Portion Creep

(Photo Credit: Reuters, by way of Tenured Radical.)

Portion size has been on the nation's mind lately in the wake of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal to ban the sale of sugary drinks over 16 ounces from restaurants and movie theaters (but not from stores that sell, you know, Big Gulps).

Portion size has been on Moose's mind lately, too, as she approaches the one-year anniversary of her success on her Lifestyle Adjustment Program. (She reached her official target weight in mid-July, though she dropped another ten pounds during her first couple of months on maintenance.) I think we'll let her weigh in, as it were, on the whole issue of nutri-nannyism, since healthy, happy eating and drinking are kind of her beat these days. Take it away, Moose!

* * *

Thanks, Rox. Let's cut right to the chase. Does Mayor Bloomberg's proposal make sense as a matter of public policy? Does the state -- or, in this case, the city -- have a right to set limits on consumer choice in the interest of combatting obesity and the health risks associated with it? (NB: The Department of Lifestyle Adjustment here in Roxie's World disapproves of phrases like combatting obesity, because we don't like war metaphors or eliminationist rhetoric. We use the term here because it shows up all the time in coverage of weight and public health. See for example the lead paragraph on this story about Bloomberg's proposal). Our good buddy Tenured Radical did a post the other day that argued in favor of the proposal as an appropriate use of the government's power to regulate trade, promote health, and protect consumers from the food and beverage industries' efforts to boost profits by pushing ever larger portion sizes off on the hungry, thirsty public. Go read that post for TR's excellent links and for yet another example of just how nasty commenters over at The Chronicle of Higher Education can get when their dander is up, which it generally seems to be.

It's easy to see why Bloomberg's proposal raises hackles. It reaches right into the heart of the great American ambivalence about government, activating our knee-jerk inclination to condemn anything that appears to limit a freedom that we like to pretend is or should be absolutely unfettered. It also underscores the tendency in our market-dominated world to assume that consumer sovereignty is the only form of sovereignty there is. Law prof (and current head of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs) Cass Sunstein argues in his book Republic.com 2.0 that consumer sovereignty -- i.e., the freedom to buy and consume whatever we want -- is not nearly as important or robust as political sovereignty -- i.e., our right and responsibility to participate in democratic self-government. Our tendency to overvalue consumer sovereignty and to confuse it with political sovereignty helps to explain why knickers get wadded over any perceived threat to our inalienable right to have whatever the heck we want whenever the heck we want it.

Philosophically, I stand with Bloomberg, TR, and others who say government has the right to set the kind of limits on consumer choice that the sugary drink proposal would set. I mean, look, I'm as freedom-loving as the next gal, but I fail to see a threat to the American Way of Life in this idea. I know, if it turns out Starbucks won't be able to sell the 24-ounce (and 510-calorie) version of its Caramel Frappuccino we'll be in a different ballgame and New Yorkers will be justified in fighting back with all they've got. For now, though, I'm thinking Bloomberg's proposal represents a significantly smaller threat to liberty than, say, state-ordered transvaginal ultrasounds.

I can also personally vouch for the effectiveness of limiting portion size as a way to manage weight. A year ago, people were constantly asking me how I lost more than fifty pounds. These days, they're asking me how I've succeeded, so far, in keeping it off. Portion control is an important part of the answer to both questions. (The other part of the answer is physical activity, but that would be the subject of another post.) Day in, day out, the single most important adjustment I've made to my lifestyle in the past year and a half is represented in the picture below:

On the left is the plate we used to use for most of the (non-entertainment) meals served in Roxie's World. It's 11-1/4" in diameter. On the right is the plate we started using in January of 2011 when I started trying to lose weight. It's 9-3/4" in diameter. The switch to a smaller plate has been enormously helpful to my efforts to eat mindfully and well. The smaller plate looks full with less food, and that look of abundance is a powerful visual cue that I am getting enough to eat. I'm not starving or denying myself the pleasures of the table. When the plate is empty, I am finished eating, though I'll admit to still taking the occasional bite or two off of Goose's plate. (Her eyes are bigger than her stomach. Also: I am not perfect.) I don't go back for seconds, which I think is the logic of Bloomberg's proposal: Limit portion sizes to 16 ounces, and the vast majority of people aren't going to go back for more. They'll be satisfied with less and the risk of damage to their health from the garbage-laden calories in sugary beverages will have been lowered. (By the way, science backs me and the mayor up on the benefit of using smaller serving dishes. Check out this fascinating study on how even a group of nutrition experts were fooled about how much food they were getting when they ate out of larger bowls.)

So, I agree that government has the right to set such limits and acknowledge that fighting portion creep has been essential to my own efforts to reach and maintain a healthy weight. Why, then, do I nonetheless find myself doubting the wisdom of Mayor Bloomberg's proposal? It's partly, I suppose, that the idea seems so vulnerable to the kind of mockery that has in fact greeted it. It's just too easy to make it sound ridiculous, which aids and abets conservative efforts to depict all government regulation that doesn't involve women's wombs as nanny-like intrusions into the lives of citizens. More importantly, though, I'm also not convinced that the plan, well intended as it is, would have a significant effect on the problem it hopes to address. People who want to consume ridiculous amounts of sugary beverages will still be able to do so by ordering several of the 16-ounce servings available in restaurants and movie theaters or by stopping off at 7-Eleven for a Big Gulp. (Grocery stores are exempt from the proposed limit on serving sizes.)

The proposal seems doomed to fail if it isn't accompanied by an education campaign aimed at moving consumers toward healthier choices and then assuring they have access to healthier products. It's great to give consumers some measure of protection from the relentless, well financed, and government subsidized efforts of soda makers to "drive more ounces into more bodies more often," as a former marketing executive for Coca-Cola put it at a "National Soda Summit" held in Washington last week. It's just as important, however, to go about this work in a way that doesn't make overweight people feel judged, ostracized, or condescended to, and Michael Bloomberg doesn't always come across as someone whose cup, whatever its size, runs over with empathy. I'm not a nutritionist or a public health expert, but here's a link to some constructive ideas from a bunch of folks who are on how we might more effectively help the public to achieve a healthy weight. Go check out their ideas and then come back here and we'll chat about portion creep, public health, or whatever else might be on your mind. I've just taken a big gulp of cool, refreshing tap water, and now it's time to go take the sweetest girl on dog's earth out for an evening stroll. That sounds like a healthy, happy choice, doesn't it? See ya later, kids. Peace out.

Saturday Night Pink Links

I'm sure you've been wondering what the breast-equipped humans of Roxie's World have been thinking about the epic smackdown this week between the Susan G. Komen Foundation and Planned Parenthood over grants, mammograms, and the apolitical politicization of women's health. Frankly, we've never been fans of pink, and Moose has been skeptical of the whole cancer industrial/fundraising complex since her beloved father's death from colon cancer in 1991. "Dad," she said, shortly before he died, "I promise you I will make it my mission to find a cure for this disease. Maybe I'll set up a charity race to raise money for colon cancer. Yeah, that's what I'll do. We'll call it the Run for the Bowel." Moose and her dad cracked up and spun out a crude, elaborate fantasy about all the brown products that might be marketed to promote the cause. Yes, Moose and her dad did that sort of thing. 

