Double X's KJ Dell'Antonia writes,

Senators Jim Moran (Va.) and Bill Pascrell (N.J.) have introduced the Healthy Kids Act, which proposes "specifying categories of foods and beverages for or about which any advertisement, promotion, or marketing directed at children and youth shall be an abusive, unfair, or deceptive act" and limiting advertising for certain other foods and beverages-presumably the slightly less objectionable ones-to two minutes an hour on weekends, three on weekdays.

It's true that limiting advertising directed at children, like increasing the penalties for sex offenders, is a perennially popular measure. Few parents haven't heard their kids beg for Koala Yummies* after catching a TV commercial, and some research suggests that kids' eating habits are influenced by what they watch. Dell'Antonia points out that without regulation, companies have every incentive to keep pushing Miley-Cyrus-shaped-mac-and-cheese-whatevers** on undiscerning little brains, and that limiting said pushing is thus "good policy." It may be true that restricting advertising might reduce some kids' cravings for salt, sugar, and yellow no. 5, but Dell'Antonia also identified a much bigger culprit for children unhealthy eating habits: the government. She writes,

In September, Michael Pollan noted in an editorial in the NYT that, with the proposed health care bill, the federal government is "putting itself in the uncomfortable position of subsidizing both the costs of treating Type 2 diabetes and the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup." The Healthy Kids Act would have that same government encouraging the production of foods and beverages containing high-fructose corn syrup, but discouraging their consumption. It seems cynical to call that progress, but I guess we'll have to take what we can get.

Until farm subsidies quit making Industrial Grade Fructose Snax^TM artificially cheap, it may not matter much whether advertisers make them artificially attractive. So rather than trying to keep kids in the dark about all the delicious varieties of corn syrup glutting supermarket shelves, maybe we should concentrate on filling those shelves with brussels sprouts instead, via agricultural that encourage farmers to grow food that doesn't make you die. Then TV regulators can worry about what really matters — why the women on kids shows are so hot these days.

* Are these still around? They were delicious.
** I don't know what kids are eating these days. Get off my lawn.

You Can't Sell That On (Kid's) Television [Double X]
Cultural Milestone Of The Week: Screw Sesame Street! Sexy Entertainers Are Steaming Up Kiddie TV Shows [Details]

According to the study authors, "mothers who were emotionally unstable, anxious, angry, sad, had poor self-confidence or a negative view of the world" were more likely to give up in difficult situations and to feel less in control of their kids. Psychologist Eivind Ystrøm says,

I think that mothers compensate for this either by trying to force healthy food into their child or hold the sweet-bag strings extra tightly. Paradoxically, they try to balance poor control by actually using more control. With force and restrictions they increase desire which quickly results in resistance in the form of tantrums which these mothers are also bad at resisting. Also, earlier studies have shown that controlling behaviour among parents is linked with a more sugar-rich diet among children.

This sounds a little harsh on Mom to us, but Ystrøm does note the need for research into how dads' moods affect kids' diets, and into how to both relieve stress and improve kids' diets. The study authors don't mention it, but we wonder if unhappy parents also get some vicarious pleasure out of feeding their kids sweet or fatty foods, especially if they deny themselves those foods. Giving kids tasty food can also make parents feel good about themselves, even if the treats they serve aren't all that healthy. We echo Ystrøm's call for ways to reduce maternal stress — and we'd also like to see some research into how comfort food can affect the server as well as the eater.

Maternal Personality Affects Child's Eating Habits [ScienceDaily]

• A new study has found that pregnant women who consume a small amount of caffeine (like a daily cup of coffee) increase their risk of giving birth to an underweight baby. • The Lamberth council in south London allocated £90,000 today to be spent next year to have reflexologists give foot rubs to badly behaved children. • The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the HPV has been linked to 25,000 cases of cervical, mouth and anal cancers from 1998 to 2003. • German scientists say that there is no substantial link between birth control pill use and weight gain. • An Albany county coroner in Wyoming claims that the record of Matthew Shepard's autopsy was missing when he took over in 2007 but the pathologist that conducted the autopsy says he has a spare copy. • Female print and television journalists in Saudi Arabia share their stories of discrimination and second-class status in a country that is beginning to show signs of accepting more women in the workplace. • Doll-enthusiast and born-again Catholic Anne Rice doesn't write about vampires anymore but she does have a new memoir coming out that was written in the style of St. Augustine's Confessions. • New research claims that there is a direct correlation between the number of places to buy alcohol in a neighborhood and the amount of male on female domestic violence in that neighborhood. •

