Monday, November 30, 2009

SKINNY KATE MOSS vs FATTY SANTA CLAUS

"Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels...!" With that comment this week, British supermodel Kate Moss helped upstaged universal superguy Santa Claus. While the jolly old fat fella enjoys his meals, Moss is being accused of promoting thin over healthy. As one critic roared, "She's helping young girls go anorexic."

Meanwhile back here in the States, we have the stunning example of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania refusing to graduate 25 of its seniors for being too fat. The school contends there is a 4-year-old Fitness for Life program in which students are required to participate, and these students refused.

Then just when you think you've heard all the fat-stories there are, there's a study by the University of Leeds in England which has actually documented "what percentage of revealed female skin attracts the most males." Their conclusion is exactly 40%. "Any more than that," reports head researcher Dr. Colin Hendrie, "and the signal to the male changes from 'allure' to 'infidelity.'"

But wait -- there's more!

Right in time for the eating-holidays, another university has marshaled one of its scientific teams to really get to the bottom of this perennial battle of the bulging hips. All the way down to the intestines themselves, where they have discovered two main types of bacteria that will be helping us digest all that turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie. Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes. Turns out that Firmicutes is the heavy in this caloric plot, because too much of it means converting too much of our food into calories which the body then absorbs as fat.

So there it is, more data from more sources about more fat then I really want to know as I giddily prepare for a festive season of celebration. Look, I've already had to reconcile my Mother's good love with all her bad decisions about eggs, cream, red meat and her fabulous cheesecake. It's taken too much out of me. I'm simply not yet prepared to reconcile every meal I'm about to eat either with the smugness of Kate Moss or the science of university research.

Bottom line....the scale gets stored till January!


3 comments:

  1. I'll take jolly fat Santa over skinny Moss anytime!!!

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  2. I think the "obese" are the last minority that it is still politically correct to make fun of...if a "fat" person is walking down the street, certain people don't seem to hesite to snicker or make rude comments. I find it a sad statement on our society that size matters so much. Perhaps people like that and Kate Moss should check out an organization called National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance naafa.org
    Maybe we should begin to ACCEPT people of all sizes, along with color, religion and other beliefs!

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  3. There it is -- the golden rule "acceptance!" Isn't that what every great teacher has tried to teach us, from Buddha to Jesus to Martin Luther King. But ornery human nature just prefers "exclusion." Seems to make us feel more important. Too bad...

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