There's an important life lesson here about laughing in the face of death, but there's also an important point to be made about the weird economics of disease-focused fundraising. Breasts are, as Gail Collins points out in a column today, "America's most popular body part," and so Komen has raised f*ck tons of money since its founding in 1982. Nobody loves the colon, useful as it is, and so the poor little Colon Cancer Alliance toils on in relative obscurity, offering a modest array of blue products (because colon cancer is a guy thing?) and sponsoring a 5K race called "The Undy 5000" because foundation garments are apparently as close as anyone wants to get to the yucky, unloved, indispensable colon. "You can die from not pooping," Moose is fond of saying. "I've seen it happen." Perhaps you understand now why Moose is an English professor and not a marketing genius. She still worries that her dad is up in Heaven waiting for her to organize a Run for the Bowel. It's OK, I tell her from my perch in the great beyond. He's moved on.

Anyhoo: the Komen kerfuffle.

(Image Credit: Saw it on Facebook; picked it up at MoveOn.)

Other people, with and without breasts, have weighed in on this issue thoroughly and brilliantly. Go read them. It's nearly 9 PM and the Moms haven't eaten dinner or finished a scholarly article that has to be out the door by Monday. Oh, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is on the teevee tonight, too, so we'd best be moving along.

• Marcy at emptywheel (which we've never read before -- check it out!), a breast cancer survivor who also hates pink, offers some great insights about the cancer industry turning patients into consumers. She says it's time to start putting more money into prevention rather than on diagnosing and curing the disease, which has been Komen's primary focus.

• Amy Schiller has a wonderful piece in The Nation on why the Komen/Planned Parenthood breakup, brief as it appears to have been, was good for feminism. Nutshell? It exposes Komen as "the most visible symbol" of "the rise of a nominally apolitical marketing campaign masquerading as feminism." Money quote? "As the infantilizing blush-hued gear has proliferated, the pink saturation has merged the medical industrial complex with the Disney princess-industrial complex, making women’s health policy some sort of adult dress-up game."

• Journalism prof Jay Rosen is fascinated by Komen's spectacular communications/PR failure throughout the debacle. He has a detailed reading of an interview NBC's Andrea Mitchell did with Komen CEO and founder Nancy Brinker aptly titled "Interview as Trainwreck." Moose watched that interview. Mitchell has had breast cancer and worked with the Komen Foundation and Brinker. The trainwreck is a sight to behold.

Share your links and insights in comments. We know there's a lot of stuff out there -- So much that, you know, it's hard to keep abreast of it all.

See? No one makes jokes like that about the colon. We don't even love it enough to laugh about it. Maybe Moose should try to organize a Run From the Bowel. Whaddayathink, kids? Would you want that tee-shirt? Yeah, I didn't think so. Peace out. 

A Woman of (Less) Substance

We pause briefly to note that it was one year ago today that Moose stepped on the scales at her first Lifestyle Adjustment Program meeting. By all means click away if celebrations of such things bore you senseless. Stick around, though, if you're willing to let a middle-aged broad indulge in a virtual happy dance. Take it away, Moose.

* * *

Thanks, Rox. Wow, what a difference a year makes, huh? Pound-wise, I am three-quarters of the woman I was on January 12, 2011. Fitness-wise, I am in dramatically better shape than I was a year ago. I can run four miles comfortably (if slowly) and could hang out in plank pose for the better part of a day if I had to. (And wouldn't life be cool if a girl were called upon to hang out in plank pose for the better part of a day? I mean, srsly. Think about it.) Attitude-wise, I feel sharper, calmer, and more resilient. I feel happier, more able to cope with whatever comes at me. Losing weight doesn't make life perfect by any means, but it can make the stresses and strains easier to manage.

I've been on maintenance since mid-July, though I actually continued to lose weight through August. My weight has now stabilized smack dab in the middle of the "normal" BMI range for my height. (Insert standard qualifiers about the limitations of BMI here.) What's working? you might ask. If you've been following my adventures in middle-aged embodiment, you already know the answer to this question, because what's working now is what has been working all along: Mindful eating, moderate exercise, and a supportive social network. (Thank you, Goose. Thank you, awesome LAP at Work group. Thank you, Facebook friends. Thank you, sisters [literal and figurative] and yogis.)

Is it really that simple? I feel sheepish and a little surprised to be saying this, but, yes, for me it has been that simple. I didn't need to radically change my diet. I just needed to eat less, drink less, and move more. My life now is not about deprivation and sacrifice. My meals aren't sad little piles of lettuce covered with fake cheese and fat-free dressing, and my workouts aren't daily forced marches. Over the holidays, I feasted on all of my favorites: my grandmother's olives, pecan pie, lobster casserole, chateaubriand (!). My feasting was a little more restrained than it was in years past, however, and I was pretty careful to eat light on non-feasting days to keep things in balance. I was also willing to spend 45 minutes on a treadmill on Christmas day so that I would actually feel hungry when it came time to tuck into that chateaubriand. My rule on exercise continues to be a firm yet flexible commitment to doing what I can when I can. I try to get in two or three cardiovascular workouts a week plus a 90-minute yoga class. Keep it simple. Keep it fun. Make exercise a priority, but don't beat up on yourself if you miss a day. As noted fitness guru Scarlett O'Hara once said, "Tomorrow is another day."

So, yes, the new normal for me is about balance and moderation, but it is also about joy and pleasure. I am not exaggerating when I say that the hardest part of this whole process was stepping on that scale one year ago today. Everything I've done since then has felt easy because I knew it was contributing to  my sense of well-being. I hope I never forget the flood of relief I experienced in that moment, as I realized that I had finally formulated the intention to rework my relationships to food, movement, and body. I will do a happy dance today to celebrate this milestone, but in a way I've been happy dancing all along. Thanks to all of you for dancing with me!

***

In other news, Hostess Brands, makers of Wonder bread, Twinkies, and the fruit pies Moose regularly devoured over the course of her misspent Midwestern youth, filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, for the second time this decade. Are we alone in thinking the world would spin just fine on its axis without Ding Dongs and Donettes? Yeah, we didn't think so.

For other posts on the emergence of Moose 2.0: A Less Portly Dyke Than She Used to Be, go here, here, here, and here.

It would be wrong to end without an actual happy dance, wouldn't it? Hells to the yeah! Let's bring in a little Beyoncé, shall we? Move your body, baby -- and love it, no matter what. Peace out.

Upward-Facing Moose

Time for an exciting round of Complete the Caption! The above photo depicts Moose:

a) working on her tennis serve, which, she insists, does not actually require a ball or racket;
b) looking good but seriously underdressed for holiday caroling in the neighborhood;
c) smiling with gratitude because the pile of ungraded papers is not quite as high as her outstretched arm.

The answer of course is d) posing for a photographer at her local yoga studio to illustrate a little piece she wrote for the Willow Street Yoga Center Newsletter. (Yeah, it ain't Critical Inquiry or glq, but she wouldn't get a merit raise if she published in those fancy venues this year anyway, so what the heck?) We've pasted in a slightly revised version of the essay below. You can access the original by clicking on this link and then opening the PDF for the winter 2012 newsletter.