Well there's also palm oil in Kashi breakfast bars and Whole Foods water crackers. Not to mention cosmetics like Burt's Bees soap and Clairol Herbal Essences Rainforest Flowers. So like, when you think you're buying some kind of natural, earthy hair stuff, you're actually killing the earth?

I went on a treasure hunt around my apartment to see if I had any killer products containing palm oil. No dice, maybe because my fridge is empty. And my conditioner is full of chemicals with no "natural" ingredients. Yay! Also, apparently Lever 2000 soap is palm-oil free. But then I started thinking: I eat meat and wear leather and sometimes I let people at the deli give me a plastic bag. I don't know what the solution is but I already know I'm part of the problem. But if Glenn Hurowitz, an environmental journalist, didn't realize his (wife's) conditioner had palm oil, what hope is there for the rest of us?

Clean Hair Or Clean Air? [LA Times]

Earlier: Scout's Honor
Eat It

So the chips are very yellow, with yellow powder and slightly green crystals. (Weird, I know!)

They smell like feet, but then again, so do Fritos. (My dog's paws always smell like Fritos!) As far as the taste goes, they're very sweet — the Doritos, not my dog's paws — with a vinegar/tangy kick. They're not bad, but it's not a flavor I would actually buy because I craved it. Here are the list of ingredients:

Whole corn, vegetable oil, corn, soybean, sunflower oil, sugar, salt, corn maltodestrin, fructose, dextrose, citric acid, buttermilk powder, monosodium glutamate, corn syrup, natural flavors, sodium diacetrate, modified corn starch, artificial color, and malic acid.

Yeah, no clues in there. WTF are "natural flavors"? Anyway, my official guess is: "Honey Mustard".

This is something I've been doing for a while. At first it started in college, when I was super poor and would buy $.99 bags of party mix for a meal, and then eat all the good stuff, then toss the bag with the pretzels in it. Later on, I'd still be hungry, so I'd resort to fishing the bag out of the trash to eat the pretzels. As the years progressed, I've tried to use my trash can as a form of portion control or something, particularly when drunk. This past Valentine's Day, I got pretty wasted and decided to buy a cheese steak and cheese fries after leaving the bar at 2 AM. I got home, ate half the sandwich, felt disgusted with myself, and then threw it out. (I polished off the fries before I even got out of the cab.) In the morning, I woke up hungover and in the mood for something greasy. I went over to the garbage, found the other half of my sandwich and ate it, despite the fact that an empty packet of wet dog food was right next to it. More recently, I've dined on disposed buffalo wings.

I've talked to some of the other Jezebels about this and I know for a fact that I'm not the only one. It's slightly fucked up, because I know that it's rooted in an impulsive way to try to restrict my intake of the fattening food I love so much, and a compulsive need to actually finish it the next day. (There's also a big element of being just too lazy to drag my ass down and back up the four flights to actually buy new junk food at the deli.) But you know, it's still not one of the stupidest things we've ever done to lose weight.

Earlier:What's The Dumbest Thing You Ever Did To Lose Weight?

In the past I have — well, America has — worried about you. Worried about your eating disorder, that you'd lost that lovin' feeling for Brad, that you were moving the kids around too much, that your public post-partum case was going to fuck up Shiloh, or that your estrangement from your dad betrayed some sort of forgiveness deficiency. It's important, forgiveness, when you're a parent; I mean, I don't have to tell you this. First and foremost, you have to forgive yourself. You're never going to please everyone; there will never be enough time; someone is always going to end up shrieking at the top of her lungs and smearing you with bright orange drool. It's too easy to let shit like this get you down, to let it become an excuse to stop living.

