Bloomberg's Food Hangups Officially Cross Line Into Evil

I'm about to use a curse*, so you'll have to excuse me.

What in the fucking fuck is this fucked-up fuck?

New York City, under the aegis of Mayor Bloomberg and his health department, banned food donations to homeless shelters.

Because, you know, he can't assess the nutritional content of said food.

I, just, I.... WHAT?  What.  Wow.  Apparently this occurred in March - MARCH! - and no one noticed until now?


*Does that count as a curse, or four curses, if it's all fuck-based?

NYC's New Large Drink Ban

Anyone who stumbles upon the li'l ol' blog here this week could be forgiven for assuming that we're all NYC, all the time here at Cynical Nymph headquarters.

But I figured this is on-topic, so it bears opining over.  Today NYC's Board of Health passed our mayor's proposed ban on "sugary drinks" over 16 ounces 

You already know how I feel about Bloomberg's "let's post all the calories at chain restaurants!" rule, which effectively prevents me from eating at any kind of chain unless I'm having a really super great day.  (Refresher: I think it sucks.)

Let's take a look at some of the specifics of the ban's coverages and exemptions:


- LOL.  "The restrictions would not affect... alcoholic beverages."  Well, fantastic then, I can definitely see that this is about health if I can still go down to the German biergarten and order a boot of beer.  Everyone needs boots of beer.  Thank goodness I can still buy it in two-litre servings.

- You'll still be able to buy Big Gulps the size of an infant's torso at 7-Eleven.  DOUBLE LOL.  Also exempt are fruit juices, dairy-based drinks (including milkshakes), and one presumes malts, egg cremes, etc.  So go on and get ya that extra large milkshake at McDonald's (assuming those are dairy-based?) or Frappuccino, because if it's 50% dairy, you're good.

- This article does answer one of the questions that the husband and I covered earlier this month: The movie theater (or Subway, etc.) won't be able to sell over 16 ounces of any fountain soda, even if sugar-free.   ... But I can still go right to a vending machine just down the stairs from my movie theater's concession stand, and buy numerous full-sugar sodas from THAT.  (Who drinks that much soda at the movies? It's the people I glare daggers at when they get up to pee in the middle of a compelling scene, isn't it?)


Which leads me to my knee-jerk reactions to the passage of this ban:

Personally, I don't get the appeal of a ginormous drink, sugary or not.  So this one, unlike the calorie-posting one, doesn't affect me much.  But that's just me.

I would not presume to tell someone what to consume or not consume, unless it were putting someone other than them in danger.  (See: NYC's ban on smoking in bars/restaurants, which is just dandy in my opinion.)

However, it's not the "freedom of choice" angle that I take issue with here.  I find the collective freakout of the soft drink industry silly, and transparent in its motivations.  I mean, come on.  

It's that the Bloomberg administration plays into "health, health, health!" in such limited, shame-based ways.

I'd have so much more respect for something like this ban if it went hand in hand with honest-to-goodness prioritizing of public health insofar as things like access to safe and healthy food and body spaces, quality healthcare, solid and up-to-date education, are concerned.

Especially that last part.  Especially.

Happy NYC

We could do with some happy NYC pictures today, yes?  Yes.

High Line Park, Chelsea, June

MoMA, August

88th Street, July (as improbable as that may seem for clematis)

The Chrysler Building... some time.  I don't know when.  It always looks this same, which is, of course, the point.

Recovery Relapse (Yes, Really)

It is possible - just possible - that April and May were total shit.  I am admitting to nothing outright, but let's just say that it's possible and leave it at that.

Put another way, sometimes I feel like the only person on earth who can attend a wedding rehearsal dinner involving pizza and a birthday party involving cake, and come away losing weight both times.

Despite being in really excellent care right now, and despite really, honest-to-god trying, I have actually gotten to my lowest weight since at least June 2003.  Lose.  Lose, lose, lose.  Loser.  I feel like one literally and colloquially.