This one goes out to all the readers and friends who have followed the adventures in embodiment of Moose 2.0 over the past year. Your support and interest have meant a lot, and your stories have inspired and delighted all of us in Roxie's World. The post is dedicated to Suzie Hurley, first teacher, with love and gratitude for all that her vision has brought into being.

* * *

Lessons from the Mat
by Moose

I recently lost fifty pounds, and yoga helped me do it. Indeed, if I were inclined to be entrepreneurial, I would probably be making infomercials for something I might call the Yoga Diet, or perhaps even the Willow Street Diet: LOSE WEIGHT AND INCREASE FLEXIBILITY, WHILE STANDING ON ONE LEG!

I know: Maybe it’s a good thing I’m not especially entrepreneurial. Besides, Google tells me someone has beaten me to the punch on the Yoga Diet. Bear with me, though, as I try to explain my infomercial impulse.

Yoga may not be a major fat-burning activity, but I am serious when I say it contributed significantly to my efforts to re-contour my middle-aged body. I returned to Willow Street in the winter of 2009 after several years away. I had taken classes for a couple of years early in the 2000s, mostly Level Is with Suzie Hurley, but I decided to take a break in 2003 during a ridiculously stressful period in my life. (Two words are all I need to explain a crazy time and a dubious decision: home renovation.)

By the time I got back from my “break,” I was seriously out of shape and significantly overweight, because I had given up not only yoga but also a commitment I had maintained for most of my adult life to regular, vigorous cardiovascular activity. On the brink of my fiftieth birthday, I was feeling out of sorts and starting to worry about the long-term consequences of having gotten so out of shape. In other words, I was starting to feel old, and I didn’t like the feeling.

Returning to Willow Street was a small but important step on my long road back to health and fitness. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I see now that getting back to the mat was a way of gently yet powerfully re-connecting with a world and a self I was afraid I had left behind. Ultimately, that re-connection helped me find the will to lose weight by giving me a way to think about weight and body issues that feels affirming and enabling rather than punitive and disabling, which, I think, is how much of our culture’s talk about bodies, especially female ones, tends to be.

Back on the mat – first in Joe Miller’s Level I classes and lately in the I/II class he and Natalie Miller co-teach on Friday evenings – I learned three lessons that were enormously helpful in what I would eventually (and only half-jokingly) term my Lifestyle Adjustment Program. The first was to approach yoga in a spirit of play. This is an aspect of Joe’s teaching that deeply resonated with me, perhaps because it’s something I strive to do in my own classrooms. I am an English professor at the University of Maryland. The intellectual discipline of reading literature in a serious way can be intimidating, so I have always tried to cultivate a light, relaxed atmosphere in the classroom in the hope that students will learn more by worrying less and not noticing how hard they are working. Similarly, Joe’s insistent playfulness helps to demystify the discipline he teaches – which can also be intimidating -- and allows students to enter into it in their own way and at their own level. “Thanks for playing,” he often says at the end of class. Those words never fail to bring a smile to my face, but they’ve also encouraged me to feel comfortable trying to learn new and challenging skills. Fall out of a pose? No big deal! We’re just playing! Try it again!

That spirit of play guided me toward a second and equally valuable lesson, which was to love and honor the body I have, to appreciate what it can do now, and to stop berating myself for what it can’t (yet) do. My prolonged sedentary period had left me feeling alienated from a body I didn’t like or recognize. Yoga helped me let go of self-loathing and treat myself with a compassion that had eluded me for many years. Love and compassion, not disgust, were what finally got me, in January of 2011, to go to a meeting, step on a scale, and say, “OK, I am ready to do something different.”

Finally and perhaps most importantly, yoga gave me practice in mindfulness, which proved to be invaluable as I worked to cultivate and sustain new and better habits in relation to food and activity. I realized that my weight gain had a lot to do with the fact that I had just stopped paying attention to how much I was eating and how little I was moving. Food tastes better and is more satisfying when you pay attention to every bite, no matter how simply or sensibly it’s prepared. Mindfulness has meant that I experience my new way of eating as the opposite of the deprivations we associate with dieting. I have been cooking up a storm since I started losing weight, and I’ve enjoyed every moment in the kitchen and at the table – as has my well-fed partner, by the way!

Playfulness, compassion, and mindfulness: These are three lessons I learned on the mat that have helped me transform my body and my attitude fairly dramatically in the past year. You may not see me in an infomercial, but you will definitely see me in the studio, working hard but happily and with deep gratitude to continue this extraordinary process of learning. Thanks to everyone at Willow Street for playing with me and teaching me so well.

Weighty Matters, Again

Suddenly this whole body politic thing has gotten kind of literal. A couple of weeks ago, the nation's pundits briefly obsessed over whether New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was too fat to be president, for which they were roundly -- get it? -- chastised by this here. blog. Now, Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill  is getting body-policed from the other direction. McCaskill recently took off fifty pounds and used Twitter -- cleverly, in our opinion -- as part of her weight-loss plan. She announced to her nearly 60,000 followers in May what her goals were and used the social media tool as a means of holding herself publicly accountable to them. On October 8, McCaskill proudly tweeted that she had reached her goal weight. Thursday in Jezebel, Erin Gloria Ryan declares herself "happy for [McCaskill] for doing what she set out to do," but says that she finds it "depressing that the standard by which women measure our fitness is still the number on a scale." Ryan continues:

It's dismaying that we still feel like we need to announce shamefully to the world when we believe that we have become too large, and then return to proudly tell world when we become tinier, and that we reflexively feel compelled to tell other women when we've noticed that they have shrunk. Stop it, ladies. Stop it right this second.

The headline on the column is, "Can We Please Stop Setting Weight Loss Goals?"

Ryan makes a good point. "Weight alone is not an indicator of health." True. There are plenty of other numbers one ought to consider -- blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose levels -- to get an accurate picture of overall health. It's also true that the kind of public scrutiny of her body that McCaskill invited is a double-edged sword. Such scrutiny and the harsh set of judgments that goes along with it is, as Ryan notes, a major source of the pressure women feel "to become ever smaller."

As you might suspect, however, the Recently Overweight Person of Roxie's World does not find Sen. McCaskill's story of public, socially mediated weight loss depressing or troubling, no matter how much she might agree with aspects of Ryan's analysis. Moose, who at times has used this blog as an embarrassing or inspiring (po-tay-toh, po-tah-toh) public record of her own adventures in re-contouring a middle-aged body, had this to say in response to the story: "60,000 followers? Little Lord Jeebus, I'd kill for 60,000 followers! Apparently, senators are connectivity nodes, whereas English profs are just, um, nerds."

