Speaking of hysteria, there's a piece in USA Today about how alcohol, bacon, red meat, lunch meat, and fatness in general jack up your cancer risk. Now, this news is unlikely to shock many readers. I mean, anything that tastes as good as bacon must be potentially lethal, right? But my sense (and one that the reader postings about the article seem to support) is that at this point, most people have heard so many urgent warnings about what they shouldn't eat, how much weight they must lose, and how many hours each week they absolutely must exercise in order to avoid dropping dead right this minute, they've started tuning them out altogether. And who can blame them? A casual follower of such health updates could reasonably conclude that the surest path to good health is to stop eating altogether.
I have no idea what the fat police and the public health community can do to address this backlash, but I certainly hope they're giving it some thought. Because what I am sure of is that, if you set the bar on fitness and good health so high that the average person feels there's no way in hell he can meet the standard, you absolutely will convince a huge number of folks that there's no point in even trying.
--Michelle Cottle