By Michelle Allison

Let’s start with this: I identify as fat because, well, I’m fat, and also because I don’t think being fat is necessarily a bad thing─it’s just a thing.

But calling myself a nutritionist feels like a fantastic act of audacity. I’m still technically a student, though I’ve completed the work core to my nutrition degree and am now taking a psychology minor.

I initially got interested in nutrition by going on a diet to lose weight when I was 21. I did it to feel better about myself, because I hated my body, hated being fat. What I told everyone, naturally, was that I was losing weight for the good of my health.

Except I didn’t get healthy. I was constantly injured from overexercising, and I came down with a virus that developed into really nasty pneumonia that I couldn’t seem to shake.

What kept me on the diet was the intoxicating sense that, for the first time in my life, I was following the rules. I was doing it right. I was compliant. I was a model eater and exerciser. My habits were above reproach.

In the end, I lost 30 pounds and gained a bunch of disorder behaviors. And I hated my body more intensely than before.

I knew that wasn’t how it was supposed to work─you were supposed to lose weight and feel great about yourself and be healthy.

But when I asked all of my dieting friends, no one could give me an answer. We were all so focused on eating the right number of calories and getting the right amount of exercise that no one had managed to figure this part out yet─how to actually be healthy? How to stop hating yourself?

Around this time, I stumbled onto fat acceptance and Health at Every Size.

In a nutshell, fat acceptance is the idea that human bodies naturally come in a range shapes and sizes, and that being fat is not necessarily pathological. It recognizes that there is a strong prejudice in our culture against fat people, resulting in yet another form of appearance-based discrimination─which is morally wrong, and requires a political response.

Health at Every Size is complementary to fat acceptance─it’s the belief that people can do positive things for their health (like eat well and exercise) in a positive, compassionate, nonpunishing way, without pursuing weight loss, and that even fat people can be healthy by all other objective measures. It’s the belief that self-acceptance, whatever your size, is good for you─especially when combined with other health-promoting behaviors.
 
After discovering these things, I decided to make nutrition my profession, and no one has ever questioned my credibility or competence based on my body size.

Even when I worked in one of the more traditional areas of nutrition practice, diabetes, my superiors never seemed bothered by my weight. I was hired even after competing against thin applicants, after all. And I believe my presence in the diabetes clinic as a nice-looking, intelligent fat lady, often with doughnut in hand, was perhaps comforting to patients, and deeply subversive to the notion of “nutrition equals weight control.”

I think people assume nutritionists all eat “perfectly.” Well, I don’t, and I don’t know any dietitians, even thin ones, who do. I’ve been lucky to work with dietitians who have all loved food and would never turn down a homemade brownie.

As for myself, I’m genuinely positive about food and my body. I’m no longer at war with either one.

When I stopped dieting, it was extremely difficult to relearn “normal” eating. I read a lot of books and struggled on my own for five years. In the end, it was a dietitian who practiced Health at Every Size who taught me how. I learned to eat lovely, nourishing food without worry and stress, and my weight finally settled into a stable, happy place.

Four years after being her client, I’m still doing well, and I want to help other people the way she helped me, now that I have the education and experience to do so.

I’ve done some hard thinking about what it means to be healthy. First, I learned to separate a person’s state of health from their value as a human being. Second, I stopped seeing healthiness as an end in itself, or as a reward for good behavior.

Instead, I now define health as a combination of the cards you’ve been dealt, and the way you choose to play them. Even if you’re dealt a s--tty hand that can’t be changed, you can still play your cards well enough to enjoy a meaningful life.

Acceptance─that is, learning to accept the things you cannot change─is key to health. This philosophy is embodied by the Serenity Prayer, by Jean-Paul Sartre’s concepts of facticity and transcendence, by mindfulness theories, and, lastly, by fat acceptance and Health at Every Size.


─Allison blogs at The Fat Nutritionist.

On Wednesday, Abby Ellin and I wrote about the increasing animosity towards fat people in America. One of the researchers quoted, Marlene Schwartz, said something in our interview that stuck with me, but that didn't make it in the article. Fat, she said, is so personal - it's something we can see right away, from a distance. There's no hiding it. Unlike HIV or mental illness or other stigmatized conditions, she said (or for that matter, bad breath, a nasty personality, split ends, the propensity to tell off-color jokes) fat makes itself known right away. And therefore, all the assumptions we have about fat people - that they're lazy, nonathletic, slow, lethargic - come to mind before that person has even opened her mouth.

Part of the problem with the war on fat is that it denies healthy fat people their agency: if you're fat, you must be unfit. And yes: there are absolutely some very fat, very unfit people out there. But there are also just fat people who live pretty healthy lives. We tried to point that out in our article, to which one reader scoffed, "Show me one highly overweight person that runs marathons."

Well...ok. I know some 5k-running, triathlon-competing, marathon-running fat people, and I know I'm not alone. Which is why we're calling for photos of healthy, heavy people: if you have a picture of your hefty self on top of Mount Everest, or crossing the finish line after a century ride, or working up a good sweat in your garden, please submit it to Newsweek's tumblr page

 We'll collect photos for the next few weeks, and then post them online when we revisit this topic after Labor Day. 

 A few ground rules:

1. Keep your clothes on.

2.  Let us know what's going on in the photo (finishing my first half marathon, on the top of Pike's Peak) and your first name. If you feel comfortable, say how much you weigh.

3. By submitting the photo, you're giving me the OK to post it on the site in some capacity. 

If you're heavy, and healthy, we want to see it. Post your photo today. 

Updated question: should I turn off the comments when the photos eventually run? Let me know your thoughts below. 

by Cristina Goyanes

Mirrors can tell us lots of things: whether that hangover from last night is showing in our faces, whether we've finally tamed that cowlick, whether our butts really do look big in those pants. But they can also give us a telling glimpse into what's going on below the surface.

Science suggests some physical traits may indicate clues about our health. Last week, for instance, American and German researchers published a study showing that tall men (6'3" and over) were 40 percent more likely to get an aggressive form of prostate cancer than men of average (5'7") height . This finding illustrated what researchers had long suspected: a report published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention last year  found that men’s cancer risk increased by 6 percent for every additional 3.9-inch increase in height over the average, and that having longer legs increased the odds from 12 to 23 percent.