Here's the thing, kids: The number on the scale is one among many numbers you should consider when you are evaluating your health and fitness, but sometimes, you know, losing weight is a reasonable goal, no matter how steeped the culture is in misogyny and fat-shame. If you set your sights on losing weight, you should use whatever tools are available to help you do so. And if you are a woman and a public figure, your body is going to get scrutinized and analyzed and judged every day of your life no matter what you do. (See, for example, Clinton, Hillary Rodham: cankles, cleavage, hair, weight, wrinkles.) We admire Sen. McCaskill for using social media and her status as a public figure to help her achieve a goal and to frame proactively the story of her weight loss rather than soldiering along on her treadmill waiting for the inevitable questions and comments to start. Hers was a risky strategy that could easily have backfired if she hadn't succeeded or if she were less adept in the art of the Twitters. She'd have been labeled a fat old broad trying desperately to look cool. In comments to CBS News, McCaskill shows that she was well aware of the risks but also savvy about how Twitter fits into a postmodern pol's communications strategy -- and her Lifestyle Adjustment Program:

My Twitter account -- I look at it as a way for people in Missouri to see the whole picture. I tweet about my kids. Yesterday, I tweeted about how happy I was that my daughter said she had cleaned her apartment all day. I think it's important for people to see that I've got the same kind of problems and challenges that everybody else does and, obviously, for a woman in her 50s, figuring out how to stay in shape with a really hectic schedule is a big part of everybody's daily struggle in my state and, I think, all across the country.

Along the way, McCaskill posted clever tweets about her progress, including a dramatic announcement about having divorced bread and pasta, which inspired her legions of followers to weigh in, as it were, with menu suggestions, advice, and helpful reinforcement. The senator still hopes to rekindle her relationship with carbohydrates, thinking it might work out on an occasional rather than a daily basis as she shifts her focus to maintaining her weight loss.

To which the Recently Overweight Person of Roxie's World replied, in precisely 140 characters:

@clairecmc, I recently broke up w/ potatoes, but carbs, in moderation, CAN fit into a sensible diet. Meet my new pal, butternut squash. Yum!

A hearty PAWS UP to you, Sen. McCaskill. The women of Roxie's World salute your effort, your good humor, and your smart use of social media as a way of sharing your experience and crowd-sourcing the challenges of eating well and getting fit while working hard for the fortunate citizens of the Show-Me State. We wish you well in your ongoing commitment and sincerely hope that Santa brings us a treadmill to aid in our own efforts to balance health with busyness.

What do you think, kids? Are we missing something in not being depressed or concerned by McCaskill's story, blinded by self-interest as we may be on this issue? Is Ryan fair in raining on the parade by harping on the compulsion women (and, sometimes, non-women) feel to publicly declare that they have become too large and then proudly announce that they are thinner, better, healthier people? Is there a way to acknowledge and address that problem without dissing McCaskill -- or, you know, my humble, recently overweight typist?

As always, darlings, we eagerly await and rely upon your wisdom. Meantime, someone is off for a quick run before a meeting and a trip to Baltimore to see a few thousand friends (including, at long last, Tenured Radical, with whom the Moms shall [decadently!] dine this evening). A happy Friday to you and yours. Peace out.

Better Homes?

(Photo Credit: Moose, 10/8/11, in the Land of the Moosians.)

Apologies for the prolonged radio silence, kids. It's been a ridiculously busy week in Roxie's World. It's also been a stressful, emotionally draining week for Moose in particular. She spent last weekend in her native state, working with her three siblings to get the Mother of the Moosians ready to transition from independent living in Indiana to assisted living in Michigan, close to the Little Sister of the Moosians. MOTM turned 80 this summer and outfoxed lung cancer earlier this year, but she has short-term memory impairments that make it hard for her to remember little things like when the movers are coming and bigger things like, oh, participating in the decision to move to Michigan.

We'll pause briefly while you apply your considerable brain power to imagining some of what we are not saying here about time, change, the delicate dance of family relationships, the terror in the eyes of someone increasingly trapped in an archipelago of disconnected moments. When are they coming? Who will take me? Where is my medicine? Would you like that necklace? Why are you packing the silver away? When are they coming? Who will take me . . . ?

Perhaps a longer pause is in order. My typist is weary. Her heart is full. In her head, she hears the aching tenderness of Chris Colfer's cover of "I Want to Hold Your Hand," which Glee's Kurt sang last season when his father, his only surviving parent, had a heart attack.

When are they coming?

The cookbook in the photo above transitioned, too, making its way from a shelf in MOTM's kitchen to one in Roxie's World. This was the cookbook of Moose's childhood, the battered tome that figured into a 2009 post on the culinary history of the Moms and the United States. A close look at the book's helpful guide to meal planning perhaps explains why Moose found it necessary to break up with potatoes as part of her recent Lifestyle Adjustment Program. You'll notice there ain't a lot of whole-grain variety in the list of starchy foods in that third column in from the left:

Moose has agreed to take on the role of family archivist, because that is what English profs and history geeks do in their families, being useless when it comes to things like managing finances and figuring out which asthma inhalers are full and which are empty. She came home with several recipe boxes and books, including one from her maternal grandmother that goes back to at least 1937. She also is getting custody of file boxes full of family photos, letters, and documents. She already has her parents' college yearbooks, her grandmother's high school diploma, and her father's certificate of baptism. Still to come are the scrapbooks she loved to look at as a child, mostly because they included the earliest photographs of her own tiny self, cradled in the fleshy arms of that same grandmother who graduated from high school in 1923 for "intellectual attainments and correct deportment."

Having spent part of the winter of 2010 digitizing me after my untimely demise, Moose now seems on track to digitize the entire famille Moosianne. Assuming she isn't overcome by the dust or doesn't end up lost in a labyrinth of words, images, and memories. Which is, you know, pretty likely. Stay tuned.

When are they coming? When are they coming? Soon, Mama, soon, and I promise it will be all right. I know it's scary, but we've taken care of everything. Before you know it, you'll be settled into the new place, and everything will be fine.

When . . . ?

Weighty Matters

Funny:

(Stephan Pastis, Pearls Before Swine, 9/30/11, via)

Unfunny:

(Washington Post, 9/30/11, A19)

Double Plus Unfunny:

(Washington Post, 9/30/11, A16)

Look, kids, we're no fans of NJ Gov. Chris Christie, the tough-talking Republican who may or may not enter the presidential race. (That sad, squeaky sound you hear is the air going out of Texas Gov. Rick Perry's balloon.) We agree with esteemed Garden State political pundit Bruce Springsteen that Christie's tax cuts have had a devastating impact on the poor and the lower middle class, and we think the last thing the country needs is one more foaming-at-the-mouth tax hater.

Nonetheless, shame on WaPo for the double dose of fat hatred in this morning's coverage of Christie. Yes, the governor's size is notable and possibly newsworthy, in that his obesity could create health problems that would interfere with his ability to serve. Eugene Robinson notes in the column we screen-capped above that Christie was hospitalized this summer for asthma, a condition that can be worsened by obesity, and that the governor himself has acknowledged that his "weight exacerbates everything." A candidate's health is a legitimate issue, and Robinson is generally careful to frame his remarks in those terms. However, his snarky ending -- "I’d just like to offer [Christie] a bit of unsolicited, nonpartisan, sincere advice: Eat a salad and take a walk." -- along with the punny headline and the photo of the portly gov and the skinny-as-a-rail prez, tips the scales, as it were, in the direction of fat hatred. Especially when you consider that just three pages earlier Al Kamen's "In the Loop" column had run a very similar Christie/Obama photo to illustrate a few short pun-filled paragraphs aimed at "sizing up Gov. Christie's chances," as the headline on the web version of the story put it.