I've been keeping a food log with my therapist, and it does give me a fair amount of insight into, "Okay, that really is NOT enough food to maintain this weight," as well as, "Wow, I sure do eat a lot of apples and bananas."

I am just so angry with myself that I want to cry.  I've always been an angry crier.

I can't blame myself totally (not in the sense that I blame other people for my own actions) because April and May were... Wow, you guys, they were epic, and their epic nature was not of my making or under my control. 

The rest of June and July are going to be tough, but better.  I hope.  I pray.  (I don't pray, literally.  I... concentrate.)

It is my intent to blog more frequently, but the blog might turn into a spate of navel-gazing for a little while (ha, I mean, more than usual) in tandem with some "homework" for my treatment.  You've been warned.

For now I'll leave you with a flower.  It's blooming at my East River park right now, and it is a singularly comforting shade of yellow.

Checking in on the Met

The Met opened its New American Wing several years ago, and tonight they opened a members-only preview of that wing's new setup for the Galleries for Paintings, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts.  (Opens to the public on Sunday)

Since I get a Met membership every year from my parents for Christmas (that and a National Geographic subscription), naturally, that's where you would've found me tonight.

Y'all.  There was a LOT of George Washington.

Hai.

Ohai.

I shall call it The Blue Room

Madame X in her new home

This picture just cracks me up for some reason.  Look at Washington in the background... then look at all these slouching modern twits.  (Don't get me wrong.  I was slouching too.)

I also took the opportunity to visit the new Islamic art wing when it wasn't achingly crowded.  If you get a chance, go.  No, seriously.  Go.

Anyway.  I feel... refreshed.

Terrible and Wonderful

I already wrote my September 11th experience here.  Rather than rehash everything, the link is here if you feel like reading about it.

That post is from five years ago, and while it still rings true, what I remember more than anything now is the care people took with each other.  

I also remember making sandwiches for rescue workers at one of NYU's dining halls.  My roommate and I worked at a table across from a little boy and his mother, assembling ham, tomato, and mayo on white bread.  I remember us giggling at the gobs of mayo the kid slapped on his sandwiches.  "Is he trying to give the rescue workers heart attacks?" we asked each other.  I remember it was a relief to giggle, and it was a relief to see the unintentional humor of this little kid very clearly in a one-sided competition with us to make the most sandwiches.

I mostly remember the generosity, the unspoken assumption that it was okay to lean on a stranger, if you let them lean back on you.  And it wasn't like that only on the 11th and the 12th.  It was like that for months.  It was terrible and wonderful.

September Blue

This was the color of the sky on September 11, 2001.  Everyone talks about the blue of the sky that day.  (I was looking through some pictures, and found this, from last September in Paris.)

The roll of film in my camera (imagine that!) that day was black and white, so I don't have any pictures of the sky, but this was the color.  Truly, it felt like a mockery, how visible the columns of smoke were from downtown.

**

I left the apartment on the morning of September 1, 2011 and headed to the subway.  It wasn't until I walked a few blocks that I glanced up at the sky.  It was exactly this blue.  Oh, perfect, I thought.  That's just great.  My throat got tight and my eyes teared up.  It's gonna be an interesting couple of weeks.  I said just that to my therapist, later in the day.

Honestly, I've always felt like a bit of a fraud, having feelings about it.  I was two miles north of the World Trade Center that day.  I didn't know anyone who died.  I didn't know anyone who was physically hurt.  I didn't have to evacuate my dorm, even.  I have friends who saw people jumping.  I have friends who ran from balls of pulverized concrete and asbestos, up Chambers Street.

My therapist (who was my group therapist 2004-2006) remembered that "it really affected" me.  I assume that's because my eating disorder really kicked into high gear afterward, after it had been lazing its way toward clinical significance during the summer of 2001.  But I told her again this past week how silly I felt, tearing up at Lexington Avenue almost ten years later, just because the sky was a certain color blue.  I obviously didn't tear up last year in Paris when I took the picture above, or if I did, it was because I was flying home that afternoon.

