for grading health plans to reflect the new recommendations. Because of this, many worry that the change is motivated by a desire for cost-cutting, and not a concern for women's health. Carol H. Lee of the American College of Radiology says,

The only conclusion I can come to is it's economically motivated. In this climate, when we are all paying attention to how we can decrease the cost of health care, in my opinion that's the primary motivation.

But the United States Preventive Services Task Force, which not only recommended the change in mammogram ages but also said breast self exams have little benefit, says the real issue is unnecessary screening and even treatment. Women in their 40s are 60% more likely to experience false positives from mammograms, leading to unnecessary follow-up tests and anxiety. While these risks may seem relatively minor, early screening also increases the odds that a woman will be treated for cancer that never would have sickened her — and unnecessary cancer treatment is a much more serious proposition than a biopsy. Some women, in fact, seem relieved by the new guidelines. 51-year-old Nancy Moylan told the New York Times,

Sure, I know plenty of women who have breast cancer. And I know many, many women who've received false-positives. It always struck me that most women seemed so relieved to know that they don't have cancer that they never took the next step and said, ‘Hey, why was I just put through that anxiety? I've had all these invasive tests and worry only to find out that the mammogram isn't all it's cracked up to be?'

What's frustrating for many women may be the uncertainty of breast cancer screening, uncertainty only further compounded by the new guidelines, which have already been criticized by the American Cancer Society. Liesl Schillinger writes in The Daily Beast,

The only consistent message from the scientific community to women is to be afraid. How can issues of such life-and-death importance to women-more than half the population-be so murkily understood, and so conflictingly explained? Are medical authorities playing a guessing game with women's health?

Unfortunately, when it comes to breast cancer, a guessing game still seems to be the only game in town. Dr. Donald A. Berry, a statistician on the task force, says the money spent on regular mammograms for women under 50 "was buying something of net negative value," and that with the new guidelines, "the economy benefits, but women are the major beneficiaries." And in fact, many women have long forgone mammograms because they personally feel the risks outweigh the benefits. Unfortunately, mammograms only reduce the breast cancer death rate by 15% — a big deal if you are one of the ones saved, but still a relatively small fraction of all sufferers. This statistic — and the high number of false positives associated with mammograms — shows that what women really need are better screening tools. But for now, we have to decide what to do with the tools we have, and this decision has just become a lot more complicated.

Mammograms And Politics: Task force Stirs Up A Tempest [Washington Post]
Many Doctors To Stay Course On Breast Exams For Now [NYT]
New Mammogram Advice Finds A Skeptical Audience [NYT]
Panel Urges Mammograms At 50, Not 40 [NYT]
The Great Mammogram Debate [Daily Beast]

Pro-choicers had a signature drive, which allowed them to physically stack admissions of women's support and deliver it to the White House:

NARAL Pro-Choice America delivered a petition to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Monday urging him not to include controversial anti-abortion language in the Senate bill.

The group gathered 97,218 signatures in a 72-hour drive over the weekend imploring the senate majority leader not to include the Stupak-Pitts amendment in his final version of health care reform. The amendment, initially offered by Reps. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), would prevent private insurers from offering abortion coverage to anyone who receives government subsidies through a new insurance exchange.

Stephanie Simon of the Wall Street Journal committed a Guttmacher faux pas by using the organization's research to say that this change will not have a major impact on women:

Restrictions on abortion coverage approved in the House version of the health-care bill likely will affect the affordability of the procedure for only a small minority of women.

Although the bill has stirred passions on both sides of the abortion-rights debate — which are likely to be echoed when the Senate takes up its version — the practical effect of the restrictions will be limited, statistics suggest and some experts in family-planning issues say. [...]

Just 13% of abortions nationwide are billed to private insurance, according to a 2001 study by the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights but is cited as a reliable source of data by both sides in the abortion debate. An unknown number of people might seek reimbursement from their insurance company after the procedure. Applying the 13% figure to the most recent abortion data available suggests that fewer than 160,000 women a year rely on insurance to cover the cost of an abortion upfront.