Sizing up: Get it? Belt-tightening: Hilarious, yes? A fitting time: Harharharharhar! The biggest loser: OMG, I am ROFL!

OK, technically, I am not ROFL. I am dead, and my typist is banging her head on the laptop screen thinking it's probably not just fat-hating and mean but also politically unwise of Dems and the so-called liberal media to start chortling and finger-pointing and making fun of the Wide Man who might want the Thin Man's job. A broad -- get it? -- section of the electorate is overweight, underpaid, and hopping mad right now. And lots of folks seem to be under the impression that the Thin Man may be something of a lightweight -- get it? -- when it comes to the brutal business of running the country. If this election turns on questions of physique, Obama's thinness may not be as much of an asset as the salad-eating media seem to imagine it will be.

Our advice and fervent hope? We wish good health to the governor of New Jersey, and we dream of a media mature enough to keep the focus on the truly weighty -- get it? -- matters facing the country.

Because, you know, their track record in that regard is. so. impressive.

Body Matters: Short Takes

As we ease our way back toward serious blogging, we thought we'd call your attention to a few stories that caught our attention in between ocean swims and fine meals and beach reading of books Moose emphatically decided not to include in the trans lit course she'll be teaching this term.

The Aging, Vegan Ex-Presidential Body: Bill Clinton turned 65 the other day, which prompted a spate of stories on the Big Dawg's impressive efforts to manage his heart disease through diet and exercise. The former president, who has a family history of seriously bad tickers, had a quadruple bypass in 2004 and angioplasty in 2010. Since then, working with Dr. Dean Ornish, he has dropped 20 pounds  and become mostly vegan, though he confesses to CNN's Sanjay Gupta to having a bite -- one bite, he says, with a wag of his famous finger -- of turkey at Thanksgiving. Moose liked this story because she is delighted to claim her favorite living former president as a comrade in Lifestyle Adjustment. She also thinks it's good for the country to have to reckon with seeing the nation's most famous devotee of Big Macs and Krispy Kremes as a poster boy for clean living and healthy eating. Moose imagines she would choose death over veganism, because she isn't sure she could live in a world without eggs, but she was endowed by her creator with a ridiculously healthy heart and so has never had to face that choice. Mostly, though, we like this story because it offers further proof that we just can't stop thinking about Bill Clinton's body. We need to know what he is ingesting, how he is looking -- fabulous! -- and how he is feeling (more energetic than ever!). Clinton's successor in the Oval Office also turned 65 earlier this summer, and the AP story focused on the thousands of virtual birthday greetings he received through a campaign orchestrated by his wife. No one, it seems, wants to think about Shrub's aging body or what's going into it. I know: Quelle surprise. And we sincerely apologize for putting that image into your head so early in the work week.

The Professorial Body: Duke's Cathy Davidson, who is garnering raves for her new book, Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn, did a marvelous blog post a couple of weeks ago on a Pilates class that resonated with some of our musings here about yoga, bodies in middle age, and minds/bodies in techno-culture. The post advocates balance, breathing, and compulsory dance movement in schools and workplaces as a necessary counter to the seated life of the mental worker staring at the screen. It offers compelling observations about kids' relationships to their bodies and movement in an age in which bike helmets and pain avoidance constrain them in both body and soul. It even offers a couple of simple exercises to foster alignment and deep breathing. Read the post. Try the exercises. And get Davidson's book, for dog's sake, because everyone else you know is getting it and you don't want to be out of the loop. We've got Now You See It loaded up on Kindles and iPads throughout Roxie's World and can hardly wait to read what this passionate yet practical digital visionary has to say about the world in which we live, think, work, and breathe.

The Lesbian Body: Christina Santiago was 29 years old, a lesbian, a native New Yorker living in Chicago, and manager for the Lesbian Community Care Project at the Howard Brown Health Center. She was killed in a freak accident at the Indiana State Fair on August 13. Four other people died, and Santiago's partner, Alisha Brennon, was also seriously injured when a concert stage collapsed in a strong thunder storm just before the group Sugarland was to begin a show. The story caught our eye in part because the tragedy occurred in Moose's home state but also because of allegations that began circulating on the queer interwebs that the Marion County coroner's office refused to release Santiago's body to Brennon for burial because of the state's DOMA law. First reported by Bil Browning on The Bilerico Project, the charge went viral when Dan Savage wrapped it up in a fiery denunciation of how such laws "serve to torment and persecute gay people at the most trying moments of their lives."

The problem, as it turned out, is that the story wasn't true. The critically injured Brennon had not contacted the coroner's office and appears not to have been treated disrespectfully by anybody. Her partner's body was released to an aunt of Santiago's who was listed as her next of kin. Santiago's funeral and burial were in the Bronx, but those closest to Santiago and Brennon suggest matters were handled amicably and sensitively. Brennon is still hospitalized but seems to be recovering. Bil Browning posted a lengthy apology for his poor judgment and reporting, admitting that his "history of dealing with homophobic behavior by Indiana office holders" likely predisposed him to believe the story without sufficiently verifying it. In his retraction, Savage noted that, "These sorts of things have happened -- surviving gay spouses barred from bedsides, not allowed to retrieve their partner's remains, barred from funerals by hostile family-of-origin members -- but it didn't happen this time."

Savage is right, of course. Such things do happen, and we need to work hard to reduce the likelihood of their happening by securing full legal equality for LGBT relationships. That will require overturning the federal Defense of Marriage Act and every mini-DOMA on the books in states from sea to shining sea. Bil Browning is to be commended for his thorough and thoughtful self-criticism, but we can also learn something from his mistake, from his -- and our -- willingness to believe that a low-level functionary in a coroner's office would see it as his or her job to enforce a state DOMA in such a cruel fashion. (Since Santiago and Brennon were residents of neighboring Illinois, Brennon could presumably have claimed her partner's body under that state's domestic partnership law.)

Again: Such things do happen, but that doesn't mean we can assume they've happened without fully and fairly investigating the claim. Browning didn't try to speak with Brennon because she was still in intensive care and "it seemed crass to call her for a statement." Fair enough, but shouldn't the fact that Brennon was in intensive care have made him doubt that she was in a position to call the coroner's office to try to claim Santiago's body? That it apparently didn't is powerful evidence of how strongly inclined he was to believe what he was hearing without fully corroborating the charge. Yes, Indiana is full of homophobes in high places and lacks the most basic protections for LGBT citizens and relationships, but that doesn't justify jumping to conclusions and circulating falsehoods about particular offices or officeholders. Such mistakes don't serve the cause of advancing LGBT rights, as Browning knows. They also don't honor the memory of Christina Santiago or comfort her grieving partner, family, and friends.

Attention, please: This brief rant has been brought to you by Moose, who feels bad for circulating Savage's post about the Marion County coroner's office on her Facebook page without independently checking out the story. You heard it here first, folks: Not everything you read on the interwebs is true. Be skeptical. Be fair. Be thorough.