Wednesday night  I stayed up 'til 3:00 reading this week's New York Magazine - their 9/11 Encyclopedia.  There's an entry about the blue in there.

I don't know how to describe the feelings I have around September 11th.  It was terrifying.  It was desperate.  It was life-affirming.  September 12th was simultaneously one of the most numb and most purposeful days I've lived.  September 13th was a Rube Goldberg trap of bad decisions.  September 14th school officially went back to normal, but life didn't.  We didn't.  It was a new normal, I guess.

It's strange to feel that ten years minus ten days later, one is still in that new normal.

Interlude: Art

I've needed a break.  I took one from blogging.  I don't think it's quite over yet, but soon.  Sadly, it's harder to take a break from Real Life.

Anyway, here's a picture from the Guggenheim this weekend, a some random opinions on art.

Honestly, about as "modern" as my modern art tastes get is 1930 or so.  After that, art is kinda lost on me, depending on the artist.  Example: Bonnard, yes, Dali, no.  (Unless you're talking deviantART, in which case, I'm down.)  Now, that's a huge generalization.    Let's just say that I can do reasonably well at MoMA, where reside various works by Redon, Boccioni, Van Gogh, Chagall, Severini, even some later Monet.  And The Guggenheim has a smattering of Cézanne, even a Manet out right now.

But I really just. can't. appreciate. four boulders and a black piece of rubber, with one of the boulders daringly off the rubber of its corner, while the other three boulders obligingly comply with authority and weight down the rubber corners.  I could stare at rock formations in nature until my eyes dried up and fell out of their sockets, but.... no.  I do not need to pay $18 to see boulders on black rubber.  Sorry.  I am just Not A Modern Art Person.  (Point of fact: I did not pay, my mom did.)

Several months ago (a year ago? more?) I saw a play brought over by the Donmar Warehouse, starring Alfred Molina.  It was about Mark Rothko in his later years, and while it gave me some appreciation for Rothko's more famous stuff (as opposed to his earlier stuff, which I actually do enjoy), I mostly still look at a Rothko and see.... red.

And isn't that the neat thing about art?  I can totally understand that there are people out there who probably go on major Rothko pilgrimages, whereas it is my life goal to somehow set up a tent on the grounds of Giverny (Quidditch World Cup style, of course).  It's a totally accepted reality that different art will speak to different people at different times in their lives, and for the most part (except with snobs and Jerry Falwell), that's okay with everyone.

Wow, I would really like to keep thinking about art rather than all the other crap I have to think about.

NY State Senate Passes Marriage Equality Bill

This is a huge moment.  This is a huge night.

I am so proud to be a New Yorker today.

We shouldn't need a legislature to affirm rights that are intrinsic to our adult humanity.  In a perfect world, we'd just have those rights.  But it's not a perfect world, and we do need legislatures, or voters, or what have you.  In this case, we have a legislative body, and they have done the right thing.  That's all there is to it.

I was watching the live feed from the senate floor.  I watched as they voted to approve a carefully-worded amendment protecting religious institutions and their non-profit affiliates and individuals working for them from civil or other legal actions.  The viewer numbers at that point were about 36,000 - up from around 4,000 when the link to the live feed was passed around Twitter about two hours before.

Then I watched the numbers climb to about 39,000 as Senator Diaz, one of the Democrats voting no, bloviated about Archbishop Timothy Dolan's opinion about gay marriage (something Dolan's been sure gets into the press the last few weeks), and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' take on gay marriage (guess), despite the fact that Diaz himself is not Catholic (in fact, he's a minister in a protestant church).  And as the president of the state senate moved to cut him off, and to not allow him to interrupt fellow senators, Senator Diaz rebuked the senate's president for curtailing his rights.  For curtailing his rights to speak about the bill.  Yes, you read that right.  Senator Diaz complained about an abbreviation of his right to speak against this bill, after he'd gone over his own two-minute limit, when certainly not every senator who voted yea or nay was getting mic time tonight.

