You are what I eat    

A slew of medical research confirms my lifestyle, despite my mental state, is perfectly healthy. However, according to the latest studies, your behaviors should be my concern. 

Yes. That’s right. Findings from a recent study published in The New England Journal of Medicine suggest that you’re not only what you consume but also what your friends eat too. In other words, when you get fat, so do I.

Researchers determined that when a person puts on weight, that increase in heft affects their buddies as well as their bodies. By analyzing records from the Framington Heart Study, scientists found that, on average, a 17-pound weight gain in one individual will cause a close friend to put on 5 pounds. Given that ratio, someone I know must have packed on 150 pounds!

But here’s the most mind-boggling part of this obesity study: It took researchers 32 years to figure out what most of us can determine from one good party. Overweight people often have chubby chums.

This brings me to a simple request. Would you please go on a diet?

I don’t mean to be insulting. It’s just that, assuming this process works in reverse, if you reduce your calorie intake then I won’t have to. And if for the greater good of humanity someone has to be on food restrictions, I’d prefer that this person be you.

In other medical news, chocolate has been found to reduce blood pressure and caffeine has been determined to decrease sun damaged skin cells. A recent study observed the effects of exercise combined with caffeine intake in rodents, which do not closely resemble man—but chimps would have been smart enough to demand Starbucks.

When both voluntary exercise and caffeine consumption were present, hairless mice suffered fewer damaged skin cells than vermin that were more sluggish (or otherwise preoccupied with reproduction) and drank decaf. 

I find it suspicious anytime the words “voluntary” and “exercise” appear in the same sentence. Without the caffeine, I suspect the thumb-sized subjects would have been much less inclined toward impromptu wheel spinning.

So the question remains: Is caffeine really good for you? To confirm this, more funding surely will be necessary. In the meantime, I can happily defend my two-dark-chocolate-squares-and-four-sodas-per-day habit. And since I have no compulsion to exercise, there’s little reason to add workouts to my regimen.

Don’t you just love it when science hands you all the justification you need to continue living exactly the way you have been?

Along these same lines, not long ago, I learned that limited consumption of red wine can be good for cardiovascular health.  Experts advise women to restrict their wine intake to one drink, and men to two, per day. Oddly, there’s no mention of the permissible number of drinks per night.

Additionally, a Harvard study of 81,000 women drawn from the Nurses’ Health Study concluded that, of 17 liquids tested, wine most effectively reduced the risk of kidney stones (by 59%). This research further supports the benefits of moderate drinking, as well as offers a possible explanation for nurse staffing shortages. 

So why doesn’t someone conduct a study of the effects of wine and chocolate on journalists? Why not pick a profession from which the research participants won’t be missed?

I’d include more medical findings, here, but right now it’s time for my Dr Pepper and candy bar break. You, on the other hand, might want to consider fasting—which would be the noble thing to do. The sacrifices you make may very well prevent the suffering of others.

If you enjoyed this story and would like to read more like it, you may want to buy the book Driving on the Wrong Side of the Road: Humorous Views on Love, Lust & Lawn Care, by Diana Estill--available online and in your favorite bookstores.

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Last Updated: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 09:01 PM