Quiz time

That's right, it's time for another awesome quiz, just in time for BACK 2 SCHOOL! Today's quiz is another gem from CNN.com. The link from the CNN.com homepage calls it "Fit or fat?" (hmm, how about "both"?), so you already know it's going to be a doozy. It's actually worth going to CNN.com right now (until they take it down) just so you can look at the link. The title is "Lose Weight with Knowledge" (ha!), the subtitle informs you that "What you don't know could be making you fat," and it comes complete with a picture of some dude's back, which is supposed to gross you out or something because he has love handles. But he has a shirt on and he's not really all that fat, so I don't totally get the image.

Anyhoo, the quiz. The first page promises that the quiz is going to show you just how easy it is to "Commit to Get Fit". I'm thinking they wrote this intro having no idea what the content of the quiz would be, because the quiz doesn't really have that much to do with committing to get fit, or showing how easy it is, or anything like that. There are only 6 questions, and they're mostly just trivia. For example, Question 1, "How many calories make up one pound of fat?" All you biology teachers out there are probably giving your head a good thump on the desk after that one. Who knew that fat is "made up of" calories? And I'm not even going to comment on the photo that goes with Question 1; it speaks for itself.

Overall, I got 5 out of 6 right. So I guess it must be the one I got wrong (#6) that's making me fat.

Once you go black, you'll never go back

I just came across this article, and for some reason I found it really hilarious even though I'm sure it's true (or, anyway, I have no reason to believe that it's not). Basically it says that black food (i.e., food that is black in color) is good for you because it contains a lot of antioxidants. I guess the reason I thought it was funny was that (a) I started imagining a whole meal of black food and how disgusting that would look on a plate, despite being probably very healthy; and (b) it reminded me of the time a few years ago when I made a dark chocolate bowling ball cake for our Big Lebowski party (pictured above with bowling pin and starburst cookies -- you can't really tell from the blurry picture, but I actually cut out finger holes and carefully frosted inside each of them) with black food coloring in both the cake batter and the frosting to make the whole ball uniformly black, and it made everyone's crap turn black (and in some cases, their barf too -- it was one hell of a party). Good times!

(Note to those who eat my baked goods: don't worry, I don't use food coloring anymore.)

On the subject of cakes, I found this blog via a link from Meg, and it is cracking me up. This post made me laugh so hard I cried.

No shit

This article came out today. And it's about time.

Question: if it turns out that all that bad stuff "associated with obesity" isn't really caused by being fat at all, but rather by some mixture of unlucky genetics, poor diet, and lack of exercise, do you suppose we could just do away with the term "obesity" altogether?

Nah, probably too much to hope for.

More on the AP article here.

I heart Paul Campos

I just became aware of an awesome blog called Lawyers, Guns and Money that is definitely worth checking out. One of the bloggers is Paul Campos (I've mentioned him before), who's posted a couple of truly excellent pieces on fat in the last week or so. This one addresses the role of pharmaceutical companies in creating the "obesity epidemic", and this one takes apart the claim that the entire population is going to be "overweight" or "obese" by the year 2048. I always appreciate what Campos has to say because he has done a lot of research and he is a very clear writer. Sadly, he describes himself in his Blogger profile as a fan of University of Michigan football (to which I have already gone on record as saying this), but I'm willing to look past it.

On a different topic, one thing I am *not* willing to look past is Anthony Bourdain's remarks about "obesity". If you are prepared for some serious hate-spewage, check out this video where Bourdain chats with Ted Nugent about how gross fat people are. I found the link via Rachel's post on the F-Word Blog. Mega dittos, Rachel. Can there be a bigger hypocrite on the planet than Anthony Bourdain? I used to like him. Now, not so much. Never did like Ted Nugent. I love the part where he talks about how disgusting it is to look at fat people. You know, because Nugent himself is such a hottie.

So as not to end on such a negative note, allow me to point you to this article about how kids' meals at fast-food restaurants have come under scrutiny for being unhealthy. I'm not up on my kids' meals and don't have a strong opinion about their content, but the refreshing thing about this article is that it never once mentions "the childhood obesity epidemic". Instead, it focuses on the healthiness (or lack thereof) of the food and on real medical conditions that result from eating what's in those kids' meals, rather than made-up ones meant to scare people. It would be nice to see a bit more of this in what passes for health and science reporting these days.