Thanks in part to plan B's complicated history, there are a lot ofmyths and misunderstandings about emergency contraception. And despitethe fact that the pill has been on the market since 1999, there's stillsome confusion about how it works.

First, don't confuse Plan B,which prevents pregnancy, with RU-486, the pill used in a medicalabortion.  “They’re entirely and absolutely different,” says JamesTrussell, who directs Princeton's Office of Population Research andruns Not-2-Late, a website and hotline devoted to emergency contraception.  RU-486 contains a synthetic steroid calledmifepristone, which interferes with the body’s production of progesterone necessary to sustain pregnancy. Plan B has nothing to do withprogesterone. Instead, it inhibits or delays ovulation. Plan B It is noteffective if the process of implantation has begun.

 Buteven sex-savvy women and men who have that fact down can get confusedabout the basics of Plan B. That's why we've put together a list ofsome hard facts about how it works, how it doesn't, and what you shouldknow.

Read more after the jump.

Michael Jackson’s death took a bizarre turn this afternoon when the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office announced it’d found the anesthetic propofol, usually used in general surgery, and two other sedatives to have caused the singer’s death in June. The drugs were no surprise—court testimony earlier this week established early on that Jackson was on myriad medications the day he died. The big shock came when the coroner announced that the death was being labeled a homicide.

It's important to note that homicide indicates that Jackson was killed; it does not, necessarily, mean he was murdered (homicide with intent to kill); many previous medical homicide cases have involved euthanasia. The Los Angeles County DA has not yet announced murder or manslaughter charges against Jackson's physician, Conrad Murray, who admits to giving Jackson the drugs.

Besides the fact that it made Jackson family whisperings of a conspiracy sound slightly less crazy, the homicide announcement left us wondering: what does medical homicide even mean? How do you draw the line between medical homicide and malpractice? And is as bad as it sounds?

Yes, actually. NEWSWEEK's Sarah Kliff spoke with Dr. Vincent DiMaio, editor of the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology and former chief medical examiner in Baxter County, Texas about what constitutes medical homicide, what doesn’t and why it’s actually not too difficult to tell the difference. Excerpts:

By classifying this death as a homicide, what is the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office saying about the actions of Jackson’s doctor?
What they’re alleging is that [Michael Jackson’s doctor] gave [Jackson] a medication for a non-medical reason and that caused the death…The reason they can classify this as a homicide is that there is simply no medical reason for this drug to have been administered. Suppose he was in surgery, and the doctor had given him too much medication. That’s a different situation which would probably be signed off on as an accident. But in this situation, it’s clearly a homicide.

In general, how do you define a medical homicide? What makes it different from medical malpractice?
There are five ways that forensic pathologists categorize deaths: natural, accidental, homicide, suicide or undetermined. Essentially, homicide means that somebody has caused the death of another person…In terms of medical homicide specifically, I think the simplest way to say it is that it’s a medical decision that’s outrageous, that you could not justify your actions medically. Or you just go to extremes, like deciding to do an operative procedure for which you don’t have the support, doing an operation on your kitchen table. That’s essentially the way to say it: if you have a medical situation, where you’re using things inappropriately and have no medical justification, that’s homicide.

Is it difficult, in medical situations, to draw a line between accident and homicide? Are there cases that fall in between?
Usually, it’s actually really simple. If the doctor makes a mistake, you have records and other people who were in the room, and it would mostly be classified as malpractice. If it’s reasonable, and you screw up, it’s not going to be homicide. When you do something that’s really out there, that makes absolutely no medical sense at all, something like this, that’s when it’s no longer malpractice.

What about the Jackson case clearly indicates it was a homicide?
Even though there was no intention to kill, what he did was so beyond what normal people would consider reasonable medicine that it gets classified as a homicide. There was no medical justification and, besides that, he was using an anesthetic without an anesthesiologist. So not only do you have no medical justification, you also don’t have the right support system in place.

Will it be possible for the doctor to argue his case as a medical mistake, a case of negligence, not homicide?
You just can’t argue this one. Here’s the problem question for him: what is the medical justification for giving him this drug? And that’s where they’ve got him, because there is no medical reason for the situation he was in. He wasn’t even doing an operative procedure and there was no anesthesiologist. Moreover, he’s an internist. Even if the drug were warranted, the conditions would be inappropriate. It’s not his specialty, its not internal medicine and there were no support personnel.

How often do medical homicide cases come up in forensic pathology?
Very rarely. You do get some situations where doctors do medical procedures that are not recognized, causing the death of a patient, but most of these are medical malpractice. Most of the homicide cases that I know of are euthanasia, which is a bit different. It just gets to the point that, for something to be categorized as homicide, it would have to be something really gross, where there’s no real justification for what they are doing.

How does the Jackson case fit into the history of forensic pathology?
It’s completely unusual, not something that anyone, myself included, would ever expect to encounter. The only cases called homicide, that I know of, were where it was intended [the euthanasia cases]. But there’s nothing to this level.

Take Newsweek’s Smart Quiz and test your knowledge of current events in the world of culture and health.

By Ian Yarett

Britney Spears has a new gig: Alzheimer’s research. Along with George Clooney, Bob Hope, and Albert Einstein, Spears (or, rather, her celebrity status) is helping fight Alzheimer’s by giving researchers a heads up as to who might develop the disease.

Even though Alzheimer’s disease is incurable, there are some treatments that can slow its progression once it’s diagnosed. The problem is that doctors can’t diagnose it until a patient is showing clear symptoms of the mental deterioration that comes along with disease-induced brain atrophy and neuronal loss. But Stephen Rao, a neurology researcher at the Cleveland Clinic, is using famous names like Britney Spears—along with less famous ones, like Thomas Fitzpatrick, Virginia Warfield, Joyce O’Neil, or George Lanfaire—to change that. 

“Early intervention is where it’s at,” Rao says. “If you can delay the onset of [the disease] by five years, you can cut the prevalence of the disease in half, and if you can delay it by 10 years, then you can virtually wipe it out because [those at risk] will die of other causes first.”

