I am a huge fan of the Foxtrot comic series and can especially relate to Jason, the poor geeky nerd surrounded by his regular folks. But a recent comic made me wince:

Ouch.

This really hits home in my case because I am apparently one of those oddly built human beings whose legs are longer than his hips are round and whom the clothing companies have yet to find time to build clothes for. My waist to height ratio is usually an exact inverse to what is found most often in stores and when I do find a pair of jeans in the correct size it is usually in a hideous shade of purple.

Clothing sizes like 2, 4 and 6 are a curious invention and folks who rely only on them rather than an exact number of inches (28, 32, 34) are bound to be fooled into believing they are smaller than they really are. This is because larger and larger sized clothes are now being given smaller and smaller sizes beguiling consumers into a false sense of smallness.

A recent NPR (National Public Radio) segment called Gain Weight, Lose Perspective: When Sizes Grow by Lori Gottlieb is a humorous account of one woman’s journey through the world of clothing sizes and a stark eye-opener to the deceptive practices employed by clothing manufacturers. Listen and laugh (or weep!).

Remember: the mirror is your one true friend. It never lies. Even if your clothing size does.

Technorati Tags: fitness, dress clothing sizes, foxtrot, comic

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Whenever I think of doughnuts I immediately see Homer Simpson in my mind and hear his heartfelt sigh of “Mmmmmmm …. Doughnuts”.

And who can blame him?

Anyone who has sunk their teeth into a freshly fried doughnut right off the assembly line knows exactly what he is talking about.

Or do they?

I spent some time at the websites of two of the most popular manufacturers of doughnuts in the U.S. and while the pictures made my mouth water, the words made the same mouth open wide in shock.

Consider the little, innocent (and unfortunately yummy!) glazed doughnut:

Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme have both (daringly) published nutrition information for their entire range of doughnuts and here is the informtaion for their glazed (base model, if you will) doughnut:

According to Dunkin:

And according to Krispy Kreme (click to enlarge):

One single doughnut, (yes the same thing that takes you less than 30 seconds to chow down because it’s just so yummy) contains:

• An average of 190 calories
• 85 calories from fat
• 10g of total fat
• and the killer: 4g of trans fat (if you have read my hydrogenated vegetable oil post, then you already know that 4g of trans fat is 4g more than you should be eating!)

And this is from their basic glazed offering. Don’t even bother asking what a Double Chocolate Cake Donut contains.

And when has one ever stopped at one doughnut? I know I can never do that. If you average about 2-3 doughnuts, then you can only imagine the result. And that is why Dunkin’s new ad campaign, ” America Runs on Dunkin’ ” really surprised me. For starters, the words “America” and “Runs” should probably never occur in the same sentence (and definitely not that close to each other anyway!).

Mom and dads. Students and senior citizens. Blue collar, white collar, and every collar inbetween. Dunkin’ Donuts is how everyday people get things done, every day.

-The America Runs On Dunkin’ Website

How everyday people get things done? Is this why, as I said earlier, at present, approximately 64% of all U.S. adults are overweight, including 30% who are obese?

If America really does decide to get off the couch and run, I hope and pray it doesn’t Run on Dunkin.

Technorati Tags: health, fitness, donut, doughnut, nutrition

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