As a reminder, the Institute has stated very clearly:

Among the many arguments being made in the debate over health care reform is the claim that because very few women use private insurance coverage to pay for abortion services, loss of this coverage would have minimal impact. Those making this argument cite a Guttmacher Institute statistic showing that 13% of all abortions in 2001 were directly billed to private insurance companies (see Table 3, page 20, here).

However, that statistic alone misrepresents the situation on three counts:

* Our study included all women who obtained abortions in 2001, including women on Medicaid and those who are uninsured. If one looked only at privately insured women, the percentage of procedures billed directly to insurance companies would be substantially higher than 13%.
* Perhaps even more importantly, the 13% statistic does not include women who pay for an abortion up front and then seek reimbursement from their insurance provider. This is common when a medical provider does not participate in a patient's insurance plan, as is often the case with small, specialized providers, including abortion providers.
* Lastly, some of the women whom our study identified as paying out of pocket likely had insurance coverage for abortion care, but may not have known they had it or chose not to use it for reasons of confidentiality. Given the stigma that still surrounds abortion, many women might not have wanted their insurer or employer-or their spouse or parent who may be the primary policyholder-to learn that they had obtained an abortion. That antiabortion activists who have worked for decades to perpetuate that stigma are now turning around and using it to argue why women should not be able to purchase insurance coverage for abortion is deeply cynical.

Over in Massachusetts, the Stupak-Pitts amendment galvanized the senate race, with each entrant trying to out-maneuver the other:

State Attorney General Martha Coakley, the front-runner in the Dec. 8 contest, laid down the first marker by declaring soon after the House vote last week that she would have voted against the bill because of the amendment restricting the sale of insurance policies covering abortion through the proposed national health insurance exchange - or to women who receive health care subsidies from the federal government.

Asked in an interview with a Boston radio station whether she would have voted for the bill, Coakley said, "I believe that I would not."

"I think that this particular amendment that was put in is really a poison pill for that bill, and it's taking two steps back," she said.

Massachusetts Rep. Michael Capuano, who is also seeking the Senate seat and who was one of 219 House Democrats who voted for the bill, quickly seized on her comment, calling it "manna from heaven" for his campaign.

"I'm proud that my vote helped keep health care reform with a public option alive, so that the fight for health care reform will go forward," Capuano said in a statement. "I believe it's what the people of Massachusetts expect and what Ted Kennedy would have demanded."

In essence, Coakley is arguing that she would have voted no outright, in protest of Stupak, while Capuano said he voted for a bill to keep dialogue going, while voting against the final bill if Stupak is still in there.

However, there is some hopeful news. It looks like some of the Dems are hatching a plot to preserve the public option:

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who requested the meeting with Reid, said progressives believe they have compromised enough on the public option – from a Medicare-for-all proposal to Reid's proposal to create a national government plan with a provision for states to opt-out.

"Most of us in the caucus want a strong public option, support the Reid way of doing it," Brown said. "And we're confident that over time, as the debate unfolds and we take amendment after amendment after amendment, that we can get 60 votes."

He acknowledged several moderates need convincing, but said there is little willingness among progressives to back down. [...]

A Senate aide said there were plans to discuss passing the health care bill through a procedural maneuver known as reconciliation – which favored by progressive activists because it would allow Democrats to circumvent the 60-vote filibuster threshold. A majority of the Democratic caucus supports the public option, and only 51 senators would be needed to approve the legislation under reconciliation.

Max Baucus is one of the moderate Dems that seems to believe that no matter what's in the bill, the most important thing to do push the Frankenbill to Obama:

"They wanted to talk about the importance of the public option being in the bill, which I understand," Baucus said. "But the main point is that we must pass health care reform hopefully by the end of this year. But we must pass it."