At present, researchers can identify people who are at risk for Alzheimer’s based on family history and genetic markers, but having these factors does not guarantee a person will get the disease.  “The genetic markers aren’t going to tell the whole story, and you need to supplement it with something else,” says Morris Moscovitch, a neuropsychologist at the University of Toronto.

A promising approach that uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) may help. In a study published Monday in the journal Neurology, researchers assess brain activity using fMRI as subjects distinguish between famous names (like Britney Spears) and unfamiliar names (like Thomas Fitzpatrick).

The test is simple and fast, with striking results—those at risk for Alzheimer’s based on genetic factors were nearly six times less efficient at performing the memory task was than those not at risk.

During the test, the subject lies down in an fMRI scanner with one of their hands on a keypad and listens to a randomly ordered list of famous and unfamiliar names. They press one button if the name is famous and another if it isn’t.  Meanwhile, the machine is rapidly imaging the subject’s brain, logging the regions with increased blood flow (this serves as an indirect measure of brain activity) for later analysis. The whole process takes about five minutes.

Previous studies have used fMRI to detect the early brain changes that may ultimately lead to Alzheimer’s, but the memory tasks used were much more difficult. For instance, subjects might be read a list of words and asked to remember and repeat as many as possible—much more challenging than simply identifying whether a name is famous or not. The new method not only requires less effort on the part of the people being tested but allows researchers to track patients over time, even as they become more cognitively impaired.

The next step in the research is retesting the same individuals over time to see if those who showed less efficient brain activity during the initial fMRI test actually develop cognitive decline and symptoms of Alzheimer’s years later. Rao’s group has already retested the individuals who participated in the newly published study after 18 months, and plans to do so again after 5 years and 7.5 years. 

Although all of the participants were cognitively intact initially, 35 percent showed symptoms of cognitive decline after 18 months, validating the initial fMRI test as a means of predicting future decline independently of a person’s genetic risk. Taken together, genetic risk factors combined with the result of an fMRI test may be the best predictor of future disease.

For now, the new method will probably be used to screen patients at risk for the disease for placement into clinical trials testing new treatments for Alzheimer’s. In the long run, this line of research could provide a means of predicting who will ultimately get Alzheimer’s early enough and with enough certainty that the disease can be markedly slowed down or stopped. And perhaps some future Nobel Prize winner will give a shout out to Britney.

Take Newsweek’s Smart Quiz and test your knowledge of current events in the world of culture and health.

(Walter Chin for Glamour (left); September Issue of Glamour)

by Jessica Bennett

It’s a three-by-three inch image that shows an stunning model, blond and smiling, photographed for a story about feeling comfortable in your skin. The girl is naked save for a thong bikini, juxtaposed against tips like "focus on the parts you love" and "your body doesn't deserve to be bashed!" The spread is typical of the women's magazines I normally roll my eyes at: "self esteem" squeezed between pages of emaciated cheekbones, jutting shoulder blades and gangly arms.

Except that this time, I do a double-take. The girl on page 194 of the September issue of Glamour is Lizzi Miller, a 20-year-old model with—get ready—a roll in her stomach. Yes, I really wrote that: she has a roll of fat, as well as some faint stretch marks and sturdy looking thighs. And the moment her photo hit newsstands, Glamour readers noticed. "Finally! A picture of a REAL woman!" proclaimed one online commenter. "This photo made me want to shout from the rooftops," wrote another. "I really hope this starts a revolution," someone chimed in. As Glamour Editor Cindi Leive told NEWSWEEK, “I knew readers would like this, but I have to admit I was floored by the intensity of the reaction." (You can read more about what Leive had to say about “The Woman on P. 194” on her blog.)

Lizzi Miller is a pretty girl with a pretty ordinary body—the kind most of us see daily when we look in the mirror. At 5'11 and 180 pounds, she has a body mass index (a weight-for-height formula used to measure obesity) of 25.1, which is two-tenths of a point above what the National Institute of Health deems "normal." The average American female, meanwhile, has a BMI of 26.5, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Miller is more like most of us than the emaciated models we're used to seeing. So why has her image hit such a nerve?

Because, well, the fatter we get, the more obsessed we are with being thin. And as the bloggers over at Jezebel point out, seeing a regular-sized woman in a magazine like Glamour is, today, a radical departure from the norm. We are a culture where the Karl Lagerfelds of the world proclaim Kate Moss too fat; where the latest fashions and weight-loss products are circulated by the media with a speed and fury unique to this millennium. We are spoon-fed hundreds of advertisements each day—the majority of them nipped, tucked and airbrushed to perfection. And what we're left with is a culture of women who are socialized to unrealistic images—and "hungry," says Glamour's Leive, "for reality."

Acknowledging that point is certainly a step in the right direction--except that I can't help but feel like we've been here before. More than a decade ago, Seventeen used a "fat" girl in a bikini on its cover and people threatened to cancel their subscriptions [Editor's note: right? Or was it YM? I remember the model, standing knee deep in the ocean, the bikini (a green floral thing with a skirt/wrap at the bottom), but can't recall the magazine. Internet, help!—KD]; Dove stirred controversy more recently when the company began using "regular" sized women to sell beauty products in 2005. And while the specter of regular-sized models is less of a stretch than it was back then, studies show that Americans continue to grow wider while the average model gets thinner.

Every so often, it feels as if an oversized girl gets naked so we can rave about how beautiful she is, only to go back to worshiping the uber-thin. (And we should note that even Miller's photo looks as if it was airbrushed—at least according to my photo editor here at Newsweek, herself a former model.) So the question is: is this really change? Or just a blip on the so-called weight scale?

"This definitely underlines our commitment to showing women of different sizes," says Leive. Miller, who works for the Wilhelmina Agency in New York, hopes that's true—and that it's a trend that extends beyond the pages of just Glamour. This is her second appearance in that magazine, and she says that showing young women that there's variety to our bodies is "why I got into this industry." "I've been that girl looking through the magazines and not seeing anyone that looked remotely like me, and being completely depressed about it," she says. "So it's great if I can make others feel a little bit better about themselves."