RIP Christina Santiago. Your memory will endure, and your vital work will go on. Our condolences to those who loved you and healing thoughts to Alisha Brennon for a full and swift recovery.

Peace out.

The Virtue Binge

Goose has been out of town on urgent Emily Dickinson-related business for nearly a week. Moose has been batching it, which used to mean she'd revert to grad school habits of having popcorn and beer for dinner while zoning out to really trashy movies on Lifetime. Good times, right, Moose?

Anyhoo, this week, aside from Wednesday night's decadent dinner at America Eats, in which Moose permitted herself the (now) shocking indulgence of a third glass of wine, she's been living like a freaking monk. It's been all yogurt and whole grains and farmer's market veggies. Not a beer in sight. Her big indulgence food-wise was to use half a cup of olive oil in some pesto she made. Half a cup! And pesto meant that she treated herself to pasta for dinner! Whole wheat, of course. Whoa, Moose. Way to ride the edge.

Then there's been the whole activity thing. The trips to the gym. The rides on the stationary bike in the basement when she felt too lazy to schlep to the gym. The Friday yoga class. The Saturday yoga workshop. Yes: Two and a half hours spent painstakingly refining plank and cobra poses. Srsly, kids, the fun just never stops around here, does it?

You leave town, and I go off on some kind of virtue binge, Moose quipped to Goose in a text message yesterday. The quip got her thinking, and -- Oh, heck, I think I'll just let her tell you. Being disembodied, I am less equipped, as it were, to talk about certain kinds of things these days. Take it away, Moose!

* * * 

(Photo Credit: Anon, Self-Portrait After Plank Workshop, 7/30/11)

You have to admit it's a funny line -- I go off on some kind of virtue binge -- but it's also a revealing one, loaded with assumptions and, perhaps, anxieties about bodies, behavior, discipline, moralism. It registers a certain pride, yes, but it also captures some of the discomfort I've experienced in recent months as I've tried to find ways to talk and write about losing weight without sounding sanctimonious or fat-shaming. (That discomfort is explored in this post.)

At this particular moment, the notion of a virtue binge also resonates with the political fiasco unfolding on Capitol Hill, as Republicans and Democrats battle, with nearly equal disingenuousness, to position their nearly indistinguishable plans for trimming the alleged fat off the nation's fiscal body as the morally correct one. (And how telling that the fiscal and governmental bodies are so frequently imaged, as in the cartoon anchored to this paragraph, as obese to a degree designed to elicit disgust.) The binge will end -- because binges always do -- the moment the deal is signed and there is no more political advantage to be gained by exaggerating one's own virtues and the vices of one's opponents. It will be resumed -- because binging generally is -- when new circumstances arise that once again make it expedient to demonize the opposing side as lacking in virtue. (Yes, darlings, I am well aware that one of our two major political parties is more in thrall than the other to a strategy of framing any kind of difference or disagreement as a world-threatening conflict between good and evil. I am lumping them together because everyone involved in the debt ceiling debacle has behaved so badly and because both the president and Senate majority leader Harry Reid strike me as guys whose lives have been one long virtue binge.)

Anyway: The virtue binge may be a uniquely and obnoxiously American phenomenon, a hangover of what one astute student of cultural history has described as The Puritan Origins of the American Self. That is a major source of the discomfort I feel with my own little quip. I am troubled to hear myself describe my weight loss and my recommitment to fitness in such terms because they suggest that I have internalized a set of value judgments about physical/moral fitness that I am deeply committed to contesting. (See, for example, the first two chapters of this book.) A quip is just a quip, of course, and I could take refuge in the idea that the joke mocks the tendency it names and therefore does contest the values that might motivate any kind of virtue binge. I was a firm believer in the salvific power of parody long before Stephen Colbert came on the scene.

All kidding aside, though, perhaps what really bothers me is the inadequacy of the language available for describing experiences like the one I have had over the past several months. How do we talk about weight and fitness -- especially as women, feminists, and queers -- without falling back on metaphors that equate physical health and "normal" size with moral virtue? I'm obviously a big fan of the Lifestyle Adjustment Program I used to lose weight, but I can't bear to read the "Success Stories" prominently featured on its website because they so relentlessly emphasize the virtues of being on track and in control. Success in these terms is a matter of reasserting discipline over a body defined as unruly, disorderly, and out of control.

"I feel like I've conquered the world," says my LAP's most famous current spokesperson, singer Jennifer Hudson, of her weight loss. Such language perpetuates a dualistic model of the relationship between mind and body that is both punitive and terroristic. I hate it -- even though I know full well that I had come to feel fairly out of control in relation to food, drink, and weight. Even though I admitted, right here in Roxie's World, that I had reached the point of feeling miserable in my body by January of this year and proudly offered an illustrated announcement just a few weeks ago of "what feeling better looks like." Careful and non-fat phobic as I have tried to be, my own language is as problematic as Hudson's, even without the cheesy metaphor of world domination.

I want another way to narrate this story, some alternative to the plots of conquest or redemption that have done so much damage in American culture and the world. I don't want to see what I am doing these days as either a virtue or a binge, because virtue is boring and binges are transient. I want to say to the friends and the sisters who are looking to me for advice and inspiration in their own efforts to take off weight that mind and body are one and we have to let go of self-loathing. We need to find ways to relate to our bodies, ourselves with love and compassion, whatever our size and shape. And we need to find ways to talk about the disciplines of self-care not as regimens of self-punishment and sacrifice but as forms of pleasure and play. You hear some of this rhetoric in the wellness industry's "this is not a diet" mantra, but my LAP's emphasis on tracking and control still sounds more anxious and paranoid than I would like.

The most satisfying language I've come up with so far is one that emphasizes mindfulness in relation to eating and activity. I put on weight over the course of several years because I stopped paying attention to how much I was eating and let go of a commitment I had maintained for most of my adult life to regular, vigorous exercise. In cultivating mindfulness, I've discovered new pleasure in food, which tastes better and is more satisfying when you pay attention to every bite, no matter how simply or sensibly it's prepared. And I've reconnected with the deep pleasures of working/playing in and with my body to learn new skills or to revel in the joy of movement for its own sake. Yes, I spent two and a half hours on Saturday afternoon working strenuously to improve my ability to perform what are basically glorified push-ups -- and walked out in a state of endorphin-produced bliss as glorious as anything I've felt in years. My posture was impressive, too. I don't want to underestimate the challenge of getting into shape after years of being mostly sedentary. It's been hard and humbling, but it has also been enormously satisfying and in a lot of moments just plain fun.

Perhaps what I am getting at is a model of bodily discipline or practice similar to what Foucault describes in The Use of Pleasure as "the arts of existence": "those intentional and voluntary actions by which men not only set themselves rules of conduct, but also seek to transform themselves, to change themselves in their singular being, and to make their life into an oeuvre that carries certain aesthetic values and meets certain stylistic criteria" (10-11). I like the emphasis here on both intentionality and artfulness as aspects of self-making. Or perhaps I'm thinking of the vulnerable, imperfect, necessary body Adrienne Rich tenderly claims in her "Contradictions: Tracking Poems (18)":

The best world is the body's world
filled with creatures     filled with dread
misshapen so     yet the best we have
our raft among the abstract worlds
and how I longed to live on this earth
walking her boundaries     never counting the cost

The best world is the body's world: Amen. This ain't no binge, friends. It's a way of life. Peace out.