But as the public outcry over the Stupak-Pitts amendment has shown, the citizenry is becoming increasingly more concerned with the content of the bill, not just its existence.

NARAL delivers petition to Reid [Politico]
Limited Effect Seen in Abortion Clause [Wall Street Journal]
Misuse of Guttmacher Statistic on Insurance Coverage of Abortion [Guttmacher Institute]
Abortion key issue in Massachusetts race [Politico]
Senate liberals press Reid on public option [Politico]

Sager begins his post pretty annoyingly, saying, "At the risk of alienating any females in the audience, today we're going to discuss… the science of a butterface." Starting off a sentence with "at the risk of" in this way is basically like saying, "no offense" — that is "I'm about to say something really offensive, but I'm acknowledging it, so now you can't get mad." And did Sager really need to commit the language foul of calling women "females?" No, nor did he need to link us to his Google image search for the word "butterface," or indeed, mention the word at all. The actual research goes something like this: 375 college students, male and female, were asked to evaluate potential dates of the opposite sex for either a long-term or short-term relationship. They could choose to see a photo of the date's face or body, but not both. Everyone was more likely to choose the face, except for men deciding on a short-term relationship. Sager writes,

For a short-term relationship, men were as likely to say they wanted to see the face as the body. 50-50. For long-term, 75% of men wanted to see the face.

Frankly, this is probably "better" than most people would expect men to do on such a measure, given cultural jokes about how men think about women.

I'm not really sure there's any need to attach a value judgment to this research. We may think of faces as more individual or expressive than bodies, and thus a "better" basis for making relationship decisions, but is this really true? Or does it just reflect a puritanical view of the body? I remember when a boy in high school told me I had a nice ass, and my friend retorted, "He shouldn't like you for your ass! He should like you for your eyes!" Well, if that boy and I were actually going to have a long-term relationship (we didn't), he probably would have needed to like me for my brain in addition to whatever physical qualities he was into — despite windows-to-the-soul stereotypes, eyes aren't any less superficial or any more related to inner beauty than asses. They're just considered less sexual, and therefore somehow more acceptable in a rather outmoded view of human attraction.

A similarly misguided view of the interplay between women's looks and men's desires is at work in the BBC coverage of a study about women's weight. Apparently a group of male students rated "normal weight" women as both healthier and more attractive, based on photographs, than either underweight or overweight ones. The BBC titles its article "Size zero girls 'less attractive' " (seriously, could we retire the phrase "size zero" in all cases not specifically referring to clothing?), and the study authors manage to insult both underweight and overweight women. Study supervisor Prof. David Perrett says,

This sends a strong message to all the girls out there who believe you have to be underweight to be attractive.

The people making judgments in our study were all between the ages of 18 and 26 and they did not rate underweight girls most attractive. They preferred normal weight girls.

That's right, girls, quit having that eating disorders so that boys will like you! I'll admit that it's probably good for heterosexual young women to know that the men in their lives expect them to diet themselves down to nothing. But most people who develop eating disorders don't do it so that guys will like them, and invoking the generalized sexual preferences of a group of men in their teens and twenties isn't exactly a great way to instill healthy habits in women. Of course, neither is fat-shaming. Lead researcher Vinet Coetzee said that overweight women in the study had higher blood pressure and more colds and flus than their normal weight peers. She added,

Even at this young age, their health was already suffering because they were overweight, and what is more, other people can spot this in their face.

She seems confident that the men in the sample rated overweight women as less healthy not because of cultural mores that equate fat with omgdeath, but because they could totally tell that the women probably got the flu a lot. This seems Specious, but more than anything, it's unhelpful — being told that guys can tell they're unhealthy isn't going to make anybody lose weight, especially since anyone who's considered overweight is already bombarded with the message that they're unhealthy anyway.

I'm not against studies about human attractiveness per se — I just wish those who report on such studies could stop linking them to health or morality. Anybody who's been on the Internet knows that sexual attraction isn't always healthy or moral. And just as a man who ogles your ass is no better or worse than one who gets lost in your eyes, a woman is no more sound in body or soul because a panel of men deem her doable.