She's succeeding so far. Though it would be nice, every so often, to see a "normal"-sized model in something other than a story about how it's OK to be fat—er, comfortable in your own skin.

We all have one: a dotty but well-meaning grandma, the Lyndon LaRuche fanatic at your gym who spouts nonsense, but also happens to have killer abs, the paranoid, anti-government boss who is otherwise a pretty nice guy. Since a new survey shows that fifty percent of Americans believe misinformation about healthcare, there's a good chance you've run into someone  spouting off crazy nonsense about death panels or drawing little Hitler moustaches on posters of Obama.

Of course, most of the myths people believe are more like misinformation: facts that were twisted or misread or reinterpreted. But some, of course, are just plain crazy. Like, hut-in-the-woods, handwritten-manifesto nuts. Aaron Carroll, who ran the aforementioned study about the pervasivness of these health care myths, shared one he heard as a guest on a call-in radio show. "I had a caller that thought that if a woman found out she was going to have a baby with Down Syndrome, she would be forced to have an abortion, and if she didn't, she and the baby would lose their health insurance."

That's crazy, right? Crazy in thinking that the government would mandate abortions, crazy in that an American citizen would think, "Yes, that sounds factual," crazy that she then decided to spread this information over AM talk radio. (Ok, that part is less crazy). There are two options when faced with a barrage of outlandish accusations like these: you can cry at how divisive and delusional public discourse over health reform has become... or you can collect a bunch of incredibly unbelievable health reform myths and laugh at them.

 We're going with option B. Along with the ladies of The Gaggle, I'll be collecting the best of the worst. For instance, here are some of the other loopy myths we've heard at NEWSWEEK:
 
-      Doctors will be imprisoned if they provide life saving treatments not sanctioned by the government;
-      Private insurance will be outlawed;
-      Obama wants to revive a Nazi program of killing incurably or mentally ill people;
-      Medicare will be ended;
-      The bill allows the government to access your bank account.
 
Can you top these? What crazy myths are ending up in your inbox? Have you heard anything nutty from your relatives or friends? Let us know in the comments, and we'll post the wildest ones tomorrow. 

by Kate Dailey and Sarah Kliff

Yesterday, Barney Frank's takedown of a young woman comparing health care reform to Nazi policy was heralded by reform advocates as long-overdue counter-strike against an increasingly absurd campaign of misinformation. In fact,  one of the most difficult battles Obama has fought in the health care debate is explaining what exactly his health care plan entails—and then getting people to believe him. Myths about health care legislation have run rampant  to the point that the White House launched a website devoted to mythbusting.

It doesn’t seem to have done much good: Aaron Carroll of Indiana University’s Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research has an interesting study out today looking at which myths have thus far taken hold in the health care debate. Turns out, nearly every myth that’s made its rounds in town halls and on viral emails has ginned up a serious following, with almost half of America believing myths about health care reform.

"When it comes to health care reform, all of these myths seem to be resonating," says Carroll, who writes extensively about medical myths. "I think people are so scared of the idea of reform in general that they're willing to believe anything."

Last week, Carroll and his research team polled of 600 Americans about 19 medical myths, and the results showed that at least half of the country is misinformed. Find out why these myths endure after the jump.

(Dana Felthauser/AP)

Michelle Obama wore shorts to visit the Grand Canyon. Have you heard? Everyone is up in arms—if by "everyone" you mean no one, or rather a large, shadow-y group of no ones. 

According to the Today show, "some" are calling her fashion choice inappropriate—but the article quotes only those who support the look or, in the case of Washington Post fashion writer Robin Gihven, those who are "ambivalent" about bare legs for an August hiking trip in Arizona.

The Examiner declares Obama beautiful, then bemoans the fact that "some members of the media and the public" are upset. Who are those members of the media and the public? We don't know—the article then goes on to endorse Obama and rebuke the nameless attackers. Even in the comments, readers overwhelmingly approved of Obama's choices, save for the few spare trolls that will always criticize a photographed celeb (the shorts are unflattering, etc). My experience from reading the NEWSWEEK comments shows that if there's something negative to be said about the administration, an anonymous reader will usually say it, often in several consecutive posts. If the comments are mostly positive, then there probably isn't much of a controversy.

The Huffington Post says Obama "may" take flak for baring her "gorgeous gams" (after all, we were up in arms about her sleeveless dresses),  then polls the readers as to whether shorts are an appropriate look. More than 80 percent of the respondents were OK with shorts, though a third of them took issue with the length.

The L.A. Times blog says "some people are actually outraged" ... and links to the Examiner post as proof.

 I searched The National Review and Googled "Ann Coulter Obama Shorts." I've polled co-workers. No one knows, or has read, or can think of any concrete proof that Americans are upset by Obama in shorts. Still, "Michelle Obama shorts" is a leading topic on Google, and there are dozens of other examples of blogs and news organizations citing "some critics" who are upset with the sartorial decision.

It's entirely possible that  "some in the media" were a little shocked to see Obama wearing shorts and wanted to report on it. August is a slow news month, and covering people who are actually shocked and outraged about health care can only fill so many minutes in the Twitterfied news cycle.

But why hide behind an anonymous attacker? Why not just come out and say, "Michelle Obama wore shorts, which most first ladies haven't done before," (Is this even true? Five dollars says there's a photo of Eleanor Roosevelt in short pants somewhere in the national archive).

Because if there's not controversy, it's just the American public gawking at a woman's form. This is something that happens all the time, but needs to be cloaked in social relevance when the woman is not a traditional target for public consumption. Models, actresses, even athletes can be the subject of objectification, but to ogle the first lady on national TV requires a bit of news-related window dressing.

By reporting on "some critics," journalists allow themselves to be the heroes. They're coming to Obama's rescue by defending her right to wear whatever she pleases—a right that was never questioned in the first place, and a right that almost everyone in America is OK with. In the process, they are able to yet again comment on her body, making her legs, her hips, her thighs, and her belly just as much a part of public discourse as her husband's health-care fight.