Senator Diaz wanted his rights.

Well, Senator Duane, who spoke after Senator Diaz, gets his rights now.  Senator Duane, who also went over the two-minute limit, was also curtailed by the senate's president.  But, see, Senator Duane gets a different right.  Well, technically, the same right.  The same right as Senator Diaz, who has been married and divorced only on his own adult say.  Senator Duane, New York state's first openly gay and openly HIV-positive member, can now marry his partner Louis (or possibly Lewis? I only heard it, didn't read it) if they choose.  Or not.  You know, as they choose.  Since it's their choice.  And since it's their right.  And since this state acknowledges that right now.

The viewer numbers on the official senate page were around 49,000 as the New York State Senate roll call officially passed this bill in that chamber.  All that remains is for Gov. Cuomo, who championed this version of the bill, to sign it.

I <3 NY

Wednesday

It's supposed to reach 97° F (36° C) today.

Srsly? HopStop Counts Your Calories Now

I'm meeting up with the illustrious Sheil today.  We are going to see the Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Met.  Sheil is staying in Brooklyn, so I popped over to HopStop to see about how long it will take her to make it up to the Upper East Side.

Did you know that HopStop features "approximate calories burned on your trip" now?

Did you know that I want to mail a sample of my cat's poop to the people at HopStop who came up with that idea?

I mean, really.  Are you kidding me?  Are you kidding me.

You know, pedometers are all well and good.  Walking and being healthy is all well and good.  Getting out and about is all well and good.

But as someone with an eating disorder, I do not feel the need to know how many calories I burn every morning commuting between my apartment and my office.  I could now find that info out just so much more easily.  And now, I'm going to sit here and war with myself about not going back over to HopStop to find out.

Honestly, the panic over obesity and inactivity...  Every time I think there's no new way it could sneak into my life to surprise me and upset me?  Every time I think that, it seems to pop up with a brand new way.

Does anyone really need to know that they'd burn approximately 28 calories traveling from Williamsburg to Yorkville?  No.  There is no possible instance in which that knowledge would concretely benefit anyone.  28 calories is literally nothing.  There is no purpose to knowing that you might be burning 28 calories.  I don't care who you are, what your weight is, what your activity level is.

Actually, I take that back: unless you are so anorexic or underweight that you literally have to fight for every calorie taken in and expended.  In that case, you might need to know that X would burn 28 calories.  But this information isn't aimed at anorexics or those severely underweight.  I doubt the idea of counting calories so you don't lose them never occurred to the bright person who said, "Hey! Let's add calorie counts to the commutes!"

Ugh.  Feck you, HopStop.  Feck you.

Off-Topic and Obligatory: Unions

I can't be the only one who is a little appalled that the DOWN WITH UNIONS!!! thing is going on when we are but one month shy of the centennial anniversary of the horrific Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.  Surely this irony isn't lost on most people (well, on most people who are aware of what the fire was, what it signified and set off in American workers' rights movement, in the women's rights movement, in the immigrants' rights movement, and so on...).

Seriously, guys, read some of the interviews with survivors.  Read about the justice that didn't come (ever) for the owners of that company.  Read about the total disregard for life and limb (of others, of course).  You read that and you try to argue with me about unions.  No, the teachers in Wisconsin aren't fighting for unlocked fire exits so they don't burn to death.  Yes, they are fighting for quality of life, and in many ways symbolic and tangible, that fight started after the Triangle fire.