Image via Flickr.

The Science Of A Butterface [True/Slant]
Size Zero Girls 'Less Attractive' [BBC]
A Pretty Face Or A Hot Body? [Scientific American]

[Provo, October 27. Image via Getty]

PROVO, UTAH - OCTOBER 27: A nurse gives a shot of the H1N1 vaccine to Casie Chatwin (L) as her mom Valerie (R) holds her at the Utah County Health Department October 27, 2009 in Provo, Utah. After health department got a shipment of 4000 vaccines overnight, a large line formed with a wait of four to five hours. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)

[Reedley, California; October 21. Image via Getty]

REEDLEY, CA - OCTOBER 21: Seventeen year-old Marissa Hamilton (L) and her friend Mary Healy sprint during a timed one mile run during fitness training at Wellspring Academy October 21, 2009 in Reedley, California. Struggling with her weight, seventeen year-old Marissa Hamilton enrolled at the Wellspring Academy, a special school that helps teens and college level students lose weight along with academic courses. When Marissa first started her semester at Wellspring she weighed in at 340 pounds and has since dropped over 40 pounds of weight in the first two months of the program. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16 percent of children in the US ages 6-19 years are overweight or obese, three times the amount since 1980.(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Honestly, the way that the drums bang about the obesity epidemic, I thought cookies would be public enemy number one right about now.

But that seems to be a part of the appeal of the diet. According to the experts interviewed for the New York Times article:

"The Cookie Diet is very appealing, because it legalizes a food - the cookie - that is banned from most weight-loss programs," said Jenni Schaefer, author of "Goodbye Ed, Hello Me: Recover From Your Eating Disorder and Fall in Love with Life" (McGraw-Hill, 2009).

"The diet gives people a false sense of control, simplifying balanced nutrition into one food: the cookie," she added.

In addition, the nutritional properties of said cookies are widely subject to interpretation:

[T]here are no clinical studies on any of the diets and that a key ingredient in Dr. Siegal's cookies - special amino acids, which supposedly curb appetite - is known only to Dr. Siegal and his wife.

"It's the particular mixture of proteins that does the job," Dr. Siegal said. "All foods do not handle hunger the same way, and high protein foods curb hunger." The cookies, he said, contain protein derived from meat, eggs, milk and other sources. They also contain microcrystalline cellulose - a plant fiber that acts as a bulking agent, emulsifier and thickener - and are sweetened with sugar.

However, other diet cookie makers are more forthcoming about how the cookies work. One of the competing brands, Soypal, relies on "okara, or soy pulp, which absorbs any liquids you drink with the cookies." Since the Soypal website recommends you drink two glasses of water or another beverage with each cookie, it's pretty clear that the diet cookies are designed to trick your body into thinking you've eaten.

Unfortunately, many of those who tried the cookie diet have found it lacking:

Ms. Pierson, who is in her 60s and lives in Manhattan, tried Smart for Life cookies, which come in chocolate, banana coconut, oatmeal raisin and blueberry last year, and lasted about three days. "I was weak, tired, irritable and hungry," she said. "I hated it."

I guess that just goes to show cookies really are a sometimes food.

A Few Cookies A Day To Keep The Pounds Away? [NYT]

[Miami, October 19. Image via Getty]

MIAMI - OCTOBER 19: Johana Villafuerte,6, receives a H1N1 nasal flu spray vaccine from nurse Shajaira Powell-Bailey at the Broadmoor Elementary school October 19, 2009 in Miami, Florida. The Miami-Dade County Health Department began distribution its initial shipments of the H1N1 Influenza vaccine and is launching a vaccination campaign in conjunction with the Miami-Dade County Public Schools, The Children�s Trust and The Trust�s partner health agencies. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

About 665 million people in India — about half the population — lack access to latrines. But since a "No Toilet, No Bride" campaign started about two years ago, 1.4 million toilets have been built here in the northern state of Haryana, some with government funds, according to the state's health department.