Never mind the fact that all this talk about people supporting Obama's shorts makes it seem like society gets a say in how one woman chooses to dress. The decisions women make about their clothing and bodies isn't something for which we need "approval" and support"—and yet we're conducting polls to reassure one another that we're ok with a grown woman exposing her legs.

Michelle Obama does not need to be rescued. She does not need you commenting on the finer points of her body. And she most definitely does not need our permission to wear shorts. 

Learn more about Michelle Obama's history—not her hamstrings—by visiting our Life of Michelle Obama photo gallery.

by Jeneen Interlandi

Texas has the highest uninsured population in the country, according to a Gallup poll released earlier today. More than one-fourth of Texans—26.9%—aged 18 and older were completely uninsured.

It’s not the first time Texas has topped such a list (it’s not even the first time this week; similar data were reported by the U.S. Census Bureau yesterday and Texas ranked number one on that list as well).

Texas republicans, who have staunchly opposed the health care reform efforts now underway, have been quick to pin the state’s abysmal insurance record on the high number of undocumented immigrants living within its borders. John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a Dallas-based think tank suggested in a blog post that the numbers were artificially inflated. Because “even illegal aliens” are guaranteed care at emergency rooms, he wrote, everyone is effectively insured. In a press conference Friday, Senator Kay Hutchinson (R-TX) made a more explicit statement, saying “it’s mostly because of the illegal immigrant population.”

What they mean is this: illegal immigrants should not be counted among the uninsured because we aren’t obligated to provide them with health insurance in the first place. And when you remove the undocumented from the rolls, the picture is less bleak than the Gallup or Census numbers suggest.

It’s an obvious argument and because immigration is an emotionally fraught topic, it’s an easy one to make. Unfortunately, it’s not supported by the facts. (Even a casual glance at the data is enough to render the point moot: New York has one of the largest immigrant populations in the country, but only 11.9% of its residents are uninsured according to the Gallup poll; that’s one of the lowest uninsured populations in the country).

 Find out why after the jump

By Katharine Herrup

OMG! SWINE FLU! 

It seems like everyone is freaking out about the upcoming flu season and the havoc H1N1 might wreak in America. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sibelius says she’s “preparing for the worst.” Experts are worried vaccines won’t be ready in time. Schools are contemplating quarantine situations. And the media is very concerned, judging by all the “Swine Flu – How Will It Affect Your Weekend?” stories each week.

But how worried should we really be? The facts can sound a little staggering: swine flu first hit the scene in late April, and by June 11, the World Health Organization declared swine flu a pandemic. The last flu pandemic declared was in 1967, 42 years ago—the Hong Kong flu, which killed about 700,000 people worldwide. So far, this swine flu is responsible for 1,462 deaths globally. Already, hundreds of thousands of people have contracted swine flu—so many that the WHO has stopped counting. In America, 447 people have died.

About the time Brett Favre was agreeing to let the Minnesota Vikings pay him $12 million to be a league-average quarterback this year, I was on the phone with a very good surgeon about the shredded remains of what was once my right labrum. The labrum is the thing that cushions the hip socket, and, it turned out, mine was just about gone. You’re almost certainly looking at a hip replacement, said the surgeon. Eventually.

OK. But I’ll still be able to play basketball after, right?

Oh, dear God, no. Maybe some doubles tennis.

Everyone who plays sports eventually has this day, the day when you’re told you’re done. Sometimes it’s a coach who says it; sometimes it’s a doctor. The lucky, talented few get to decide the time and conditions of their ends, and  Favre is certainly one of them. He’s 39; he’s been playing some form of football for more than 30 years at this point. Why should he stop now? Why should he quit doing this thing he was made to do, and that he loves doing?

The objections to Favre returning are legion, and they’re legit—he’s too old, he’s just in it for the cash, he’s taking money that could be used to build a better team for the future, he’s stunting the development of the team’s younger quarterbacks (though if Sage Rosenfels or Tavaris Jackson have any seeds of Farve-dom within them, they’ve certainly been dormant so far). Both Packers and Vikings fans are having a hard time wrapping their brains around the idea of Favre in a Vikings uniform, and the critics say he’s ruined the narrative of his career, that he should have retired two years ago after that last Indian Summer season with the Packers. This is the thinking that cringes at the thought of Willie Mays falling down in the outfield for the 1973 Mets, that blanches at the memory of Joe Namath in a Rams uniform, that thinks Michael Jordan should have walked away after that series-winning shot against the Jazz (in which he clearly committed an offensive foul against Byron Russell, by the way).

Favre will not be the transcendent quarterback of 10 years ago. Hell, one year and one declining rotator cuff later, he probably won’t even be the guy who wrecked the Jets season last year. But what does that matter, if he’s the best quarterback option for the Vikings this year? Sure, as Herm Edwards reminds us, you play to win the game.

But winning isn’t everything. You play to play the game. The hard fact of sports at all levels is this: most people aren’t winners. But in the end, winning isn’t really the point. The playing is the thing; the feel of a properly thrown ball; the crunch of really popping someone; the sheer amazing joy of being able to move with purpose and grace, perfectly aligned, and when it’s done just right your whole body is an instrument that brings forth a true and steady pitch.

I’m 42. For the past 30 years, I’ve never gone more than a couple of weeks without playing basketball, and if this is the end for me I have only one demand: like Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner, I want more life, f--ker. Surely Brett Favre wants, and deserves, the same.

See our gallery of other athletes who were accused of playing too long. 

 A three-part series on the role sports play in childhood development. 

Depending on one’s high school experience, there are two distinctphilosophies about the role sports plays in a child’s development.There’s the idea that youth sports teaches kids discipline and respect,keeps them off the street, and helps them mature into adults: it’ssports that turned athletically gifted but insecure Daniel Larusso intothe Karate Kid.

But just as pervasive is the opinion thatjocks are jerks, and kids who play sports are mean bullies who will doanything to win, who need to dominate their opponents and who carrythat aggressiveness streak off the field. Kids who play sports, thisline of thinking goes, are more like Johnny Lawrence, star athlete (andbig-time bully) from the Cobra-Kai dojo.

A recent study in the journal Developmental Psychology suggest that jocks really are jerks—ifthey focus exclusively on sports at the expense of other more-wellrounded programs. But kids who both play sports and are exposed toyouth development program like scouting or 4-H show the most markers ofpersonal growth and maturity.

