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Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Are Most People in Denial About Their Weight?

As I was walking through the gym the other day, I caught a glimpse of an overweight woman across the room. But then I did a double take, and then another. The woman was me — I had seen my own reflection in a distant mirror and, for a split second, hadn’t recognized myself.


This moment of mistaken identity was disconcerting, but it wasn’t all that unusual. Many of us are surprised by our size when reflected in the mirror or a store window — it’s like thinking that a recording of your own voice sounds off. And while psychologists have worried for years that media images of superslim starlets would put the nation’s collective self-esteem at risk, it turns out that something altogether different has happened. As the population becomes fatter, study after study shows that instead of feeling bad about ourselves, we have entered a collective state of denial about how big we’re actually getting.

A team of researchers led by a group from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign recently asked 3,622 young men and women in Mexico to estimate their body size based on categories ranging from very underweight to obese. People in the normal weight range selected the correct category about 80 percent of the time, but 58 percent of overweight students incorrectly described themselves as normal weight. Among the obese, 75 percent placed themselves in the overweight category, and only 10 percent accurately described their body size. (Notably, a sizable minority who were at a healthy weight described themselves as being underweight.)

The tendency for people to underestimate their body sizes, according to studies in the United States, Canada, Europe and elsewhere, is remarkably consistent across cultures and age groups. So why are so many people in fat denial? Scientists are only now beginning to understand the complicated process in which the brain (in particular, the posterior parietal cortex) integrates signals from all the senses to form our body images. Because our bodies change over time, the brain must constantly adjust its perception. Scientists believe that this internal calibration system can sometimes go haywire, notably for sufferers of anorexia, bulimia and body dysmorphic disorder, and possibly for obese people too.

In the meantime, they certainly know that the brain’s body-perception center isn’t foolproof. In an experiment called the Pinocchio Illusion, a person can be fooled into thinking that his nose is growing. This happens when someone touching his own nose with closed eyes has his biceps stimulated to feel as if his forearm is moving forward. The brain senses the arm movement but also knows that the fingers are still touching the nose. For both sensations to be true, the brain decides that the nose must be growing.

A few years ago, researchers at University College, London, conducted a similar experiment regarding waist size. While a person’s hands were resting on his waist, his wrist tendons were stimulated to create a sensation that they were moving inward — to feel, in other words, as if his waist were shrinking. Brain scans conducted during the experiment showed a marked increase in activity in the posterior parietal cortex, which gave the researchers a glimpse of the brain trying to tweak its perceived body size in real time. “The relative size of our body parts needs to be continuously updated or recalibrated,” said Henrik Ehrsson, lead author of the study, now associate professor of cognitive neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. “One possibility is that, in people who get obese or who have body-image disorders, something goes wrong with that process.”

While researchers admit that some denial may have to do with personal embarrassment, the consistency of the findings suggests that neural processing and psychology probably both play a role. It is also possible that a few extra pounds isn’t an urgent priority for the brain to acknowledge. Researchers at University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston found that one in three women did not know when they had gained 5 pounds, and about 15 percent weren’t aware when they had gained more than 10.

But part of the explanation may have to do with perspective. In a recent study, 3,665 children and adolescents in Quebec were given a series of silhouettes showing body sizes ranging from underweight to obese. When asked to describe their own body, nearly 70 percent of the overweight and obese children chose a slimmer silhouette. But the researchers discovered that children with the heaviest parents and peers were far more likely to underestimate their weight than those with healthy-weight parents and friends. “When kids live in an environment in which they see, on a daily basis, parents or school peers who are overweight, they may develop inaccurate perceptions of what constitutes a healthy weight,” says Katerina Maximova, assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Alberta. “Their own overweight seems normal by comparison.” Now that health officials estimate that two out of every three adults in the United States are overweight, future generations may not see the difference, either.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/are-most-people-in-denial-about-their-weight/?hp

Monday, April 16, 2012

'(Gailen) David vs Goliath'? American Airline Sues Flight Attendant

The ongoing battle between American Airlines and an outspoken and recently fired flight attendant is heading to court.

Aluminum Lady- Movie Trailer of American Airlines Flight Attendant Drama2:38Aluminum Lady- Movie Trailer of American Airlines Flight Attendant Dramaby skysteward64,242 views
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxlXJtDT-_M


The Fort Worth-based airline filed a lawsuit against Gailen David and 10 other “John Doe” defendants, alleging, among other things, breach of duty, conspiracy and trade infringement.

The suit is the latest chapter in a saga that traces its roots to David’s role as The Sky Steward, an online alter ego he created in 2007. Last month, he was fired after posting several videos in which he parodied American executives, often dressed as a woman, and took them to task for the airline’s financial troubles.