Women's rights activists call the program a revolution as it spreads across India's vast and largely impoverished rural areas. [...]

"No loo? No 'I do,' " Vimlas said, laughing as she repeated a radio jingle.

And interestingly, this is one time when the stars have aligned to favor families who decided to buck societal pressures and raise female children.

A societal preference for boys here has become an unlikely source of power for Indian women. The abortion of female fetuses in favor of sons — an illegal but widespread practice — means there are more eligible bachelors than potential brides, allowing women and their parents to be more selective when arranging a match.

Ha! Talk about taking advantage of a horrible situation. The women then use their influence to actually stop some of the more virulent diseases that flourish in areas lacking sanitation systems as well as gender-specific problems:

The lack of sanitation is not only an inconvenience but also contributes to the spread of diseases such as diarrhea, typhoid and malaria.

"Women suffer the most since there are prying eyes everywhere," said Ashok Gera, a doctor who works in a one-room clinic here. "It's humiliating, harrowing and extremely unhealthy. I see so many young women who have prolonged urinary tract infections and kidney and liver problems because they don't have a safe place to go."

Previous attempts to bring toilets to poor Indian villages have mostly failed. A 2001 project sponsored by the World Bank never took off because many people used the latrines as storage facilities or took them apart to build lean-tos, said Ranjana Kumari, director of the Center for Social Research in New Delhi, who worked on the program.

But by linking toilets to courtship, "No Toilet, No Bride" has been the most successful effort so far.

Ultimately, the region now is beginning to experience an interesting shift - with more girls going to school, and feeling empowered enough to assert their wishes to their future families, this may signal the beginning of a greater push for gender equality.

In India, New Seat of Power for Women [Washington Post]

I quit drinking diet soda two years ago, after about a decade of being hooked on the stuff. I had started drinking it when I was around 18 or so, and over time I'd become completely dependent on it to get through the day. I started every morning with a can of Diet Coke (or Diet Dr. Pepper) and then made sure I had at least two 20 oz. bottles to get me through the first half of my class schedule or work day. At around 3pm, I'd have to go get a fountain drink somewhere, because I'd start getting very nervous and agitated once the caffeine fix wore off. At night, I'd drink a few more cans. Unsurprisingly, I went through a fairly nasty period of insomnia for a few years.

I had tried to quit several times: I knew it was really gross, and really expensive, as I couldn't bring myself to buy cheaper generic diet cola and I was blowing money on 12-packs the way a chain smoker drops money on their favorite brand of cigarettes, price be damned. It wasn't until I moved into my own home and noticed the piles of recycling I'd built up just through one week of drinking pop (yes, I call it pop, sorry) that I realized how bad it had gotten. So I decided just to give it up cold turkey, which was a bit of a nightmare, as the headaches from caffeine withdrawal were rough, but two years later I can safely say it was worth it.

But though I personally found diet soda drinking to be detrimental to my overall existence, is there really anything that bad about having a Diet Coke habit? Sian Lewis of the Times of London argues that a dependency on Diet Coke is a "civilized addiction," in that people tend to brush off fears about chemicals in their cans in order to happily continue drinking their favorite beverages. Concerns over osteoporosis and tooth decay are also dismissed in favor of continuing one's beloved Diet Coke habits. Sometimes, I guess, we'd rather not know what we're drinking, as long as it makes us feel better.

Daniel Finklestein, a self-proclaimed Diet Coke addict, tells busybodies to back off, noting that his soda addiction isn't hurting anyone: " don't drink alcohol, coffee or tea. I don't smoke. And I have never taken an illegal drug. But I do like a cool refreshing can, just for the taste. Actually, a number of cans. Or even, in the right convivial setting, with the right food, a 2-litre bottle. I am not bothering anybody else."

