Today's Morale Boost

This article from the Baltimore Sun was a bit of a fresh breeze amongst the mass body-judgement on Dr. Regina Benjamin. I’m still in a hostile sort of shock that anyone feels justified in dismissing the credentials of such an exemplary doctor and humanitarian simply because of her body shape. While in that shock, wading through and skipping over the nonsense in search of a date for her confirmation hearing, this dose of common sense came as a sheer relief.

Authors Patrick Basham and John Luik pull no punches in calling crap by its real name. They challenge the assumption that fat=death on multiple fronts with strong evidence by way of recent studies, strip the illusion of overblown statistics, and highlight some of the underlying prejudice. My favorite is the comparison between the much-admired (thin) smoker in the White House, and the hate piled onto his appointee who simply dares to be fat in public. No one denies which is a more significant health risk (even the psychotically anti-fat like Meme), yet one figure draws national condemnation. Interesting that. You’d almost think it wasn’t really about health after all...

Oh...that’s right...it’s not.