Obesity in The US–19871985-2005

This is an animated gif that shows the change i the prevalence of obesity in the US over 18 20 years.
Amazing, and kinda off-putting.

Prevalence of Obesity in the USA | Incredimazing

What are the underlying reasons for this? Probably many, from video game playing/television babysat kids, to the fact that we, as a nation are getting older (baby-boomers anyone?), to the fact that good food is getting more expensive (why fix a nice healthy meal with expensive veggies, when that box of mac and cheese only costs $.50?)
(There’s a chart I saw somewhere with food prices/obesity rate transposed, I’ll see if I can find it and post it later.)
Here it is:
Change in food prices 1985-2000
WTF?
There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is farm subsidies, which pay farmers to not grow food. Imagine that.
Check this out: Food Without Thought(pdf) (It’s a pdf–you’ll need a pdf reader like Adobe Acrobat Reader, or Evince, on Linux.)
Looks like 2008 is going to be even worse on food prices. Time to plant a garden, and grow you own damn chickens, I guess.

If you’re happy and you know it…

…it could be in your genes.

Happiness May Be in the Genes

People tend to be hardwired for happiness, and new genetic research may help explain why. Past studies suggest that while 50% of happiness is due to situational factors like health, relationships, and career, the other 50% is due to genes. The new research identified largely inherited personality traits that researchers say are responsible for much of the genetic influence on happiness.

The findings do not mean that people who don’t inherit happiness traits are destined to lead miserable lives, Bates says.
Bates, Weiss, and Luciano are studying whether adopting the traits associated with happiness can make people happy. Early findings suggest it can.
Since setting and achieving goals is a common trait in conscientious people, and conscientiousness is linked to happiness, study participants were asked to set five achievable goals that could be accomplished in a week.

“As soon as people started working toward these goals their happiness scores went up,” Bates says. “When they were no longer working toward a goal their happiness scores dropped.”
The findings do not mean that people who don’t inherit happiness traits are destined to lead miserable lives, Bates says.

Bates, Weiss, and Luciano are studying whether adopting the traits associated with happiness can make people happy. Early findings suggest it can.

Since setting and achieving goals is a common trait in conscientious people, and conscientiousness is linked to happiness, study participants were asked to set five achievable goals that could be accomplished in a week.

“As soon as people started working toward these goals their happiness scores went up,” Bates says. “When they were no longer working toward a goal their happiness scores dropped.”
So while some people are genetically predisposed to being goal-oriented and others are not, the research suggests that it is the behavior that drives happiness, whether or not it comes naturally.
People who stay physically active and socially connected also tend to be happier, so adopting these traits is important for people who are naturally introverted, Bates says.
So while some people are genetically predisposed to being goal-oriented and others are not, the research suggests that it is the behavior that drives happiness, whether or not it comes naturally.
People who stay physically active and socially connected also tend to be happier, so adopting these traits is important for people who are naturally introverted, Bates says.

Situational factors do matter, Bates says, but they don’t tend to affect happiness long term. Studies consistently show that rich people are not much happier than poor people, and even people with severe physical disabilities tend to find happiness over time, he says. “This is what led to the thinking that certain people must have some reserve that allows them to remain at a fairly stable level of happiness despite their situation,” he adds. The research also suggests that happiness is tied to a sense of responsibility and achievement. “The way to pursue happiness is surprisingly virtuous,” Bates concludes. “A sense of humility, working for the things you want, counting your blessings, being sociable, and staying active all play a part.”

Tired of those credit card and insurance offers?

Opt Out at OptOutPrescreen.com.
You can opt out from these offers either for 5 years, or permanently (by mail).
It won’t eliminate all of the offers, but according to MasterYourCard it took care of about 90% of their junk mail.
Ecological, and de-stressing.
The rest of the post at MasterYourCard is worth reading also–it’s about doing for yourself what the company LifeLock says it will do for you for $120/yr.

Midnight Meals are bad for you.