(Photo Credit: Anon, Self-Portrait After Plank Workshop [2], 7/30/11)

Smoothie/Ruby Tuesday

(Photo Credit: Moose, 7/19/11)

Moose couldn't take it anymore. Over the past couple of weeks, she's been subjected to a barrage of ads for McDonald's new mango-pineapple Real Fruit Smoothie. The commercials are peppy and fun and summery, and the fruit is so luscious and juicy-looking that Moose's mouth would water every time she saw the ad. Damn, she'd think to herself, I want me a mango-pineapple smoothie! Finally, instead of driving to McDonald's, which she has not done in several decades, she ordered Goose to pick up a mango or two on a recent trip to the grocery store. This morning, she decided today would be the day she made her very first smoothie.

Yep, kids, this is what passes for culinary adventure as the household moves forward on the effort to maintain Moose 2.0: A Considerably Less Broad Broad Than She Used to Be. You want high-fat food porn? Photos of risotto swimming tantalizingly in a sea of butter and white wine? Recipes that call for half a pound of ricotta without offering the nutri-Nazi qualifier part-skim? Then head on over to our pal Comrade PhysioProf, whose latest nom de plume is the apt Comradde RisottoProffe. He'll keep you fat and happy or permit you to indulge in some safe full-fat voyeurism if that is what floats your boat.

Here in Roxie's World, however, the name of the game is keeping the points low and the satisfaction high, which means, ladies and non-ladies, that it's time to start your blenders!

Moose did some surfing around the intertoobz looking for a smoothie recipe, just enough to realize that you don't really need a recipe. Here's what she ended up doing, and the results were deelish:

Moose's Mango-Pineapple Smoothie:

1. Peel and chop a mango. Toss into blender.
2. Chop a nice thick slice of pineapple. Toss into blender.
3. Slice a banana. Toss into blender.
4. Dump 3/4 cup of non-fat vanilla yogurt into blender. (We've been enjoying Brown Cow yogurt lately. Just sayin'.)
5. Dump about a cup of ice into blender.
6. Put lid on blender, press "smoothie" button, and pulverize the heck out of that healthy $hit.
7. Pour into a clear glass, photograph for posterity, and present to skeptical partner, who, a few minutes later, will squeal happily, "I feel like Popeye eating his spinach!"

So, what's (not) cooking in your blenders, nutri-Nerds? Moose brought some of the season's first peaches home from the market on Sunday, so we're betting tomorrow's frothy mix will include a fuzzy orb or two. What do you do to sex up your smoothies? Are there any fans of flaxseed out there? Debauchees of dates? We're new to this liquid breakfast business, so we are eager to hear your thoughts.

Meantime, since it's Tuesday, here's a little glimpse of Ruby, whose been spending quite a bit of time curled up with a new toy the Shy One brought for her the other evening. It's a pheasant, and Ms. Ruby has been obsessive in her devotion, spending long hours in her crate and refusing to let anyone else get near the adored stuffed critter. She loves it so much she hasn't even disemboweled it to get at its squeaker yet:

(Photo Credit: Moose, 7/19/11)

Ruby Tuesdays are about songs, so here's one from Lucinda Williams, who the Moms will be seeing tonight at Wolf Trap. Technically, it's not a Ruby song, since that name is never uttered, but it's a beautiful song about how all dog's children are born to be loved, which means it has a special resonance for a girl rescued from the cold cruelness of a puppy-mill and transported to the paradise of Roxie's world. Sing it, Lucinda, and remember, darlings: You weren't born for nothing either. Peace out.

Blogger Babes Bare All!

Apparently, it's Show-and-Tell Day in the academic feminist blogosphere. Missed the memo? Consider this your invitation to participate!

Our dear friend Historiann, whom we have never met in the dimension commonly referred to as Real Life, posted photographs this morning of herself and her husband frolicking in the Colorado wilderness. These are, as far as we know, the first images Historiann's readers have ever seen of the Real People behind the blog. To our surprise and considerable disappointment, Historiann is not wearing chaps or brandishing a lasso in the picture. On the other hand, the head-and-shoulders shot proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that our favorite tenured cowgirl has a very fine neck and a regal way of looking at a camera, which somehow does not surprise us. Think Audrey Hepburn, only outdoorsy-er.

Not to be outdone by our blog pal's sudden penchant for self-revelation, the Beach Blanket Bingo players of Roxie's World are pleased to offer this bodacious image of Moose last week in South Haven, MI, looking for all the world as if she is ready for the swimsuit competition in next year's Ms. Blogosphere pageant:

(Photo Credit: Little Sister of the Moosians, 7/4/11)

Yes, as a matter of fact, we have lost our minds. It could be the heat has gotten to us. It's hot as heck here in the national capital area today. We thought this photo might help local readers cool off. Also, we thought you'd get a kick out of seeing the reading glasses placed strategically in front of the giant sunglasses, not to mention the kind of high-octane reading material Moose takes with her to the beach. (Look, she had her Kindle with her, too, and actually read a screen or two of Sherry Turkle's Alone Together before nodding off in the sun!) We also felt it was important to immortalize the ridiculous floral bathing suit Moose was forced to buy out in New Mexico when she showed up at a hot springs spa that used to be sex-segregated and clothing-optional. That she is still wearing the suit nearly two years later proves that cheapness triumphs over vanity in la famillle Moosianne.

Mostly, though, we offer this shockingly revealing image as a way of commemorating the six-month anniversary of Moose's Lifestyle Adjustment Program. It's true. Six months ago today she walked into a meeting, stepped on a scale, and made a commitment to eating less, moving more, and feeling better. Tomorrow, she will walk back into a meeting, step on that same scale, and declare herself on maintenance. An important part of the journey will be over. A victory will be (sensibly) celebrated, and a new stage, more challenging in many ways for Moose than the effort to take off weight, will begin. To mark that transition, we offer a photograph, not to brag, shame, or even necessarily inspire, but simply to acknowledge and to remember: For one feisty middle-aged broad, this is what feeling better looks like.

Peace out, darlings. Be well.

Breaking Up With Potatoes

The incredible shrinking typist of Roxie's World was disappointed but not surprised to read the news last week from a Harvard School of Public Health study suggesting that what you eat matters as much as how much you eat when it comes to maintaining a healthy weight over the long haul. That concern looms large for Moose as she gets close to the magical moment in her Lifestyle Adjustment Program when she shifts her focus from trying to take off weight to trying to keep it off. Forever. (For those of you who have been following the progress of our very own Biggest Loser, Moose has dropped 43 pounds since January. Of 2011. Yes, she is proud. And feeling really, really good.)