What's the secret to turning child athletes into responsible adults? Find out after the jump.

The new cast of Dancing With the Stars was announced today, and more than half of the female contestants are women who have had public weight gains or losses in their career.

Kathy Ireland published a book this year detailing her struggle with weight loss, and told People that while she has no plans to don a bikini for the cameras any time soon, she does want to "be healthy, to be there for [her] husband and [her] kids. Melissa Joan Hart did pose in a bikini on the cover of People after having her last baby, while Debi Mazar was named one of Us Weekly's "Weight-Loss Winners" for dropping an estimate 80 pregnancy pounds (and transforming her curvy body into a much more linear form). Meanwhile, when Kelly Osbourne signed on to star in Chicago, the change in her body shape and size was widely noted. It's not the first time Osbourne's body has been a topic of public conversation. The media has been making comments about her weight since her earliest days on The Osbournes, and Osbourne has lost and gained the weight a few times over—while noting that so much public speculation about her size fueled her drug habit. Even some online chatter has accused R&B singer Mya of putting on too much weight recently (Google if you wish; nothing substantial enough for a link).

Are the Dancing With the Stars producers trying to play up the weight-loss benefits of being on the show, à la Dance Your Ass Off?

Given the state of women in Hollywood, where all weight gain is noticed and any weight loss is applauded, it's entirely possible that this is just a coincidence, and that any cast of six to eight female celebrities will inevitably feature women with bodies that have been extensively discussed in tabloids. And as sad as that fact is, I hope it's the case here. Otherwise, imagine the totally dull possibilities: will the show spend airtime discussing what a good calorie burner dancing can be? Will we waste even more times discussing the struggles each woman has with her weight, and how dancing gives them willpower and discipline to make healthy choices? Will we spend endless minutes talking about how great it feels to be able to wear such skimpy costumes—but how insecure someone still feels about being lifted by her partner? Let's hope not. The filler:dance ratio is already too high, and the best part about Dancing With The Stars is seeing what those bodies can do, not how they look. Given the number of injuries that struck contestants last year, there's no need to encourage dancers to go beyond the extreme demands placed on them in the name of a better body.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Macy Gray—who created her own plus-size fashion line and has very little body shame—will focus on the moves, not her metabolism. (Here's also hoping Ms. Gray finds a way to translate her over-the-top style into some crazy, fun dance outfits.) Women of all sizes can move—remember Laila Ali?—and it's possible to enjoy dancing, get a good workout, and not obsess on any perceived body benefits.

Consider the noble condom: it shows up (when invited), does it’s job and does it well (98 percent of the time, unless we somehow manage to mess it up, in which case it still works more than 8 out of 10 times). It protects us from disease and unwanted pregnancy, allowing us to enjoy sex with minimal consternation over serious, long-term consequences.

And yet, what respect do we give the condom? What appreciation? None, that’s what. “People often talk about the fact that condoms are a ‘grudge purchase’,” says Carol Carrozza, the VP of Marketing for Ansell Healthcare, which makes LifeStyles condoms. “No one would use condoms if they didn’t have to.”

Ah, but we do have to, and we do use them – and how. The condom industry is a business like any other, and business is booming: profits were up five percent at the end of 2008 compared to the same time in 2007.  But that doesn’t stop condom companies from trying to up their margins – both in the name of public health and their bottom line. Which is why several condom companies have launched new products in the past few months—most notably Lifestyles X2 and Trojan Ecstasy—all designed to make condoms less of a drag and more of a pleasure purchase.

But how much of these new designs are real anatomical innovations and how much is clever marketing? Just in time for the weekend, we consulted with several experts to find out what really makes a difference.

Find out what really works, after the jump. 

(Ray Tamarra/Getty Images)

The Philadelphia Eagles have reportedly signed Michael Vick to a two-year contract. I'm a Philadelphia native, and the reaction from my Facebook feed tells me that the fans are less than pleased. One of my friends has designated her Eagles jersey as her dog's new chew toy. Another is convinced that Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie is just creating a smokescreen to take a little attention away from the world champion Philadelphia Phillies, and this will all turn out to be a hoax. A few have flat-out refused to watch any games this season. To give you an extent of how bad it is, one of my Facebook friends said he'd rather have T.O.─notorious showboat and citywide disappointment Terrell Owens─back than Michael Vick in an Eagles jersey. It's safe to say that come opening night at the Linc, we Philly fans will boo Vick louder than we ever did Santa.

As a dog lover and an Eagles fan, I admit to being more conflicted than most. I always got the feeling that Vick was a kid who grew up in a poor, dangerous neighborhood, and was given a ton of money, fame, and power at a very early age. Suddenly, he was playing by the new rules of a society that cared a lot about the humane treatment of dogs (as they should), but not all that much about whether he or his friends and family lived humanely for most of his life. He was punished; he served his time. It seems to me that the one way to turn someone from a dog abuser into someone with an out-and-out hatred for dogs is to rob him of his career and accomplishments, leaving him with a lot of time to get bitter and angry.

This is not really an argument at all, just a semiformulated feeling I've had throughout  Vick's entire ordeal. Luckily, Raina Kelley is smarter than me, and has better articulated all these thoughts.

Read Raina's take (and more of mine) after the jump. 

Models Without Makeup: Cindy Crawford and Friends Go Bare in Harper's Bazaar

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(Harpers Bazar)

 

The September issue of Harper's Bazar (on stands August 18th)  features several iconic models baring naked faces. Kristen McMenamy, Shalom Harlow, Cindy Crawford, Tatian Patitz, Amber Valetta, Helena Christiansen, Nadia Auerman, and Claudia Schiffer all went before the camera without any cosmetic help, and since they're models, they all look freaking gorgeous. (The superb lighting and semi-grainy, black and white footage seems to take care of whatever flaws the genetics missed).