So what say you, commenters? Is a diet soda habit something to be concerned about? Or are there worse habits one can have? I know for me, personally, kicking the habit was worth it. But as someone who used to rely on that fizzy pop to get through the day, I also know how hard it is to give it up. The trick, I suppose, is to find some type of moderation, or at least a way to have a Coke and a smile without always equating one with the other.

Diet Coke: A Civilised Addiction? [TimesOnline]

More precisely, people with thighs more than 60 cm (23.6 inches) in circumference have a lower death and cardiovascular disease risk than those with skinnier legs. This result held true even after scientists controlled for total body fat, smoking, and blood pressure. The study authors say people with small thighs may have low muscle mass, which can contribute to insulin resistance and thus to heart disease.

Somewhat confusingly, one write-up of the study says researchers measured "fat-free thigh circumference," and it's unclear if cellulite counts toward the magic 60 cm total. And while a nurse at the British Heart Foundation says, "There is insufficient evidence to confirm that a low thigh circumference affects a person's risk of developing cardiovascular disease," the BBC goes ahead and offers some quick tips to "increase your thighs." It would be nice if this finding reduced pressure on women to be tiny and to work out without being "too muscular," but the accompanying picture of a lady in underwear (without big thighs) isn't exactly hopeful.

A similarly mixed blessing is a survey (by research giants Date.com, Matchmaker.com and Amor.com), in which 85% of men agreed that, "A couple of extra pounds are fine by me." We're not sure if "a couple of extra pounds" means "as long as you're not fat or anything," but it's nice to be reminded that most men don't expect women to look like the cover of Self magazine.

Not so nice: the fact that 80% of men supposedly think overweight women are "less bitchy" than thin ones. First of all, this means the survey asked them this question, which is gross. Second, way to enforce the notion that men should date fat girls because they're so nice, and have "good personalities" — you know, because they were forced by their physical hideousness to develop other qualities. This is related to the idea that guys should seek out girls who were "ugly in high school," because they won't be full of themselves. Basically, the stereotype of the "nice" fat/ugly/ex-ugly chick implies that women who have or had low self-esteem make better partners because they're willing to take more shit and less likely to dish it out. Oh, and the survey question implicitly disses "skinny bitches" too. Thanks dating-ologists!

The survey also found that 90% of women think "men find extra weight unattractive." Says Shira Zwebner, "relationship adviser" for Date.com, Matchmaker.com and Amor.com, "Unfortunately, these types of misconceptions between the sexes are extremely common, and result in a lot of missed dating and relationship opportunities." So don't miss an opportunity! Join our dating sites today! Or, you know, love your body, and don't try to make it smaller based on what you think men want — or bigger based on science that has yet to be confirmed.

Large Thighs 'May Protect Heart' [BBC]
Large Thighs Protect Against Heart Disease And Early Death [EurekAlert]
Men: Heavier Women Better In Bed [UPI.com]

In a PsychCentral article, Margarita Tartakovsky quotes eating expert Ellyn Satter's definition of normal eating:

Normal eating is going to the table hungry and eating until you are satisfied. It is being able to choose food you like and eat it and truly get enough of it-not just stop eating because you think you should. Normal eating is being able to give some thought to your food selection so you get nutritious food, but not being so wary and restrictive that you miss out on enjoyable food. Normal eating is giving yourself permission to eat sometimes because you are happy, sad or bored, or just because it feels good. Normal eating is mostly three meals a day, or four or five, or it can be choosing to munch along the way. It is leaving some cookies on the plate because you know you can have some again tomorrow, or it is eating more now because they taste so wonderful. Normal eating is overeating at times, feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. And it can be undereating at times and wishing you had more. Normal eating is trusting your body to make up for your mistakes in eating. Normal eating takes up some of your time and attention, but keeps its place as only one important area of your life.