Anyhoo, the Harvard study analyzed "data collected over 20 years from more than 120,000 U.S. men and women in their 30s, 40s and 50s" and came to the conclusion that the mantra Moose has been repeating to herself over and over for the past five and a half months -- Eat less, move more, and you will lose weight -- is kinda true but also kinda simplistic. Yes, calories are important, so paying attention to how many you consume and how many you burn still matters. The study shows, however, that "some foods clearly cause people to put on more weight than others, perhaps because of their chemical makeup and how our bodies process them."

“All foods are not equal, and just eating in moderation is not enough," said Dariush Mozaffarian of the Harvard School of Public Health, who led the study published in last week's’s edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The leading culprit among foods in terms of the slow, incremental weight gains that so often add up to middle-aged girth? Poor Mr. Potato, of course. Rob Stein explains the sad news in his report on the study in WaPo:

Every additional serving of potatoes people added to their regular diet each day made them gain about a pound over four years. It was no surprise that french fries and potato chips are especially fattening. But the study found that even mashed, baked or boiled potatoes were unexpectedly plumping, perhaps because of their effect on the hormone insulin.

Stein's next paragraph focuses on the better news from the study about particular foods that seem to help keep weight off, should that happen to be your goal:

[W]hile it was no shock that every added serving of fruits and vegetables prevented between a quarter- and a half-pound gain, other foods were strikingly good at helping people stay slim. Every extra serving of nuts, for example, prevented more than a half-pound of weight gain. And perhaps the biggest surprise was yogurt, every serving of which kept off nearly a pound over four years.

Moose's first reaction to the study was to get a little wistful about her lifelong relationship with the lowly, lovely spud. Oh, potatoes, she might have said, if she were in the habit of speaking to vegetables, which, we are pleased to report, she is not, I love you so, from the bottom of my German-American heart. I remember every french fry I ate with every single Big Boy sandwich of my misspent Midwestern youth. I remember every barrel of Charles Chips I ever curled up with in front of the TV for long hours of Dark Shadows and The Secret Storm. I remember every hour I spent in the kitchen with my mother, grating piles of you to be turned into hash browns, nestled on a plate next to giant sausages. You were the faithful companions of my peripatetic childhood, the ones who whispered in my ear that food was my friend and overeating my birthright as a middle-class American kid. You were the cheap staple of grad-school vegetarianism, and later, the glorious gratin dauphinois the lord clearly meant to accompany Julia Child's beef bourguignon. Oh, potatoes, I can't even say that I wish I could quit you. It appears, however, that I should.

Her second reaction was to look around the kitchen and get a grip, realizing she had already quit potatoes, mostly, months ago, and was getting along quite well without them. Oh, nuts! Oh, yogurt! Oh, couscous! she rhapsodized. You are my new best friends, and you are better to me than potatoes ever were. With you I feel light and strong and full of energy. I have no cravings, no hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. As dog is my witness, with your help, I swear, I'll never eat potatoes again!

Well, it's possible she didn't entirely have her grip, but you know how Moose is. In any case, kids, the results of the Harvard study are worth pondering, even if you aren't prepared to go all nutri-Nazi in an effort to reach or maintain a healthy weight. The study's release follows by just a couple of weeks the launch of the USDA's latest effort to encourage healthier eating, the MyPlate campaign, which replaces the dopey food pyramid that no one ever understood or used. A WaPo story on the MyPlate rollout is here. A nice history of government nutrition guidelines, first issued in 1916, is here.

It's interesting to note that one of the government's earliest food-related initiatives was the Clean Plate Club, launched in 1917 to encourage citizens not to waste food due to limited supply during World War I. The Clean Plate Club was terminated after the war but was restarted in 1947, when food was again scarce at the end of the Depression and World War II. Moose swears there was a Clean Plate Club in her elementary school in the mid-60s in southern Indiana and blames it entirely for her inability to leave a morsel of food on her plate, ever. Goose says there was no such program in her school -- and feels no compunction at all about leaving the table with half a meal left on her plate, which may or may not prove Moose's point. Note, too, on the poster for the Clean Plate Club anchored to this paragraph that potatoes are prominent on the list of foods citizens are encouraged to eat more of as part of the war effort. Moose insists that potato-eating was still considered patriotic in southern Indiana in the 60s. Goose cannot explain why Texas appears not to have been on board with the program.

Consider this an open invitation to share stories about food, family, ideology, and your own adventures in embodiment. Was there a Clean Plate Club in your school growing up? Do you have vivid memories of being kept at the table until you had consumed everything on your plate? Have you broken up with potatoes -- or made peace with them or some other food you have loved too much? Do you think the Tea Party will manage to demonize MyPlate.gov as yet another nanny-government overreach that interferes with Americans' god-given right to have fries with that, dagnabbit? Is this blog successfully avoiding fat-shaming as we search for ways to write about these issues? We sincerely hope so, but let us know what you think.

Have at it, darlings. My skinny-a$$ed typist has to get up off it and go for a little run. Peace out, and have a healthy tomorrow. ;-)

Act Your Age

Lede of the Day: She is 74 years old, and she is ripped.

Photo of the Day (Or, Visual Proof that the Lede of the Day Is Fully Justified):

(Photo Credit: Marvin Joseph, Washington Post. Wa Po caption: [Ernestine] Shepherd instructs a body-building class in Baltimore. 5/29/11. Full photo gallery here.)

Tomorrow's Wa Po magazine has a cluster of features on women and aging, including DeNeen Brown's profile of Ernestine Shepherd, who was a self-described couch potato into her mid-50s, when she and her late sister Mildred started working out together in response to weight gain. Twenty years later, Shepherd holds the Guinness World Record as the oldest female bodybuilder in the world and tells classes full of huffing and puffing students decades younger than she is that, "Age is nothing but a number." Point taken, girlfriend.

Read the story before you tuck into that vat of Memorial Day potato salad you're planning to devour this weekend. It's mostly feel-good, female-affirmational stuff, but a) what's wrong with that? and b) the story also has the poignant subtext of the relationship between the two sisters. Of the other pieces in the cluster, the commentaries on aging while female by four women of different ages (the youngest being 33) are a little too full of lines like "Groomed eyebrows are an absolute key" to be worth our time, but, hey, wevs, wimmin. Naomi Wolf weighs in with an essay aimed at demolishing the myth that women experience aging as a process of existential loss tied to changes in physical appearance by asserting that she and the women she admires are doing just fine and the men in her social set who bring much younger trophy chicks to dinner parties are looked upon with pity rather than envy these days. 'K, Naomi, thanks for clearing that up for us.

Ernestine Shepherd, we do hereby declare you our Feisty Old Broad of the Holiday Weekend. Thank you for your chiseled abs and your sweaty persistence and your dedication to the dream you shared with your beloved sister. Long may you run -- and lift and squat and sculpt and teach. PAWS UP to you from the hard-working, lifestyle-adjusting middle-aged broads of Roxie's World.

(Photo Credit: Marvin Joseph, Washington Post. Wa Po caption: [Ernestine Shepherd] runs at least 10 miles every day in Druid Hill Park in Baltimore.)

Peace out, darlings. Wherever you go and whatever you do, may the official start of your summer be sun-drenched and pleasure-filled.