I had classes in that building when I was at NYU.  In my AP American History class we had a whole unit on the rolling intersection of the Industrial Revolution, the Gilded Age, and the New Deal, so the location of the Triangle fire was already in my sphere of knowledge when I had my first classes as a freshman Drama major.  These days, that's primarily a College of Arts & Sciences building, but most of my required theatre studies classes and a handful of electives were there.  I had several, over my four years, on the eighth floor where the Triangle fire started.  It's a neat old building.  Technically NYU connects two buildings there; I forget what the other one's called, but it's the home of CAS and has beautiful views over the Village and Washington Square Park.  Really beautiful, with lots of staircases, lots of fire hoses, lots of sturdy fire escapes, lots of sprinklers.

Something else I experienced frequently while at NYU?  Student teacher strikes.  I don't know what the situation is like now, but the president (John Sexton?) had a reputation for exploiting student teachers.  Furthermore, the student teachers weren't allowed to unionize.  A lot of the protests and pickets I witnessed took place at the northeast corner of Washington Square Park, right at the College of Arts & Sciences building, right where the Triangle Shirtwaist Company operated.

And Then My Head Exploded All Over 3rd Avenue. Again.

Where:  East 86th Street near 3rd Avenue (what is it with this corner?)

When:  About 1:00 p.m. on Sunday

Who:  A mother walking two tween daughters.  The mother is solidly built, about 5'2".  The older daughter, maybe 12, is already taller than her mother, and lanky.  The younger daughter, probably 10, looks like she has their mom's body type, being short and rounder than her sister.

What:  The younger girl is crying, her face the picture of abject woe.  Her sister is apologizing, "I didn't mean to call you the F word."  

As I listened, walking alongside them in the same direction, I got the distinct impression that the girls had been having some kind of run-of-the-mill argument, when the older sister was at a total loss for whatever reason, and pointed out that, well, her sister was fat.  The point had nothing to do with the argument, which I think was about who got to go to some event the following weekend.  The mother was silent, and looked positively queasy.  As they walked on and the younger sister kept crying, the older girl's face sunk more and more deeply into the certainty that she had really stepped in it.  

I'm not a parent.  (Except to a kitteh.)  But I wanted to throttle these girls' mother, fairly or not.  I get letting siblings work things out, but I'm just going to hope and hope and hope that this older kid didn't get that crap at home.  That "you are fat; your argument is invalid" crap.  That brand of crap only works as an Internet meme.  I hope she picked it up from her friends, not from her father or mother, and I hope her mother will have a nice, frank discussion with her focusing on the fact that someone's size has nothing to do with your disagreements with them.

I know this older girl is just a kid.  I know it.  But I really wanted to knock her and her mother's heads together and take the younger girl to the bookstore with me.

I was kind of busy, though, since my head had just exploded all over 3rd Avenue.  Again.

And Then My Head Exploded All Over 3rd Avenue

Overheard on the Upper East Side today...

Little Boy:  Can I have a milkshake??!!?

Dad:  Ask your mom.

Mom:  Don't make me the bad guy, John.

Dad:  Milkshakes make you REALLY fat.

Little Boy:  ... What about ice cream?

Dad:  Yeah, that too.

My Head:  *asplode*

Blending

Gino Severini

Dynamic Hieroglyphic of the Bal Tabarin 

On Friday I went to the Met to see the new American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity that re-inaugurates the Met's Costume Institute exhibits, which have been closed since I was still in college.  On Sunday I went to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) to observe Marina Abramovic's installation piece The Artist is Present.  Viewing both exhibits in one weekend was uniquely thought provoking; they function exquisitely as a juxtaposed pair.

The Met Costume Institute exhibit was very brief, and entirely too crowded for it to have been a Friday night; apparently I'm not the only one who's been eagerly anticipating the reopening lo these many years.  The exhibit consists of archetypal American women's fashions beginning in the 1890's, grouped into categories such as "The Heiress," "The Flapper," etc.  

