feminist blogs

“Let’s Move”. Ridiculous name, cool new initiative out of the Obama administration.

Called The Let’s Move campaign, the program focuses on what families, communities and the public and private sectors can do to help fight childhood obesity, which she and health experts have termed an epidemic in the United States. The campaign aims to take steps to reduce childhood obesity within a generation.

As I wrote yesterday, I’m delighted that the growing obesity epidemic is a primary focus for the White House. I liked the details announced today regarding improved packaging information to help parents offer better nutrition to their kids at home. Also, I have to ask myself why kids weren’t being given fruits and vegetables in school cafeteria lunches before now?

I am, however, a little concerned that the Let’s Move campaign details announced today focused primarily on nutrition.

What we need, also, is a commitment to provide state funding to help public schools support physical education classes. No Child Left Behind essentially signed a death warrant for all extracurricular classes. A friend of mine volunteers his time to teach kids physical education during recess because gym classes were axed to ensure schools could meet No Child Left Behind standards and avoid funding cuts.

And there’s talk in Southern Arizona of eliminating recess as well.

We can’t just fight childhood obesity by helping kids cut calories; let’s get them outside and… well… moving.

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Daniel Dae Kim, of Lost, is the first member of the cast to find work after the show’s much-touted May series finale. (And you’re crazy if you’re not watching this show. Last week was mind-blowingly-oh-my-god-they-did-not-just-do-that awesome.) DDK’s going to play Detective Chin Ho Kelly on CBS’ remake of Hawaii Five-O.

And, hey, maybe he’ll even get to speak English, and not pidgin, in this new show!

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I was delighted to read this afternoon that the First Lady is gearing up for a campaign to end childhood obesity in this country. Scheduled to announce her initiatives tomorrow, Michelle Obama is hoping to raise awareness about the growing obesity epidemic in this country, largely affecting the nation’s children.

Anthony Coley said this about Michelle Obama’s plans today in a piece for CNN:

On Tuesday, the first lady will unveil the details of her comprehensive plan, the broad outline of which, she told a meeting of key members of Congress and the Cabinet, include four main elements: increasing the number of healthy schools; increasing the amount of physical activity children receive; improving accessibility and affordability of healthy foods; and empowering consumers and families to make healthier food choices. She’ll spell out the details in the coming days.

The childhood obesity epidemic is the newest front in the battle of the bulge, and Mrs. Obama should be praised for using her mass appeal to shed light on it. She is right to argue, as she has, that there is no one solution, federal or otherwise.

Stopping this epidemic will require complementary efforts that bring together government, families, schools, foundations, businesses and others. Here’s hoping that people across America hear Mrs. Obama’s call to action and join the national campaign to end childhood obesity. Our collective future, in no small part, depends on its success.

Honestly, it’s about dang time that this nation took tangible steps to end the obesity epidemic and raise the health of this country. Over the last several months, I’ve been shocked by the growing waistline of Americans; it feels as if everywhere I turn these days, I see obese men, women and children trapped in a fast food culture.

Currently, 1 in 3 Americans are obese, based on their body mass index (which I’ve railed against, but I digress). Obesity has been linked to increased risk for a host of diseases, including heart attack and diabetes. But, what’s most striking is that obesity is directly associated with socioeconomic status: the poorer you are, the more likely you are to be obese (particularly if you are a woman).

We see this relationship directly in data presented by Baum and Ruhm that compared measures of obesity against socioeconomic status (I graphed the data from Table 2).

 But we also see this relationship when we look at the median household income in the top eleven most obese states in America: states with higher rates of obesity tend to have lower median household incomes.

State	Income	% Obese
Mississippi	36674	32.8
Alabama	40751	31.4
W. Virginia	40611	31.2
Tenessee	43458	30.6
Oklahoma	41497	30.3
S. Carolina	43338	30.1
Kentucky	41320	29.8
N. Carolina	44411	29
Michigan	51305	28.9
Ohio	48884	28.7
Arkansas	40001	28.7

In fact, if we graph these data for all states, we see an inverse relationship between obesity prevalence and median household income:

And finally, we also see a similar trend when we look across racial lines: minority groups with lower median household income (I used the 2006 numbers to match the year when the obesity data were collected) status tend to have higher rates of obesity.