Anytime magazines try something like this, where they willfully defy the very standards of beauty they create/reinforce every day, you can expect a healthy backlash. For example, the very astute Tom and Lorenzo of Project Rungay take a strong stand against this kind of magazine stunt:

What are we, as readers, supposed to take away from a stunt like this? That they all have great bone structure? We knew that already. Is this supposed to make the average woman identify with them somehow? If so, FAIL. They're all still amazingly beautiful women even when the artifice is stripped away...

Nothing will change and the industry will go right back to presenting impossibly beautiful women day after day, month after month. And we're not even saying there's anything wrong with that. It's called the beauty industry for a reason, after all. All we're saying is that it's a stunt and like all stunts it's interesting for a moment or two, but after that it fades away into meaninglessness. Don't pretend to be something you're not, beauty industry. It's insulting.

And one could complain that glamorizing a make up-free look only makes it harder for the non-supermodels, who may need a little base and mascara to look even remotely like this:

He started by Googling "hangnail." (Touchstone Pictures)

by Lisa Jones

It starts innocently. The big toe on your right toe doesn’t feel quite right—it’s kind of numb, a little tingly. Maybe I just tied my running shoes too tight at the gym, you think. It’s probably nothing.

But you’re curious. So soon you’re typing “numbness” and “tingly toe” into a search engine. And in no time you’re clicking on links about “Morton’s neuroma,” “transient ischemic attack (mini-stroke)” and “vitamin B deficiency.” Oh, no, you think. It’s a mini-stroke. You’re sure of it.

Sound familiar?

A 2008 study by Microsoft Research showed that Web search engines have the potential to cause an unfounded escalation of medical concerns, a.k.a. cyberchondria. This is because the Internet is designed for finding relevance—not capturing diagnostic factors like disease probability—so search engines link rare serious disorders and common symptoms (such as brain tumors and headaches), according to Eric Horvitz, one of the study researchers.

But if you look online for health information—61 percent of American adults do, according to a June report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project—you don’t have to end up in panic mode. Use the tips found after the jump to navigate through the mass of health and medical information without losing your perspective.

Researching a health condition online? Don't get sucked in by poorly run, out-of-date sites that might scare you with misinformation—or discourage you from proven treatment. Bookmark these pages for all your health and medical questions. Still have questions? Find these sites and more on the Medical Library Association's Top Ten List.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Cleveland Clinic

American Academy of Family Physicians

Mayo Clinic

Medline Plus (from the National Institutes of Health)

—Lisa Jones

Shriver watching the Special Olympics in 1970. (Fred Jewell/AP)

"Let me win. And If I can't win, let me be brave in the attempt." ─Special Olympics oath

Eunice Kennedy Shriver died today at 88, after a long and very full life. She was one of the earliest and most ardent supporters of the physically and intellectually disabled, and the global consequences of her early activism mean that her legacy will live on long after all the Kennedys─and all of us─have gone as well.

Shriver did more than found the Special Olympics─for instance, she helped create the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and wrote legislation to fund early research into disability issues─and the Special Olympics has done more than organize sports. In 2005 it launched a campaign to end the use of  the word “retarded,” which has pretty much disappeared from medical literature but still lingers in popular speech as a catchall descriptor for anything one might find objectionable, from Dick Cheney’s foreign policy to tie-dyed leggings. But it’s through sports that the lasting impact of the Special Olympics, and Shriver’s legacy, exists.  

Sports has always been a divisive topic, a line against which people define themselves, whether it’s separating the Mets fans from the Phillies fans or the jocks from the brains. Whereas people with developmental disabilities are often painted with the same dull, unthinking brush, the Special Olympics showed the world that everyone, regardless of physical or mental abilities, is not the same but different. Through sports, and our relationship with sports, the Special Olympics showed that those eligible for its games have the same variation in personality and ability as everyone else.

There’s my uncle Joe, who has Down syndrome and loves movies, music, and television─but has little time for the Special Olympics, just as his brothers and sisters are more partial to culture and conversation than joining the company softball team. There’s my family friend Bobby, who bowls better than the rest of us and views the Special Olympics as an opportunity to play the sport he loves. He’s not there to make friends or give out hugs, or dole out the blind affection so often condescendingly attributed to the intellectually disabled. (Let it be known that Uncle Joe can be just as moody and ornery as the rest of our family.) Bobby is there to bowl, and is happy for a structured venue in which to do so. There’s Jamie Bérubé, the son of my former college professor, whose experience with the Special Olympics sometimes makes an appearance online in the form of Michael Bérubé’s loving and lively blog posts. Jamie travels and competes in Special Olympic competitions (swimming, running, basketball) the same way I used to travel for AAU basketball games: the meets spanning more than a day provide him the chance to spend the night in a dorm with new friends, taking those same small steps toward independence that all teenagers make. (Would that I could write about disability in such a compassionate and knowledgeable way as Michael Bérubé. Instead, I encourage you all to read his blog and his book, Life as We Know It.)

Since its inception in 1968, the Special Olympics has become a punchline, a metaphor, a cheap and lazy example for the shortcomings of America, where everyone gets a medal just for showing up. While there are events that encourage participation by everyone, the Special Olympics also has a serious, structured competitive component: athletes gut it out for first place, winners move onto state and regional levels, and the best of the best come together on an international stage (the next world games will be held in Athens in 2011). And why not? Why should a disability preclude kids and adults from learning the discipline, and honor, and sportsmanship, the tough truths about victory and defeat, that sports teaches everyone else? 

Unless, of course, they don’t want to, and would rather sing, or paint, or go to work, or garden, or play videogames. Individuals with disabilities have the option to do all these things and more, thanks in large part to the dignity and autonomy recognized in them by Eunice Kennedy Shriver.

Tyler before and after, courtesy of 344pounds.com

Last week was not a good week for Tyler.

