Enemy of Entropy
Archive for March 2008
Weight Discrimination As Prevalent as Racial Discrimination
I was going to ask, “This is news to whom?” Then I realized that it’s perfectly likely that people who aren’t fat really don’t realize how much size discrimination there is, while it’s impossible for the rest of us to avoid it.
From the International Journal of Obesity, 4 March 2008:
1
Discrimination against overweight people-particularly women-is as common as racial discrimination, according to a study by the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University.
“These results show the need to treat weight discrimination as a legitimate form of prejudice, comparable to other characteristics like race or gender that already receive legal protection,” said Rebecca Puhl, research scientist and lead author.
(…)
The study also revealed that women are twice as likely as men to report weight discrimination and that weight discrimination in the workplace and interpersonal mistreatment due to obesity is common.
(…)
Co-author Tatiana Andreyava of Yale said weight discrimination is more prevalent than discrimination based on sexual orientation, nationality/ethnicity, physical disability, and religious beliefs. “However, despite its high prevalence, it continues to remain socially acceptable,” she said.
I’ll probably be slammed for this, but I honestly thing that weight/size discrimination may be even more prevalent in the U.S. than racial discrimination, because it’s socially acceptable.
1 Reposted in Medical News Today
WordPress Upgrade Woes
Ack! I upgraded to the latest version of WordPress (2.5) yesterday, and now one of my favorite plug-ins (Now Reading) isn’t working! You can see the books I’m reading at the moment over there in the sidebar, and I can get into the administrative interface, but the library display doesn’t work. Any of the actual book or author pages come up 404. Meep!
It isn’t just on this blog, either—Fibrant Living has the same problem.
The WP administrative interface has been completely redesigned. I’m not sure what might have been changed behind the scenes, so I’m a little worried about trying to go back to the previous version.
I’ve posted messages in the plug-in author’s forum and bug tracker. I’m hoping to hear from him soon! Rob actually responded in the comments, and the new version resolved the problem. Yay!
Book Joy! And Stuff
I’m so tickled! In the last two weeks, I’ve found not one, but two books that Sam and I have wanted for ages at good prices on eBay!
First, I’ve been looking for
Seeing Red: The Rapture of Redheads by Howard Schatz for years and years. Seriously, it has to be at least five years since Sam first mentioned that he’d love to have it. Unfortunately, it’s out of print, and the only thing I found for the longest time were used copies for $150 or more. It’s a gorgeous book, but that’s far more than I could pay for it.
I had the book on my wish list at Half.com, which is part of eBay, but for some reason I also set up an eBay search a few months back, and finally got found a copy going for $35.1 I didn’t happen to see the email until a day later, and by then the seller had dropped the price further for some reason. It was more than I pay for most books, but after five years, it was more than worth it. We received it in the mail earlier this week, and it is just a beautiful as any new copy.
That gave me an idea, so I set up a search for another book I’ve wanted for a while, but couldn’t afford. John C. Lowe’s tome Your Guide to Metabolic Health came out in 2003, and I haven’t ever found it in stock anywhere. It must have gone out of stock quickly, because Amazon has only ever had used copies that I’ve seen. And again, they were always pricey — $180 was the price I’d seen most recently.2
Today, eBay came through again! The “buy it now” price was very reasonable, so Sam encouraged me to go ahead and get it instead of chancing the auction route.
Dr. Lowe has also written another book that’s specifically about the metabolic treatment of fibromyalgia, but it runs over $500. Apparently, that one is intended for physicians, rather than laypeople. I have an eBay search going, but I’m fairly certain the book I bought today has the information I need in it. From what I’ve heard, it’s mainly about fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.3
I’m busily reading my ARC of Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep Working, Girlfriend! It’s good stuff.
1 For what it’s worth, Half.com still shows only the higher prices. Weird.
2 It’s available more cheaply now, but I still got a deal.
3 Aha — the publisher actually sells the latest version of that one for $99.95. Why would anybody pay the used price? Why do the used sellers think they can demand so much?
Friday Links
It was a nice, boring day, which means I don’t have much to talk about. Happily, other people do.
Open Relationships: What the World Already Has is a very good post over at Huffington by Jenny Block. I hope to read more from her. I definitely intend to get a copy of her book,
_blank”>Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage when it comes out in June.
I can’t say that I was shocked to hear that the TSA forced a woman to remove her nipple piercings with pliers before allowing her to board a flight, but I am disgusted. I’m glad that I don’t have to travel much,1 but I definitely think that the next time we do travel we’ll give Amtrak serious consideration over flying.
Why is it that 29 total strangers have started “following” me on Twitter, when I haven’t even logged in since the 21
1 Not that I wouldn’t like to travel more for pleasure, I just wouldn’t want to do it on someone else’s schedule
Date Night Happiness
My sweetie had to run a bunch of errands before he got home last night, which shortened our date a bit. Groceries were needful, though. We had some delicious deli-style sandwiches after he got home, so there wasn’t a kitchen mess to deal with, too.
I think we watched an episode of West Wing while eating. We’re on the fifth season, after Aaron Sorkin left the show, and it just doesn’t compare to the previous seasons at all. I haven’t even bothered to watch all of them, although Sam has. He catches me up on any important plot details I’ve missed between episodes.
The girl went out for her regular Wednesday night fun, which was also nice. It’s easier to have “date night” at home when we know she’s also having fun.
Much of our game was taken up with political stuff, and a nice surprise of 32 new proto-demons that my character’s minions were able to shape into full demons of needful types. She has many minions, which is marvelous. Oh, have I mentioned that she’s the Demon Queen now? Interesting sideline for a high priestess of a good deity.
I would really, really hate to have to do a character sheet for Seauclaire any more. She’d be so multi-classed that it makes my head hurt just to think about it. It’s nice not to deal with such things any more.