A wise Muppet in a Dave Chappelle skit I watched one time sang a song that still resonates with me when I think about the most important tenet of parenting. I'm pretty sure the song was called "Fuck it." More rich parents, I think we can all agree, need to "fuck it." So your kids move from place to place like the very refugees your bleeding heart yearns to save? Fuck it. So you have a few glasses of wine with those twins? Fuck it. So you dab some cognac on Shiloh's pacifier when she's teething and are too busy touring war-torn camps to breastfeed? FUCK IT. Your kids have it all; money, two parents whose combined sordid pasts will never make them feel like anything is too fucked-up to be normal, and awesome haircuts. Good job. Fuck it.

Related: Chester's Got A Brand New Bag [Slate]

According to the LAT, the Loser brass has been encouraging contestants to chew it because "gum can curb appetite, prevent snacking and provide an edge in the weight-loss game." It might be true to an extent, but the contestants on Loser are also exercising several hours a day and being fed incredibly healthy food in a controlled environment. The fact that they're losing a ton of weight? Yeah, it's not the gum.

Chewing gum is also a weight-loss strategy among some of the women interviewed by Allure for an article called, "Junk-food dieters fake their way to skinny." Kate, a 32-year-old advertising executive, chews an entire 18-piece pack of Extra a day to avoid snacking. Other women interviewed for the piece swear by Diet Coke, Starbucks, Tasti-D, and those apocalyptic 100-calorie snack packs as weight loss helpers. "Many believe ingesting a few artificial ingredients is a small price to pay for being able to eat the things they love while staying as thin as a Pringle," according to Allure. Um, no shit? Basically, these women are counting calories and sometimes rely on processed foods to do so. How is this newsworthy? Eating fewer calories will always make you lose weight, even if those calories are spent entirely on sugar-free Jell-O. When your paramount goal is to be skinny, not healthy, you're going to resort to whatever measures possible to reach your goal. That said, I will give up diet coke when they pry it out of my cold, dead hands.

Chew Gum To Lose Weight? [Los Angeles Times]
Junk-food Dieters Fake Their Way To Skinny [Allure via MSNBC]

Earlier: Annals Of Anorexia
100-Calorie Snacks Are The Downfall Of American Civilization

Scientists from Oxford University say that an increase in junk food over the past 50 years has led not to a stress-free existence but a rise in violence among inmates. A pilot study randomly distributed vitamin supplements to prisoners in England and Scotland — along with a placebo. There were a third fewer violent incidents among those given the supplements. Vitamins, shmitamins! I will cut a fool for some chocolate right about now. Maybe the problem is that they need to feed inmates more? How violent can you be if you're full of cake?

Australia Univ. Research Shows Junk Food May Lower Stress Levels [Breitbart]
Prison Study To Investigate Link Between Junk Food And Violence [The Independent]

"Replacing processed foods with whole grains, fruits, and vegetables appears to have a beneficial effect on insulin levels, which could also promote healthy ovulation," says Dr. Chavarro. OK. So if you don't want to get pregnant, you should avoid whole grains and load up on processed food? Awesome. What about that pint of Häagen-Dazs we've been craving? "The Nurses' Health Study found that a daily serving of a full-fat dairy food, such as whole milk, ice cream, or cheddar cheese, increased a woman's pregnancy odds," Dr. Chavarro warns. Shiz. No ice cream or cheese, then. Just doughnuts. Maybe eating for fertility works, but eating for infertility can't possibly be effective: If junk food is birth control, how come Britney Spears has two kids?

The Fertility Diet: Eat Right to Get Pregnant [U.S. News & World Report]

'There's a girl in my office whom we call the Tuck Shop,' says 27-year-old Lou, who works in television. 'She's always offering something to snack on, and keeps huge supplies of crisps and chocolate by her desk. She's really skinny, too.'

What Lou has identified is a 'biscuit pusher': a woman who will buy sickly 'treats' for others and not eat any herself. Perhaps she just wants to be popular with her colleagues. Gabrielle, 35, recalls working with another 'biscuit pusher' - purveyor of office HobNobs, which she never ate herself, almost every afternoon - who was eventually diagnosed as anorexic and ended up in a clinic for eating disorders.

Are Colleagues Bad For Your Figure? [Telegraph]
Earlier: How Our Generation Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love Sexual Harassment