A Stitch in Haste

For those of you who are not aroused by physics and cosmology, Brian Greene is the new Carl Sagan. Greene was the host of the popular PBS series “The Elegant Universe” and author of the book of the same name and, more recently, “The Fabric of the Cosmos” (see ad on the right).

So why do we need Brian Greene right now? Well, just as he is able to explain why the universe needs ten spatial dimensions to, um, work, maybe he can also figure out and explain to us why we now need twelve food pyramids:

Concerned about steadily expanding waistlines, the government flipped the food pyramid on its side, adding a staircase for exercise and giving consumers 12 individually-tailored models for improving their eating habits.

Inside the pyramid released Tuesday, rainbow-colored bands representing different food groups run vertically from the tip to the base. The old single, triangle-shaped pyramid had a horizontal presentation of food categories that many found confusing.
...
The new guide, dubbed "MyPyramid," encourages Americans to customize their diet and exercise regime along 12 models geared to specific calorie needs and levels of physical activity.

Physicists have “superstring theory.” I guess this is “super-size theory.” The fact that you need a multi-page website to figure any of it out would suggest as much.

But what difference does that make? The Politics of the Warm Fuzzy Feeling have been placated. The politicians and the bureaucrats “did something.” The fact that it’s something bizarre at best and moronic at worst is entirely irrelevant.

Here’s my pyramid:

eat less, exercise more, avoid the garbage
Doesn’t look like a pyramid? Too bad — like Superstring Theory, it, um, works.

Or doesn’t that matter in politics the way it does in physics?

SIDEBAR: I happen to think that Brian Greene is extremely cute. When I told this to a straight friend, he replied that I was “seeing the intellect and not the face.”



He can vibrate my superstring anytime.

UPDATE: Welcome Slate readers! Hope you'll have a long look around and consider subscribing.

We interrupt our regular "Biblical dinosaurs" nonsense to bring you some Twenty-First Century Lamarckism:

"If the mother is eating Cheetos and white bread, the fetus will be born with those taste buds. If the mother is eating carrots and oatmeal, the child will be born with those taste buds," said Robert Trevino at the Social and Health Research Center in San Antonio, Texas.

And if the mother dyes her hair blue, then the fetus will be born with blue hair, and if the mother breaks her leg while pregnant, then the baby will be born with a broken leg...

One can only hope that Dr. Trevino — an advocate of sociological gobbledygook best described as the junk food equivalent of "Just Say No" (and we all know how well that worked in the War on Drugs) — was just being sloppily figurative and really meant that parental behaviors (post-natal, of course) may influence their children's eating habits and not the preposterous "acquired taste buds" stupidity that he actually said.

Not that it really matters:

The federal government will spend more than $1 billion this year on nutrition education — fresh carrot and celery snacks, videos of dancing fruit, hundreds of hours of lively lessons about how great you will feel if you eat well.

But a review of scientific studies examining 57 such programs found mostly failure. Just four showed any real success in changing the way kids eat — or any promise as weapons against the growing epidemic of childhood obesity.

"Any person looking at the published literature about these programs would have to conclude that they are generally not working," said Tom Baranowski, a pediatrics professor at Houston's Baylor College of Medicine who studies behavioral nutrition.

But, in a warm-fuzzy-feeling environment such as the current obesity mania, mere failure will of course not be viewed as any reason to stop throwing a billion dollars a year at the "problem."

(Via Fark.)