Once I got past gawking at the impossible waistlines on the 1890's gowns, I spent a little time assessing and appreciating the levels of psychology upon which fashion and trends operate.  These gowns were art as much as they were fashion, but they were practical possessions as much as they were art.  Any good little feminist who read Backlash in college probably remembers the discussion of feminism-friendly eras (e.g. the 1920's, the 1970's) championing fashions that deliberately downplayed breasts, hips, and other stereotypically feminine attributes.  Seeing the evolution from wasp waist Victorian gowns to sleek Edwardian gowns to shapeless Flapper gowns, someone viewing the exhibit from my perspective couldn't help but see the gradual cloaking of the female body.  The gowns almost because equalizers.  The last room on the exhibit - The Screen Siren - is a visual shock after the shapeless (if still elegant) outfits preceding it.  The room contains low cut and clingy Grecian and Oriental gowns that wouldn't be out of place at today's formal events.  It's an interesting transition when you turn out of that room, expecting to see WWII-era dresses, and are instead faced with the exit room of the exhibit.  It contains no clothing, only flashing images of Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Madonna, etc.  Not only is it a singularly jarring transition (which I am not used to from Met exhibits),  it functions as both reinforcement and rebuttal of the familiarities of those Screen Sirens gowns.  On the whole, the exhibit was, for me, disconcerting as an example of the hold of the public over female bodies.

With apologies to my friends who are better-versed in art than I, while I go to the Met every chance I get, the MoMA has never been high on my list of museums to frequent; I am not a lover of modern art.  I adore many artists right up through the Futurists (like Severini, above, and Boccioni), and then I just totally lose interest.  When at MoMA, I usually beeline for the fifth floor (1880's - 1940's), then head down to the garden for a little while, then head out.  Sunday, however, I sprinted my way to the second floor, in hopes that I could get a place in line to sit in The Artist is Present exhibit.  (I arrived about five minutes after opening, and the line to sit was already beyond hope.)  This exhibit has generated enough buzz in New York that I'd actually heard about it, which is saying something.  There's an official Flickr stream of each person who sits with the artist, and the experience of their experience is moving just from a computer screen, so I knew I'd have to shake a leg and get down to MoMA to at least observe, if not to participate.  Watching the museum visitors (around the edge of the lighted square in which the artist and partner sit) proved nearly as fascinating as watching the silent, seated duo.  

The exhibit's stated purpose was to break down the lines between performance/art and the ordinary.  What was especially interesting to me - in the Flickr feed as well as in person - was the degree to which the performance acted as equalizer, as those shapeless gowns once did.  As one example, look through that Flickr feed, and I guarantee you you'll just about pass over the celebrities who are tucked away in there, while your eye will pick out various "normal" folks who are wholly more captivating.

Art and performance is always most interesting to me when it succeeds in making me notice something about the world which I didn't notice (or noticed by didn't consider much) before.  The blending of body shapes, the blending of past and present that make up fashion, the blending of performer and observer, the blending of the observers.  They dovetail nicely, but just dissonantly enough to be quite unsettling.  The commingling of art and fashion, modernity and history, exhibition and participation.  Unsettling and fascinating.

Calorie Counts Strike Again

Eventually we'll all be reduced to eating this.

NYC's chain restaurant calorie posting rule is going national.  I have thoughts.  Knowing what you're putting in your mouth is all well and good, but you all know my general opinion of the NYC reg, as I've been over it before.  Allow me to pontificate again, briefly.

When are we finally going to start talking about the underlying cultural issues behind the supposed need for calorie posting, and behind the very real need for expanded eating disorder treatment centers.  Disordered eating of any stripe does not happen in a void, people.  That's not to say that everyone who eats at a chain restaurant has disordered eating habits.  Far from it.  It is to say, for the umpteenth time, that the yin-yang of the obesity "epidemic" and our cultural deification of thinness aren't going ANYWHERE until we figure out, at a collective level, what purpose the food (or the lack thereof*) is serving.

* And I won't even get into the vitriolic, mean-spirited discussions about poverty and nutrition.  There's such a pervasive stink of privilege in most of those debates that if I start to focus on the self-perpetuating nature of poverty and poor diet, I just get plain depressed and decide that there is no point in trying to help anyone.  So I'm not gonna go there.