(And no, I didn’t run any statistics on any of this stuff. What am I, some kind of number-crunching dork who likes to analyse data for fun? ^_^)

My point in all of this? Obesity is a health epidemic that disproportionately affects the poor. In a way, our continued cultural apathy towards obesity (childhood or otherwise) is a popularly condoned death sentence for the impoverished. Inaction when it comes to the obesity epidemic sends this message: yes, we believe the poor deserve to die.

And the truly sad thing about the obesity epidemic is that, with a little education, obesity is completely preventable. Encouraging physical activity and proper nutrition will help, as will initiatives that improve the economy. Even the healthcare reform bills mired in Congress, if passed, could improve the obesity outlook if they include sufficient emphasis on preventative care. But what this country can’t afford is continued ignorance and apathy; I’m glad Michelle Obama has taken the first step in making a difference.

And anyways, doesn’t this somehow justify all that trashy gossip over Michelle Obama’s killer arms? Instead of fixating on Michelle’s incredible shoulders, maybe we can start fixating on our own need to get more physically fit.

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The idea of anti-Asian bias in college admissions is gaining further traction in mainstream media. This article in the Boston Globe perpetuates the rather simplistic idea that equates higher mean SAT scores for Asian applicants with an “Asian Ceiling” that discriminates against Asian American students.

The article draws on Espenshade’s study, which I reviewed last year, and which can lead to an oversimplification (dare I say “white-washing) of the situation. At least my friend Oiyan Poon gets it right:

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Last night on Keith Olbermann, Olbermann asked Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas what he would do to end “political gridlock” in Washington. Moulitsas replied “kill the filibuster”:

KEITH OLBERMANN: In 30 seconds, what do we do to fix it [our political system]?

MARKOS MOULITSAS: Well, our system is broken. Mostly the Senate. In 30 seconds I can do it quicker: kill the filibuster. And that’s something I hope Democrats start looking into.

Oh, has it only been a five years since Democrats were decrying the Republican threat of invoking the ”nuclear option” in response to Bush’s Supreme Court nominations? Now, all of a sudden, Democratic pundits are the ones criticizing the use of the filibuster.

Daily Kos afficionados might applaud Moulitsas’ comment. And yes, I support healthcare reform, and am frustrated by the slow lingering death of the various healthcare reform proposals in Congress — many of them being stymied by Republicans. And yes, it seems unfair that 40 committed senators (or 41, as the case may be) can stop 60 senators in their tracks with one well-placed filibuster.

But, it’s incredibly short-sided for Moulitsas and other left-wingers to blame the failure of healthcare reform on the mere existence of the filibuster rule.

The filibuster has always existed as a desperate measure intended to help avoid a simple “majority rules” mentality in the Senate. Having a majority of votes in the Senate grants the ruling party a significant advantage over the minority party, yet the purpose of the Senate — more so than the House — is to ensure careful debate over any and all pieces of legislation. Without the filibuster, the party that holds the most votes could simply force through whatever piece of legislation they would like, and the representatives of the minority party are little more than seat-warmers. The filbuster exists in case the members of the majority party lose their mind, and want to push through a bill without any adequate debate from the members of the minority party; in other words, the filibuster exists to ensure that the little guy can be heard.

Yet, a cloture vote — which requires 60 votes to end a filibuster — is not the only way to end a filibuster. Indeed, some of the most famous filibusters in history ended because the guy talking for 22 hours straight got sleepy or needed to pee — a person simply can’t stand and talk in one place for more than 24 hours.

If we want to pass healthcare reform (or any piece of critical legislation), we need only look to history. Strom Thurmond’s filibuster of the Civil Rights Act didn’t prevent its passage in 1965. Senator Huey Long’s 15 hour filibuster of the Glass-Steagall Banking Act didn’t stop banking reform.

