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In this issue

Nov, 21, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Money matters?

Caroline B. Glick: Civilization walks the plank

Nov, 20, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bronfman's blindness

The Kosher Gourmet By Linda Gassenheimer: Portobellos add a hearty flavor to pasta with pesto

Nov, 19, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Spread the wealth? Jewish tradition and income equality

Elliot B. Gertel: 'Mad Men': Tackling prejudices or reinforcing them?

Nov, 18, 2008

Dr. Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn: The End of the Age of Reason

Jonathan Tobin: Does Barack + Bibi = Disaster?

Nov, 17, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The End of the Age of Reason

Diana West: Gulling Americans into making terror legit?

Nov, 14, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The Power of Spiritual Inertia

Caroline B. Glick: The perils ahead

Nov, 13, 2008

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: How Bush and Obama together could change the Middle East dynamic

The Kosher Gourmet by JeanMarie Brownson: Sweet and savory, crispy and meltingly tender bestilla

Nov, 12, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Tyrannical Co-Workers

Michael Doyle: High Court to consider today donated monuments that may have religious messages in public parks

Nov, 11, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Will Obama stop government officials considering institutionalizing financial jihad?

Jonathan Tobin: They Will Decide Their Own Fate

Nov, 10, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: $8 billion, modern-day Tower of Babel being built?

Barry Rubin: A letter to the president-elect from a Middle East realist

Nov, 7, 2008

Rabbi Francis Nataf: Of Children and Immortality

Caroline B. Glick: Livni's Obama strategy

Nov, 6, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: How I tricked a classroom of apathetic students into grasping the fallacy of moral relativism

The Kosher Gourmet By Gina Kim: Tips for making the perfect soup --- includes recipes

Nov, 5, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Destitute Debtors

Bruce Weinstein: 'Religulos': Bad title,even worse movie

Nov, 4, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Treasury Dept. submits to Shariah law

Frida Ghitis: A surprise for Obama in the Middle East

Nov, 3, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Who says Jews are Smart?

Jonathan Tobin: Was He Wrong About Everything?

Oct. 31, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Our Immutable Noble Essence

Caroline B. Glick: Running against Bush

Oct. 30, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: The End of the Special Relationship?

Steve Lipman: 'Kid Kosher' Gets A Title Shot

Oct. 29, 2008

Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: GET US THE TAPE THE L.A. TIMES REFUSES TO RELEASE, AND WE'LL GIVE YOU CASH!

Dr. Ari Korenblit: Making The Write Choice for President

Oct. 28, 2008

Mona Charen: Denial runs through American Jewry

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Sell-off to capitalism or sell-out to Islam?

Oct. 27, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Are tax deductions for charitable donations moral?

Jonathan Mark: The Mystery Of The Arab-American Vote

Oct. 24, 2008

'Why aren't all religious people vegetarians?': Response by Miriam Kosman

Caroline B. Glick: Testing Obama's mettle

Oct. 23, 2008

Daniel Pipes: Obama Would Fail Security Clearance

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A fast chicken dish with an Asian accent

Oct. 20, 2008

Gary Rosenblatt: Still One Torah

Jonathan Tobin: Government 'Gifts' Are Not Free

Oct. 17, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Sukkos and the Great Meltdown

Caroline B. Glick: The disappearance of law

Oct. 16, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Copying DVDs: RIP OR RIPOFF?

Cal Thomas: Blaming the Jews (again)

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review May 27, 2005 / 18 Iyar, 5765

Weight, Weight, Don't Tell Me

By Gene Weingarten


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | By and large, Americans buy, and are large. We consume too much and don't get enough exercise. Be honest, now, when was the last time you went outside for a nice, brisk morning waddle?

People in other countries are making fun of our girth — even Germans, whose main diet staple is lard and who, in general, are built like farm machinery made of meat.

Fortunately, help is on the way. Wondrous new technologies are coming to our rescue. I recently had my body-fat percentage tested on a sophisticated apparatus that works as follows: You take your shoes and socks off and stand on a little scale, which shoots electrons up one leg into your pelvis, where they boing around in your but-, colliding with fat cells, muscle cells, reproductive organs, etc., and then rocket back down through your other leg and into the machine, which analyzes your fat content based on this unnerving reconnaissance. For some reason, this is considered waaay better than the old-fashioned system, which was to pinch some waist fat with medical calipers. (My guess is that medical calipers became useless in measuring Americans' fat folds, and fireplace tongs lack sufficient accuracy.) Anyway, my reading said I am too fat. I have two options to bring my percentage of body fat to within normal levels:

Option One: lose some weight through a sustained regimen of sensible eating and regular exercise; or, Option Two: have a sex-change operation.

Option Two would work because, to be considered healthy, women are permitted to have higher body fat than men. My body fat reading of 23 percent would have been normal for a woman of my age and height, whereas, for a man, it is an indication that he is basically a stick of oleomargarine with ears. In my opinion, this is part of a long-standing anti-male bias in the Weight Biz. In the mid-1990s the Medical Establishment released a new Optimal Weight chart that replaced the old, familiar system people my age grew up with. The old one took your height and weight and sex, and adjusted your optimal weight by whether you were "large-boned," "medium-boned," or "small-boned" (everyone, of course, declared himself/herself "large-boned"). The newer system was more complex, involving body mass, and it appeared to have been drawn up by ticked-off feminists. Under the new criteria, a perfectly normal, healthy man with a stocky build — your typical major league catcher, for example — was computed to be overweight. But short women got a break. Someone built like Madeleine Albright, for example, was not defined as fat even though she is built — I mean no disrespect here — like an igloo.

Apparently, the assault on men continues. I went for my body-fat measurement with my friend Pat, who is tiny. Pat is 5 feet 1 1/2 inches tall and weighs exactly 100 pounds.

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No reasonable person could look at Pat and call her overweight; no reasonable person would call her underweight, either. Pat stepped on the machine, which declared that to bring her fat levels to normal range — to become a perfectly healthy, normal American woman — Pat would have to . . . gain 17 pounds. Pat laughed, said the results were obviously in error and completely meaningless. But she walked away with this big smile on her face, and spent the remainder of the day on an ice cream-and-brownie binge.

I was advised to lose five to 10 pounds or risk remaining somewhat overweight. This was sobering news. I was fully prepared to address the serious danger to my health when, the very next week, a new study came out, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, saying that the best way to live a long life was to be . . . somewhat overweight!

At this vulnerable point, when I didn't quite know what to do and needed some lucid and un-ambiguous guidance, the USDA unveiled its new food pyramid. Have you seen this thing? It is clear that, left to their own devices, the nutrition-weenie designers of the new food pyramid would have instead created a food rhombus or a food hypercube or an inverted isosceles food dodecahedron, but were persuaded by USDA public relations people that the thing had to at least seem simple. So the food pyramid now is three-dimensional, with six partitions of different widths and colors. But it is very, very easy to use, according to the gigantic inter-active Web site you must consult to understand it.

Unfortunately, once you decipher it, the new food pyramid is pretty specific. Apparently, I need to eat a lot more broccoli.

So I'm weighing Option Two. I hear black pantyhose are very slimming.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


Gene Weingarten writes the Below the Beltway humor column for The Washington Post. To comment, please click here.


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