Rudd Sound Bites

Will he or won't he lose weight? Who cares?

by Michael LoPresti

In terms of the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Al Gore could fairly be described as both the elephant in the room (due to the rampant "will-he-or-won't-he" speculation about his potential candidacy) and the 800-pound gorilla in the race (thanks to his near-universal name recognition and, in following, formidable fundraising capabilities). It is perhaps fitting--and certainly unfortunate--that these two metaphors refer to Gore as someone of great size, because nearly every discussion of Gore's plans for 2008 raises the issue of the former vice president's weight.

A blow to veganism?

by Michael LoPresti

A couple of days ago, an op-ed appeared in The New York Times with the incendiary title of "Death by Veganism." The piece describes an undernourished infant who died six weeks after his birth, having been fed a diet consisting solely of soy milk and apple juice by his vegan parents. The author of the article, Nina Planck (who is also the author of a book called "Real Food: How to Eat and Why"), uses this story to introduce a discussion of the hazards of vegan pregnancies and vegan diets for young children.

Weight loss: when is enough enough?

by Michael LoPresti

I started dieting and exercising back in September. I'm a twenty-four-year-old five-foot-ten-inch-tall man, which makes my normal BMI range 130-170 pounds, give or take. When I first embarked on this weight loss journey at 225 pounds, my physician said I should try to get down to 200 and then "take it from there." Now, as I hover around 185, I can practically taste the once-elusive goal of fitting in the normal BMI range. But now, I wonder: What exactly should my ultimate goal actually be? Should I aim for the very top of the normal BMI range? Smack in the middle? As low as I can go? In the absence of a sound doctor-prescribed figure, I can either zero in on a rather arbitrary number, or let my body tell me when I'm in peak physical form. But how am I supposed to know when I feel as good as I'm ever going to feel? Or when I look as good as I'm ever going to look?

The Calorie Restriction Diet: A Healthy Lifestyle, or an Eating Disorder?

by Michael LoPresti

It wasn't until recently that I stumbled upon Julian Dibbell's article from New York magazine about the Calorie Restriction diet (a lifestyle that Dibbell describes as "a lifetime lived as close to the brink of starvation as your body can stand"). I came away from the article more than a little agitated about this practice and its proponents. In the course of doing some research, I didn't have to stray too far to find Katherine Stevens's Rudd Sound Bites blog entry on this topic from October of last year. In it, Stevens touches on most of the issues that stuck out to me as well. Beneath Stevens's post, in the comments section, was a lengthy, stern, yet exceedingly polite refutation of many of Stevens's points by someone identifying herself as April Smith, one of the "CR" adherents who was profiled in the New York article. Smith took Stevens's post apart point by point, extracting phrases and rebutting them with the precision and detail of one well-heeled in defending her lifestyle. And so it is with some trepidation that I set out now to offer my own reflection on one particular point in the Calorie Restriction philosophy.

The Serving Size Scandal

by Michael LoPresti

I've been working at losing some weight over the past few months, and one of the things I've tried to change about my lifestyle is the amount of food that I eat. I've found it relatively easy to control my portions by reading the "Nutrition Facts" panel on food products. By limiting myself to a single serving of whatever it is that I'm eating, I feel like I'm more aware of and in more control of how many calories I consume throughout the day.