the Natural Condition

A startling map of obesity in America, and how is has increased exponentially in the last 20 years:

CNN’s Map of Obesity in America

Epidemiologists set the bar for obesity at a BMI of 30. BMI stands for “body mass index,” and it is a measure of divergence from optimal weight. To calculate a BMI value, you divide an individual’s weight (kg) by the square of their height (m²).⁽¹⁾ To put a BMI of 30 into perspective, a 5′5″ female would weigh 180lbs, and a 5′10″ male would weigh 209lbs. I gave the average heights for adult men and women in the US, but, in fact, the BMI calculation is independent of sex, body frame, musculature, etc. It is, therefore, a rather crude metric for estimating obesity rates, as the only determining factors are height and weight. I.e., you could be super jacked, but have a BMI that technically places you in the overweight range.⁽²⁾ However, as the ratio of jacked:fat in America is approximately 0.0001, BMI is probably a reasonable indicator of America’s waistline, when averaged over a population.

Well enough about BMI. The bottom line is that America is getting extraordinarily fat, and the obesity epidemic is spreading … (Read the rest of this article »)

Welcome to my new site, www.naturalcondition.com. Many thanks to my brother who graciously offered to host me (check out his goings-on at www.modiphone.net). And I must apologize for the lack of planning, but the site feed has, once again, changed to match the new name. You can find it at http://feeds.naturalcondition.com/NaturalCondition (comments feed at http://feeds.naturalcondition.com/NaturalCondition-comments).

I’m glad you’re here. It is my intention to update the content often, so check back regularly.

P.S. It’s my birthday!

In an effort to maintain the factual, informative nature of this forum, I will try to avoid the messiness of the political world as often as possible. However, I did read an article the other day that grabbed my attention, and I am compelled to share its substance.

The Charity Case, by Zak Moore (Dartmouth ‘09)

Zak Moore ‘09 wrote the article cited above for The Dartmouth (Dartmouth College’s daily newspaper). It was published on January 23rd. In the piece, Moore responds to the common accusation that “‘liberals are charitable and conservatives selfish.’” While I will not delve into any deep discussion of my own political persuasions (indeed, they are underdeveloped), I do find Moore’s assessment of the actual state of affairs to be spot on.

The foundation of his argument is that, in fact, young ‘conservatives,’ and especially young religious conservatives, are significantly more likely to participate in charitable activites (time, monetary donations) than their self-defined ‘liberal’ counterparts. More surprisingly, conservative philanthropy surpasses liberal philanthropy for both religious and secular organizations. He makes the subtle observation that charity, if institutionalized in the form of tax hikes and a welfare state, is not charity at all. Charity must always be a voluntary act, and Moore states that charitable organizations actually do a far better job than government bureaucracy at stretching the value of a donated dollar.

As I don’t want to merely repeat his argument, I’ll stop here, and let you read the article for yourself.

Comments welcome.

I’ve redirected my blog feed through feedburner, so if anyone is still using the old url,

http://mnol.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default,

please update to the new one:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/mnol

http://feeds.naturalcondition.com/NaturalCondition

Gracias!

P.S. Short bit about feeds and feedreaders: A feed is a summary of the dynamic content on a site that is regularly updated (usually a title and the first paragraph). A feedreader allows you to browse the headlines and content snippets of many sites (NYTimes, CNN, my blog, etc.) all in one place, without having to visit each site. As you browse your subscriptions in the feedreader and you come across an interesting headline, you can click a link in the reader to view the entire article. Subscribing to feeds using Google Reader is an excellent way to aggregate and browse all your news sources in one place. To subscribe to my blog’s feed, click the little orange broadcast button on the right navigation pane. Ok, that’s my plug. I’m out foreal now.

High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is one of the most ubiquitous sweeteners in modern foods. While it receives much press for its prevalence in soft drinks, it also sneaks its way into some foods you might not expect: ketchup, dubious “juices,” pizza, yogurt, saltine crackers, and that overpriced vanilla latte you’re drinking.(4) Did you catch that I mentioned corn sweeteners in your saltine crackers? Gross? Well, at least a little weird. That one alone might make me think twice, but there’s more to the story.

Food manufacturers put HFCS in their foods because it is as sweet or a little sweeter than traditional sugar (sucrose), it extends shelf life of foods (1), and it is cheap. Anyone who has ever driven through the non-coastal US states and finds nothing but endless fields of corn might question where all that corn goes, because nobody eats the stuff 5 times-per-day. The answer is that, while most corn … (Read the rest of this article »)

I was at an interview for medical school a few weeks ago, and was asked the question:

What do you think is the greatest problem facing healthcare today?

In the following paragraphs I outline the gist of my response, and some embellishments on the topic.

While I was in college, I can remember attending a lecture by the former United States Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. While Dr. Koop is best known for his monumental work in enhancing public awareness about the dangers of cigarette smoking (indeed, he is the one responsible for the warning labels prominently displayed on all packs of smokes), he actually spent most of his career pioneering the field of pediatric surgery at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He is a most distinguished graduate of Dartmouth College (class of 1937), and, more interestingly for the non-Dartmouth readers, he was interviewed on the Ali-G show, so clearly he merits profound respect.

At the time of this lecture, Dr. Koop was almost 90 years old. I was expecting to hear a speech from a elderly man whose wisdom would be sadly muffled by his frailty. It turned out that he still spoke with a loud and penetrating voice … (Read the rest of this article »)

It was not that long ago that one of my college buddies mentioned to me that asparagus makes your urine smell bad. Apparently this fact is rather widely disseminated among young adults (adolescents rarely partake of the vegetable out of childish aversion), and although I do eat, and enjoy, asparagus, I was uninformed, obviously uninformed, of the urine bit. As I prepared some asparagus for this evening’s dinner, I decided to look into the phenomenon.

This notion of noisomeness associated with asparagus was first documented in the 1730s, despite the food’s longstanding culinary presence. It was not until the 20th century, however, that scientists investigated it. Although, I suppose that malodorous urine was no reason to keep a scientist up at night, considering that they did not yet realize that living organisms are made of cells, nor that infection is caused by germs. In any case, as far as I can tell, scientists first began to probe the issue in the 1950s. For the next 30-some years, it appears that they concluded, incorrectly, that … (Read the rest of this article »)

After spending a day fasting this past weekend, I’m interested in learning more about the idea of a ‘calorie-restricted’ diet. Basically, the idea is that by cutting back the amount of calories one ingests — say, by reducing by 1/3 — while remaining nutritionally nourished, the organism will optimize bodily resources, which can lead to a longer, healthier life.

Sound too good to be true? … it probably is. Although, from the little that I’ve read, this concept has been tested in several organisms, among which are the housefly drosophila, yeast, and, most promisingly, primates. With the exception of the housefly, studies have demonstrated that the organisms tend to lead healthier, and thus longer, lives, which makes a very appealing case. Biologically, it is reasonable to think that … (Read the rest of this article »)

Welcome to the show. This post marks the first utterances of what will, hopefully, be a worthwhile read for visitors. More content to come. Thanks for stopping by.