So says a report in the New York Times: Midnight Meals – New York Times

“Eating a big meal just before going to bed has been found in studies to elevate triglyceride levels in the blood for a period of time,” Dr. Aronne said. A higher triglyceride level “has been associated with metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance,” both related to weight gain, he said.
Dr. Aronne suggested a theoretical framework for why late meals may stay with you. “If you ate 500 calories during the day but walked around afterward, your muscles would be competing with your fat cells for the calories and could burn them up as energy for physical activity,” he said. “But if you consume it at bedtime, with no physical activity, the body has no choice but to store the calories away as fat.”

today

I spent most of my day replacing the heater/vent/light in the bathroom. What a pain in the butt. this one seems to be slightly better made than the previous two, so I’m hoping that the heater lasts longer (which is why I had to replace it). Last time I just replaced the heater, but this time, the insides are totally different, and actually the dimensions are slightly different also, so I had to do some cutting in the ceiling. Two things that suck about the unit:

  1. 1. The wiring box needs to be bigger, so that you can actually close it when you get all the wires in.
  2. 2. The way the light reflector is held in is engineered stupidly–you screw a cap nut onto a bolt until it’s tight and then keep going until the bolt unscrews itself out of the cross bar it’s in until the cap nut pulls the reflector against the bar. Why not just use a short sheet metal screw like they always have? Why make it difficult, and non-obvious? Jeez!

For those who wonder the unit is a Nutone 665RP.

Kiosk by Bruce Sterling

A new piece of fiction from Bruce Sterling at F&Sf. Although I enjoy his non-fiction work, I love his fiction, and it’s good to see something new from him. It’s about technology, the internet, and revolution. Good stuff. Here’s an excerpt:

Ace lifted and splayed his fingers. “Look, tell me something I can get my hands on. You know. Something that a man can steal.”
“Say you type two words at random: any two words. Type those two words into an Internet search engine. What happens?”
Ace twirled his shot glass. “Well, a search engine always hits on something, that’s for sure. Something stupid, maybe, but always something.”
“That’s right. Now imagine you put two products into a search engine for things. So let’s say it tries to sort and mix together…a parachute and a pair of shoes. What do you get from that kind of search?”
Ace thought it over. “I get it. You get a shoe that blows up a plane.”
Borislav shook his head. “No, no. See, that is your problem right there. You’re in the racket, you’re a fixer. So you just don’t think commercially.”
“How can I outthink a machine like that?”
“You’re doing it right now, Ace. Search engines have no ideas, no philosophy. They never think at all. Only people think and create ideas. Search engines are just programmed to search through what people want. Then they just mix, and match, and spit up some results. Endless results. Those results don’t matter, though, unless the people want them. And here, the people want them!”

Punk

Punk penguin

So the wife’s doing a game of blog tag over at her blog. You have to go to photobucket.com, and type in the answers to various questions, in the search form. Since I’m lazy, and not really into this kind of stuff, I just took the answer to my favorite kind of music, and you can see the result right here (it’s also cool, because the penguin is the mascot of my favorite OS–Linux). Check out Jen’s answers on her blog, there’s quite a few.

Does Weight Lifting Make a Better Athlete?

It seems that not everyone thinks so, and it may not help so much in certain sports like the marathon.

Several pithy quotes from the article:

And don’t worry about becoming too muscular, Dr. Kraemer said. “The
fear of getting really big is not plausible for most people,” he said.
Competitive distance runners and cyclists, who are naturally slender
and light, “don’t have the muscle fiber number to get really big,” Dr.
Kraemer said. “I can train them until the cows come home and they are
not going to have big muscles.”

The main problem with weight lifting is that many people do it all
wrong, said Kent Adams, the director of the exercise physiology
laboratory at California State University
at Monterey Bay. They don’t have a program or a goal. Technique may be
sloppy. Or, Dr. Adams said, they use weights that are too light.
Muscles need to be stressed if they are to respond, he said. Dr.
Kraemer is on the same page. One study, he said, found that women tend
to lift half or less of what they could lift. And this happened even
when women were working with personal trainers, he said. “There
is so much misinformation,” Dr. Kraemer said. “It’s a quagmire out
there.” He recommends trainers certified by the National Strength and
Conditioning Association, which also supplies educational information.
Dr. Kraemer is a past president of the organization.

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