Fat Nooz

1. Junk food addiction may be clue to obesity: study. I love the headline ("study"), particularly given that the story opens with the disclaimative line: "The findings in a study of animals cannot be directly applied to human obesity, but..." I also love this: "Obesity may be a form of compulsive eating." As if no one has ever considered a link between disordered eating and obesity before. Especially not every dipshit on the planet who assumes every fat person is fat because they gorge themselves on junk food 24/7. Which brings me to...

2. Plus-size models are better role models? Fat chance! Money quote: "Tolerance is the enemy of shame. With more and more fat acceptance...there will be more and more fat people. Nobody is born 300 pounds. Nobody 'suffers from' obesity. She chooses it, one milkshake at a time." LOL!

3. Better Ways to Help the Public Lose Weight. In which the New York Times seek ideas about the "sorts of public initiatives [that] can promote good eating habits without possibly resulting in discrimination against overweight people." Yay! And there are actually some very good insights here (and some not so good). Too bad they're buried below a headline equating weight loss with health and an image of a frowny face on a scale. FAIL!

4. To avoid breast cancer, ladies, just "avoid becoming overweight as an adult," but, if you're already suffering from CANCERFAT, all you've got to do is "convert more fat into muscle." It's that simple!

5. The workout: An exercise in futility? Subhead: "Canadians have been taught that the gym is a surefire path to shedding pounds. But some experts say gluttony, not sluggishness, is where we should be focusing our efforts." Good call. If only there were more people out there telling fat people to STOP BEING GLUTTONS! My favorite part of the article is this observation about fat people from Eric Ravussin, director of the Nutrition Obesity Research Centre at the Pennington Biomedical Research Centre in Baton Rouge: "First of all, most of them hate exercise." LOL!

6. Obesity: Food kills, flab protects. "Only when the body's fat cells, or adipocytes, are crammed to capacity do the problems of metabolic syndrome begin. The fully engorged adipocytes begin to die and leak their contents into the bloodstream, including saturated fatty acids such as palmitic acid. Such fats then accumulate in tissues such as the liver, pancreas and heart, where they may prompt the symptoms of metabolic syndrome." Gökhan Hotamisligil, a diabetes and obesity researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, describes the theory this way: "When fat cells break, it's like an oil tanker being hit. It unloads this toxic cargo, almost like an oil slick." Forget junk in the trunk. I've got TOXIC CARGO IN MY PANTS!

7. Elle magazine breaks fashion's last taboo: plus-size models on the cover. Shaker Joe says: "It's a little sad that the last taboo was a plus sized model. I would have preferred a Dalmatian in a party dress but whatever." Dear Elle: For the record, plus-size models on the cover of a magazine are not fashion's last taboo. Not even close. And, btw, call me when my fat ass can buy as many cute and fashionable clothes off the rack and a size 2, if you're so interested in radicalizing the industry. Kthxbai. Love, Liss.

[H/Ts, respectively, to Shakers Kevin Baker, MelissaRel, MelissaG, Museclio, lelumarie (and again), and Joe.]