Some of these things — eating until you are satisfied, for instance, seem so basic that it's sad we need permission for them. Others almost sound like sacrilege: it's really normal to eat because you are "happy, sad or bored"? Isn't that "emotional eating," something women do that sabotages them and makes them fat? Satter's definition acknowledges something few diet articles ever will — that having a piece of cake because you want it, or even because you're in a bad mood, isn't a stupid mistake only someone with no willpower would make. It's normal.

Contrast that with this advice Tartakovsky quotes from Fitness Magazine:

Make a plan and stick to it. Consuming the same simple, locally grown or organic foods week to week will help prevent you from resorting to last-minute fast-food (and unhealthy) meals. Avoid using treats, such as ice cream or other sweets, as a reward for a hard day.

Nutrition researcher David Katz, MD, won't overexcite his taste buds while trying to lose weight. ‘The more variety of foods and flavors you introduce, the more appetite is stimulated,' Dr. Katz explains. ‘If your diet resembles an all-you-can-eat buffet, you're going to eat a lot.' Dr. Katz also says that restricting meal options will help eliminate temptation. Redundancy is the safest bet.

Tips like this one — which basically boils down to "bore yourself thin" — may seem normal because magazines tout them so much. But eating to avoid exciting your taste buds is actually counterintuitive and difficult. Maybe one reason so many diets fail is because they ask people to eat in ways that are, frankly, pretty weird.

Of course, Satter's prescription for normal eating might not make people thin. But it probably wouldn't make them gain a million pounds either. The idea that you'll be morbidly obese if you let yourself eat until you're full, and don't beat yourself up about overeating occasionally, is based on an invalid principle: that fat people eat way too much of all the wrong things, while thin people carefully restrict all their food. Overweight people who don't live on a diet of donuts already know this. So why is America, which is now 66 percent overweight or obese (at least according to the CDC) still full of fat hatred?

In an article titled "America's War on the Overweight," Newsweek's Kate Dailey and Abby Ellin blame, in part, something called "the fundamental attribution error, a basic belief that whatever problems befall us personally are the result of difficult circumstances, while the same problems in other people are the result of their bad choices." They also quote Marlene Schwartz, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, who says, "A lot of people struggle themselves with their weight, and the same people that tend to get very angry at themselves for not being able to manage their weight are more likely to be biased against the obese." Interestingly, her research shows that young women, who may experience the most weight pressure, have the most negative thoughts about fat people.

But there's yet another explanation for America's rage against the overweight. According to psychologist Ryan Martin, "People actually enjoy feeling angry. It makes them feel powerful, it makes them feel greater control, and they appreciate it for that reason." Dailey and Ellin mention snarky Internet comments, one of the most popular mediums of fat hatred — and also, perhaps, one of the easiest ways to gain a feeling of control with no consequences. When Tara Parker-Pope of the Times Well blog asked her readers what they thought normal eating was, they were actually pretty well behaved. But one commented,

As long as "registered dieticians" and registered politicians subscribe to the "I'm OK; you're OK" school of health, our population will get fatter and fatter. Personal responsibility? It's so passe.

And another added,

Clearly the "norm" in America is to overeat to the point of degrading health by consuming excessive amounts of salt, fat and sugar and insufficient amounts of complex carbohydrates. The article seems to be much more a discussion of what "feelings" about eating are desireable rather than what would lead us to eat in a manner that is desireable from a health standpoint.

Discussions of food tend to make emotions run high, here as everywhere. But we'll risk it — do you agree with Satter's definition? What does normal eating mean to you?

What Is ‘Normal' Eating? [NYT]
America's War On The Overweight [Newsweek]
What Is Normal Eating? [PsychCentral]

[Germantown, Maryland; August 25. Image via Getty]

A woman holds up a picture of US President Barack Obama depicted as Nazi leader Adolf Hitler during a healthcare forum with US Congresswoman Donna Edwards (R), D-MD, in Germantown, MD, August 25, 2009. AFP PHOTO/Jim WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)