So, I say this: if Republicans want to filibuster healthcare reform, let them. Let the Republicans draw straws to pick a representative amongst them to pee in Gatorade bottles and down throat lozenges to speak for 20 hours on why Americans don’t need healthcare. If they have a point — which they don’t – than voters across the country will be able to hear it for themselves.

But when it’s clear that the Republicans don’t have a point, let’s see whether voters will vote in favour of the party that wants to ensure that the sick get the live-saving treatment they deserve, or whether they will vote back into office the guys who actually gridlocked Washington for 24 hours trying to stop doctors from treating patients. 

But let’s end this dumb talk over getting rid of the filibuster. It comes off as petty and myopic. Moulitsas’ comment comes from the same partisan bickering that has characterized the last two decades in Washington. I guarantee that if a Republican majority were elected to Congress tomorrow, we would find Moulitsas on Rachel Maddow tomorrow night defending the filibuster as a noble and time-honoured political tradition.

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I just caught this on CNN: a 1998 study “showing” a link between measles vaccinations and autism has been retracted by The Lancet. The 1998 Wakefield et al. paper reported that in a study of 12 children, GI abnormalities and onset of autism was associated with a measles vaccination were found in 8 of the patients, leading the authors of the paper to conclude that the measles vaccination led to failure of the GI tract, causing waste to enter the blood and producing autism.

As you can see from the Pubmed abstract, the 1998 Wakefield et al. paper attracted heavy criticism and comment, sparking a heated debate in the published literature. Walker-Smith’s lab (out of which the original 1998 paper was published) issued a partial retraction in 2004, clarifying that the original paper was not intended to demonstrate a causal link between measles vaccine and autism. Furthermore, many papers published by other investigators subsequent to Wakefield et al. demonstrated findings contradicting Wakefield’s initial causal conclusion — yet, in the popular media, Wakefield et al’s paper became a fundamental piece of “evidence” in the growing anti-vaccination hysteria that has taken the country by storm over the last decade.

Well, score one for the scientists: this morning, The Lancet issued a historic retraction of the entire Wakefield et al. 1998 paper. The retraction read only three sentences long, yet I think it’s implications are profound: 

Following the judgment of the UK General Medical Council’s Fitness to Practise Panel on Jan 28, 2010, it has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al1 are incorrect, contrary to the findings of an earlier investigation.2 In particular, the claims in the original paper that children were “consecutively referred” and that investigations were “approved” by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false. Therefore we fully retract this paper from the published record.

Basically, here’s what happened — recently, the UK General Medical Council’s Fitness to Practise Panel met to discuss and review the investigative and ethical practices of the original 1998 Wakefield et al. paper. The panel found that, contrary to earlier reports, the study used shady and unethical practices for recruiting patients and collecting data, including Wakefield paying children for their blood samples at his son’s birthday party.

For those of you who don’t know, all human studies (like all animal studies) undergo a rigorous review prior to implementation to ensure that patient safety and scientific rigor are maintained. Very rarely does an investigator implement such poor scientific method that they invalidate their own findings, yet it turns out that Wakefield was one of these scientists.

Hopefully, this full retraction will begin to dismantle the rampant anti-vaccination hysteria we’ve seen in association with flu vaccines, chicken pox vaccines, and the latest H1N1 vaccine. I find parents’ fear of vaccination to be anti-intellectual at its core; they fear what they don’t understand.

But let’s get it straight: vaccines don’t hurt you, they help you. Vaccines can save your child’s life, and they sure as heck won’t give your kid autism. Go get your kid vaccinated already; when your kid gets sick, it’s already too late.

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I’m a huge believer of mass action. One of the major purposes of this blog was to try and encourage myself, and my readers, to stay involved — to be more than just an armchair activist. I’m one of those bright-eyed, bushy-tailed true believers who thinks we’re here on this planet to make a difference (yeah, I know, cue the beads, braids, and Beatles music). Writing, for me, is a daily act of raising awareness, stimulating discussion, and (hopefully) changing minds, but nothing beats hitting the streets, participating in a letter-writing or phone-banking campaign, or donating money.