Tyler, a 24-year old from South Carolina, writes the blog 344pounds.com,which documents his progress as he tries to lose weight. Sincebeginning the site in January, he’s lost 109.8 pounds, thanks to anintense exercise regime. (As part of a blog promotion, for instance, heperformed over three hours of cardio one Friday night).But last week—his birthday week—he gained weight for the first timesince beginning his blog, a fact he chalked up to lowered standards:watching TV, indulging on his birthday, and skipping the gym in favorof surfing the web. “This week should show to you that if you don’t putin the work, you won’t lose the weight.  It’s not rocket science.  I’velost weight 26 weeks in a row without fail—the first week I give just alittle bit of slack I gain half a pound,”

by Johannah Cornblatt

This February, a 26-year-old Californian woman and her mother boarded a Continental flight for Costa Rica. When they arrived at the San Jose International Airport, a driver in a white van picked them up and took them to the five-star Intercontinental hotel. But the woman (who asked only to be identified by her first name, Jessica) hadn’t traveled to the city known as the Big Pineapple only to relax by the pool. She had flown more than 2,500 miles to undergo a weight-loss surgery—for a fraction of the price back at home.

Including airfare and accommodations (for her and her mom), Jessica saved $7,500 by choosing to go under the knife in San Jose instead of San Diego. “I thought it was such a good deal,” says Jessica, who needed to lose weight for medical reasons.

Jessica is what’s known as a “medical tourist,” and she’s one of an increasing number of Americans now seeking health care abroad for financial reasons. A new survey funded by YourSurgeryAbroad, an online directory of medical tourism, found that more than 60 percent of Americans are willing to leave the country for cheaper medical services. “As people’s budgets in America are getting tighter, they’re much more inclined to start thinking about going abroad to save money,” says Adam Nethersole, the managing director of YourSurgeryAbroad.

Is this a money-saving master plan or a recipe for funky scars and medical complications? Find out after the jump. 

(Rebecca Cook/Reuters)

by Claudia Kalb

Last week, Demaris Miller and her husband, James, drove their red 1995 truck to a dealership 70 miles from their cattle farm in Washington, Va. It was Cash for Clunkers time. The truck, nicknamed “Mondo,” had quite the adventurous life. Early on, it shuttled James and Demaris around as they ran for political office (James for the U.S. Senate in 1994 and 1996; Demaris for the U.S. Congress in 1998 and 2000). It transported the family to ice-cream pit stops. “It probably stopped at every Dairy Queen that exists in Virginia,” says Demaris. It even did double duty hauling animals: one year, the Millers attached a trailer to Mondo so they could transport a couple of horses from Indiana to Virginia. “It was just a great vehicle, and you couldn’t help but have a certain fondness for it,” Demaris says.

Up until last week, Mondo still looked pretty good on the outside. But the truck had 158,000 miles on it, and it had become old, tired, and unreliable. The government’s clunker program was too good to ignore. So the Millers dropped off their truck, got their $4,500, and drove home in a new sedan. There’s only one problem: they’re kind of upset about dumping Mondo. “It was just a little sad to have to leave it there knowing it was going to be destroyed,” says Demaris.

Call it clunker grief. While most people are thrilled to see their old cars go—bye-bye repairs, hello fuel efficiency!—some find themselves mourning the loss of an old friend. Anybody who’s ever named a car (guilty: ours was “Pearl”) knows that a beloved vehicle doesn’t simply take you from point A to point B. It carries your babies home from the hospital, it keeps you dry in the rain, it provides a sanctuary for a first kiss. It has an identity, a personality, a history.

The truth is, an old automobile can be more dependable and reliable than your closest family members, and letting go can hurt. “People have clunker cars that have lasted longer than their marriages,” says Dr. Susan Vaughan, a Columbia University psychiatrist. When you lose a car, she says, it’s like “the loss of a piece of yourself.”

Nothing says that more succinctly than a Twitter post written by Mike Dang, a business editor in New York City. “Mom: You know the car you left at home? We cashed that clunker in. Bye-bye, Mustang. Me: Dying just a little inside.” Dang used to put the top down on the 1991 red convertible, pick up his friends, and drive it to the beach in California, where he grew up. In high school, the homecoming court rode around the football track in that car. “They’d say, ‘Wow, you know, they don’t make cars like that anymore,’ ” says Dang. After he posted his tweet, Dang’s old friends got in touch. “They’d ask, 'Is it that car?’ And I said, 'Yes, it’s that car.’ ”

That car is now one of tens of thousands that mechanics nationwide have put to rest over the last two weeks as part of a government program to reduce the number of fuel-inefficient cars on the road. To do so, they must drain out the oil and replace it with sodium silicate. Within a few minutes, the engine stops dead. If you’re a car sentimentalist, it can feel like a brutal betrayal. “One of my guys said, ‘It’s like putting your dog to sleep,' ” says Rick DeSilva, owner of Liberty Hyundai in Mahwah, N.J., which has tallied about $240,000 worth of rebates.

“When I see these cars coming in and I say, ‘This car’s nicer than what I’m driving,’ and I have to take out the motor and disable it, it really hurts my feelings,” says Liberty service manager Wayne Schneider. Mechanics are trained to fix cars, not trash them. “It’s like being the doctor who takes the Hippocratic Oath to keep people healthy and alive,” says DeSilva, only to be asked to perform a lethal injection. After the Web site CrunchGear posted a YouTube video they dubbed “The Murder of a Volvo S80 by Cash for Clunkers,” one viewer commented that it was “like the car was screaming.” (And with Congress voting late last night to extend funding for the program, the murder of innocent, if inefficient, vehicles will continue unabated for now.)

The finality of it all can hit some customers hard. “I actually had a lady cry and hug her car before she left,” says Jay Picardo, a Volkswagon salesman in Greenbrier, Va.

“I think one does experience a form of grieving,” says Mark Smaller, a psychoanalyst in Chicago. Mourning for objects like cars or family houses may not last as long or be as intense as grieving for humans, but it’s still a legitimate experience. The current economic climate can exacerbate the way people feel, too. “We want to hold onto things that are predictable and reliable because so much happening out there is out of our control,” says Smaller.

Smaller knows what it’s like. A few weeks ago, he had to say goodbye to a treasured car that was severely damaged in a flood. Now, he’s holding onto his clunker, a nine-year-old Isuzu Trooper. He can’t bear to give it up. Smaller bought the car when he got remarried—it started his new life with him—and it carried his three young children home after they were born. “On the one hand, it’s just a car,” says Smaller. “On the other, there’s a lot of meaning in that car.”

—Additional reporting by Rebecca Shabad