The Problem with Manhattan

Awkward: When you run into your former nutritionist at the grocery store, and your cart is basically full of apples, carrots, celery, and diet soda. And she totally notices.

Fat Acceptance, Fat Shaming, Big Fat Lies

There's a Fat Pride post up at Forever in Hell, and one of the articles linked to is this one. In the usual journalistic fashion seen nearly everywhere except possibly The New Yorker and the pre-Rupert Murdoch Wall Street Journal, the CNN article proceeds so that things are boiled down to the point where they aren't even true, just for a good sound bite. To wit:

"Although most people agree that promoting super-skinny models as the feminine (or masculine) ideal isn't healthy, will the opposite -- accepting that being overweight or obese is fine -- undermine the progress being made toward heart health?"

The entire article is based on this false dichotomy. The opposite of "promoting super-skinny models as the feminine (or masculine) ideal" is not "accepting that being overweight or obese is fine." If you're accepting something as "fine," then you are by definition NOT promoting it as the ideal. Fine does not equal ideal. In the above context, "fine" means "acceptable." End of story. The opposite of promoting extremely underweight models as the ideal would be promoting extremely overweight models as the ideal, not simply promoting the belief that being overweight might not be the most undesirable thing in the imaginable world. The article rattles off more sound bites (editors and PR professionals everywhere: "Yay!") from medical professionals all parroting the point that being fat is one of the worst things you can do to your body, when taking numerous risk factors and organ systems into account. CNN squeezes in a few nods to "fat doesn't necessarily mean unfit," but pulls the rug right out from under them with following paragraphs beginning with the ominous, "But is A really A?" formula that teenage essay writers the world over employ to make their thesis sound more intricate and deep than it really is.

This article and some of the comments over at Hell (and most of the comments at CNN) utterly miss the point. The idea behind the Fat Pride/Fat Acceptance movement isn't to give people an excuse to stay overweight or obese, as the CNN article blatantly suggests. The idea, which for some reason otherwise rational adults seem to have trouble understanding, is that accepting a chubby or overweight or obese person as just as human as an average weight or underweight or anorexic person is merely accepting the truth. For some reason, people haven't really made that leap yet. At least, not many people. Articles like this one and its false premises only serve to push some deep-seated button in many of us. We read about "healthy at any weight" and somehow it translates in our minds to, "Everyone's going to become fat because this will give them the excuse to sit on their asses and be lazy, and then I'll be surrounded by FAT PEOPLE! Or worse! I'll BE a fat person!" And then everyone runs around in distracted circles, screaming and waving their arms over their heads until they run into a fat person to scorn. Fat people aren't people, don't you know? They're lazy blobs.

Articles like this make sure people continue Not Getting It. They do such a huge disservice to our collective psyche and our cultural understanding of truth and logic.

It's Hard to Be a Saint In the City

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is often utilized in eating disorder treatment. CBT's younger sibling, DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) is more rarely employed, but certainly isn't unheard of, especially with the accompanying diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder, or a mood disorder (DBT came about to treat BPD, in fact). CBT can be individual- or group-based, but DBT is almost always both. Their shared main focuses are mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotional regulation, and distress tolerance. DBT works with these four ideas from a philosophical standpoint as much as a therapeutic one, drawing from Buddhist teachings as well as from Hegel (whence the "D"). A major difference, aside from the philosophical focus of DBT, is that DBT tends to be very. very. structured. The structure shows itself most in the group work; CBT group work can bleed into more generalized group therapy. I've done both CBT and DBT work. I found the CBT overlap of skills and talk therapy helpful at the time; and I carry with me the almost-drilled-into-me reflexes of DBT (when I can't be bothered to stifle the reflex, anyway). I have no idea what only one or only the other would impart to an eating disorder patient, but I'm glad I've had exposure to both.