American Airlines filed for bankruptcy protection last fall.
David maintains he was “absolutely” fired because of the videos; the airline says it was because he violated rules regarding passenger privacy, which is also the basis of the current action.
According to the suit, David revealed the travel plans of several American executives and their spouses and claimed that members of the company’s mileage program were bumped from first class to make room for them. The suit also references but doesn’t identify 10 current American employees who allegedly provided David with the information he publicized.

“The travel information of American Airlines' passengers is considered both private and confidential, regardless of their relationship to the company,” said spokesman Bruce Hicks in a statement. “This lawsuit is designed to identify and hold legally accountable those employees who have and who continue to provide private and confidential passenger travel information and personal employee information to former employee Gailen David.”
“I was kind of expecting a lawsuit eventually,” David told msnbc.com. He has yet to file a legal response to the suit. “I think they thought that after they fired me, it would take the wind out of my sails, but it didn’t.”

Instead, he suggests that the legal blustering will lead to even more evidence of executive mismanagement. Although he declined to reveal how he got his information, he told msnbc.com that “when it’s revealed how the information was relayed to me, it’s going to be extremely embarrassing to American Airlines.”
In the meantime, experts suggest that if the case goes to court, the outcome will be a function of the court’s views on passenger confidentiality rather than conspiracy, trade infringement or, for that matter, David’s commentary or termination.

“As a general rule, revealing passenger information is beyond the pale,” said Franklyn Steinberg III, an aviation and employment attorney in Somerville, N.J. “But these cases are very much decided on the specific facts of each case. It’s hard to draw on a rule that will decide the situation.”

Rob Lovitt is a longtime travel writer who still believes the journey is as important as the destination. Follow him at Twitter.

http://overheadbin.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/12/11167668-american-airlines-sues-former-flight-attendant-behind-parody-videos?chromedomain=usnews

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Repressed Gay Desire Causes Homophobia (from USA Today)

Intense hostility toward gay people may be linked to a repressed same-sex attraction, combined with an authoritarian upbringing, a new study suggests.
Though such factors are not the only causes of homophobia, the research suggests that those "who have a discrepancy within themselves about their expressed vs. unconscious sexual attraction find gay and lesbian people more threatening and are more likely to express prejudice and discrimination toward them," says University of Rochester psychology professor Richard Ryan, co-author of the study, published in the April Journalof Personality and Social Psychology.

Blocking unconscious desires by adopting an opposite view is a well-known psychoanalytic concept, suggested by Freud and others.

The new research, done with more than 600 college students in the USA and Germany, measured discrepancies between what they said about their sexual orientation and how they reacted on split-second timed tasks.

They also rated the attractiveness of same-sex or opposite-sex people in photos and answered questions about their parenting and homophobia at home.

Researchers measured homophobia levels, both overt, as expressed in questionnaires on social policy and beliefs, and unconscious, as revealed in word-completion tasks.

Findings suggest subjects with accepting parents were more in touch with their innate sexual orientation. But those with controlling parents who had negative attitides about gays were "more likely to suppress same-sex attraction and to have this discrepancy that leads to homophobia and feeling threatened," Ryan says.

Some in the field are skeptical of the findings.
Psychology professor Gregory Herek of the University of California-Davis has done extensive research on anti-gay bias and violence, and he says measuring unconscious same-sex attraction is "incredibly difficult. This study is asking the right questions," he adds, but "it's a pretty big leap to say it's revealing sexual orientation."

Psychiatrist T. Byram Karasu of Montefiore Medical Center in New York says the study fails to address the importance of "identifying with the authoritarian parent" and then taking that oppression "and projecting it outward. The study skips the self-oppression part," he says.

Ryan says findings may shed light on high-profile cases in which public figures who express anti-gay views have been caught engaging in same-sex sexual acts. "Some people who are threatened by gays and lesbians and are the most vociferous in their opposition to them are suffering internally themselves," he says.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Ever Wonder What Happened To Kristy McNichol???


Kristy McNichol Wants to 'Be Open About Who I Am' | Kristy McNichol
Martie Allen and Kristy McNichol

Kristy McNichol has been out of the public eye for 20 years. Now she's chosen to come out – to try to help kids who are being bullied.

McNichol, 49, who has lived with her partner Martie Allen, also 49, for the past two decades, decided to make a statement about her sexuality and share this photo because she is "approaching 50" and wants to "be open about who I am."

She "is very sad about kids being bullied," her publicist Jeff Ballard tells PEOPLE. "She hopes that coming out can help kids who need support. She would like to help others who feel different."

Best known for her Emmy Award-winning role as Buddy Lawrence in the '70s show Family and later as Barbara Weston in Empty Nest, McNichol left it all behind when she dropped out of Hollywood to focus on her health.

Done with acting, McNichol spends her time focusing on tennis, yoga, travel and raising her beloved miniature dachshunds. "She is very happy and healthy," says Ballard. "And she enjoys living a very private life." 
 
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20559567,00.html