Sure, each individual action seems tiny and pointless, but if a whole bunch of people do just a little bit… whoa!

A couple of days ago, I encouraged readers to help in the relief efforts in Haiti in the wake of a massive earthquake that demolished Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas. One of the primary options was to donate via text message — sending the word “HAITI” to 90999 on your cellphone would send a $10 donation to the Red Cross International Relief Fund (appearing on your next monthly phone bill).

This campaign started on the Red Cross Twitter feed and was publicized on the White House blog. It was quickly picked up on Facebook (where I first heard about it). Word spread quicker than a zombie infection (yeah, I’m playing Fallout 3 right now so zombies are on the mind) — this morning, CNN reported that over $8 million dollars had been donated to the Red Cross, and as of three hours ago, the Red Cross twittered that the sum had now reached $10 million dollars.

$10. Million. Dollars. — more money than many foreign governments in Europe and Asia are individually committing – and most of it donated $10 at a time by people all over America. $10 million dollars from hundreds of thousands of people each spending less than thirty seconds of their day and giving up the cost of a meal for two at McDonald’s.

$10 million dollars. Pardon my French, but holy fuckin’ shit.

Or, put another way — naive romantic idealists: 1, skeptics and cynics: 0.

Here’s my re-post of how you can help raise the next $10 million:

• Donate $10 to the American Red Cross International Relief Fund. You can donate online, or specify your donation to the disaster relief in Haiti by texting “HAITI” to 90999 on your cell phone. If you choose the texting option, you are making a one-time donation via mGive.com, which directs 100% of your donation to the American Red Cross. The amount will appear on your next cellphone bill. If you would like to publicize this option on your blog, feel free to use this button I made for my site.

• Donate to any of the agencies verified by InterAction as conducting relief efforts in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti.
• Become a blood donor; the Red Cross is shipping donated blood as part of its relief efforts, which draws from the already depleted national blood bank supply. Donating takes just an hour of your time and is pretty painless, yet only 1 in 100 Americans are currently a blood donor.   
• I’ve heard through Facebook that Partners in Health has less overhead than the American Red Cross, so if you’re worried about how much of your donated money goes to Haiti versus to administrative efforts, try donating to PIH.
• The New York Times has also compiled a list of organizations participating in relief efforts in Haiti.

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More options to donate:

• I’ve heard through Facebook that Partners in Health has less overhead than the American Red Cross, so donating to their organization might mean extra relief work on the ground.
• The New York Times has also compiled a list of organizations participating in relief efforts in Haiti.

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Yesterday morning, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti just 14 miles outside of Port-au-Prince. Today, Haitian officials estimate that the number of dead could be in the several hundred thousand. To put that into perspective, it would be as if Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast region more than fifty times over. It would be as if the tsunami that ravaged fourteen countries in Southeast Asia in December 2004 landed less than 700 miles off the coast of Florida. It would be as if roughly one-third to one-half the population of Tucson vanished in a single moment.

But really, there’s no way to truly grasp the loss of life on that scale.

Apparently, Obama’s committed to giving “aggressively” to relief efforts in Haiti, although I’m not sure how one exactly gives “aggressively”. But, you can do your part to help disaster efforts:

• Donate $10 to the American Red Cross International Relief Fund. You can donate online, or specify your donation to the disaster relief in Haiti by texting “HAITI” to 90999 on your cell phone. If you choose the texting option, you are making a one-time donation via mGive.com, which directs 100% of your donation to the American Red Cross. The amount will appear on your next cellphone bill. If you would like to publicize this option on your blog, feel free to use this button I made for my site.

• Donate to any of the agencies verified by InterAction as conducting relief efforts in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti.
• Become a blood donor.  

I chose the texting option because it seems to be the most direct way to specify my donation for disaster relief in Haiti. Please post a comment here if you donate to receive good karma from … well… me.

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Saw this at my local U.S. Navy recruiting office today:

Proving that communication skills are not a prerequisite for military service?

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