This acronym-riddled, rambling paragraph is me saying, "I think structure is good. Yay for structure. But contextless structure is bad. Boo for contextless structure." DBT of course is not without context, so I exaggerate, but I can't see that DBT (the way I learned it) would have done me, as an eating disorder patient, as much good without a foundation of CBT...

... Sort of like it won't do you much good to slap the calories up on a fast food menu and then wait for the public to suddenly Get! It! about food choices. (Yes, that's really where I was going with the CBT vs. DBT thing.) (What? It's 1:00 a.m. You write something concise and relevant.) You can't shame people into eating healthier foods. But you can teach them about nutrition from the get-go, and you can retrain in adulthood to some extent. You can't solve body image issues by shaming everyone into eating fewer calories (which they don't do, anyway, according to this study). But you can promote respect and education, and so build a foundation for personal worth that isn't based on appearance. You can't toss someone a few arbitrary numbers (calories in a slice of Sbarro pizza) and expect them to suddenly and against all other logic start ignoring a set of NOT arbitrary numbers ($1.50 for a slice of pizza; $13.50 for a salad with grilled chicken at the place next door, as an example from my neighborhood). (And don't you dare get any dressing with that salad. The low-fat stuff has too much sodium, and we won't even discuss the full-fat stuff. Balsamic vinegar for you!) But shame on you if you eat that pizza slice, or that cheeseburger, or that Taco Bell burrito. Shame on you for being too lazy to work a second job so you can comfortably afford fresh produce at every meal (and snacks - processed snacks give you cancer!!1!). And shame on you for buying the 80% lean chuck instead of the 95% lean organic bison. Shame, shame, shame. What's that? How are you supposed to afford the more expensive stuff if you're already scraping by? Don't ask the City; it's not our problem.

This menu rule makes me ANGRY. It makes me DISTRESSED. So it's a damn good thing I have my CBT workbook all marked up under the bed. (What? You can't shell out for a CBT workbook because you're paying for daycare for your kid? Shame on you!! If you can't help yourself, nobody will help you!*)

Ugh. I'm going to bed. (Or, I will as soon as the drunk kid stops singing "Helena" at the top of his lungs out on the street. Ah, New York, New York.)

* They start for about $15 on Amazon. :-/

The Mayor's Hang-ups: Let Him Show You Them

This is not surprising. Not one jot. Someone with their own hang-ups about food pushing those hang-ups on those under their sway? Yeah, not shocking.

Opinions run the gamut on New York's trans fats ban and the mandatory posting of calorie information at chain restaurants (defined in the ban as 15 or more locations nationwide). Take a wild guess as to how I feel about the rules, particularly the second. Here, I'll just tell you: I think it's fricking abusive. (To some people. On some level.) (Yes, I am abusing the word "abusive." Isn't it fun?)

I don't know much on the non-reactionary science regarding trans fats, so I reserve judgment on that one. But as far as posting calorie information, I'd kind of love to go into Starbucks and have anything other than a fruit salad once I get a look at the calorie info. I'd like to eat what I'm in the mood for when I'm at Au Bon Pain, rather than the thing I can find with the smallest number next to it on the menu board. But, quite frankly, I can't get myself to do it with the calorie info staring me smack dab in the face when I go into one of these places, or to feel like I can eat anything at all when I go to a national chain (Chili's, say) at the fricking airport before I get on a fricking flight that's going to be five fricking hours.

There are ways around this. I could not look. I could say, "Frick it!" and just get the fricking sandwich, or what have you. But Mayor Bloomberg doesn't seem to take into account that there might be people - nay, voters - in the City who don't need any extra help obsessing about the calorie content of the food at the place they've decided to try to step into and eat at like a normal person. (Sure, there are only a few of us, relatively speaking, but this is another one of those things that build environment.) And now that this article is running, his hang-ups about the whole calorie/trans fat issue make a bit more sense to me. I still think the only way to describe his measures is "draconian," but they do make more sense.