How deceptive marketing leads to poor food choices

We know marketers try to fool us, but that's not enough. We have to consider how they get away with it.

The NY Times has an excellent op-ed on the "Health Halo" effect. If you are having trouble losing weight, take note of this study.

Half of the 40 people surveyed were shown pictures of a meal consisting of an Applebee’s Oriental Chicken Salad and a 20-ounce cup of regular Pepsi. (You can see it for yourself at TierneyLab.) On average, they estimated that the meal contained 1,011 calories, which was a little high. The meal actually contained 934 calories — 714 from the salad and 220 from the drink.

The other half of the Park Slopers were shown the same salad and drink plus two Fortt’s crackers prominently labeled “Trans Fat Free.” The crackers added 100 calories to the meal, bringing it to 1,034 calories, but their presence skewed people’s estimates in the opposite direction. The average estimate for the whole meal was only 835 calories — 199 calories less than the actual calorie count, and 176 calories less than the average estimate by the other group for the same meal without crackers.

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Emerson on the financial crash of 1837

Emerson, notes Harold Bloom writing in the NY Times, met financial calamity with glee. Perhaps there is a lesson in this outlook for us today. Concerning the crash of 1837, Emerson wrote:

I see a good in such emphatic and universal calamity as the times bring, that they dissatisfy me with society. Under common burdens we say there is much virtue in the world, and what evil co-exists is inevitable. I am not aroused to say, “I have sinned: I am in a gall of bitterness, and a bond of iniquity”; but when these full measures come, it then stands confessed — society has played out its last stake; it is checkmated. Young men have no hope. Adults stand like day laborers, idle on the streets. None calleth us to labor. The old wear no crown of warm life on their gray hairs. The present generation is bankrupt of principles and hope, as of property. I see man is not what man should be. He is the treadle of a wheel. He is a tassel at the apron string of society. He is a money chest. He is the servant of his belly. This is the causal bankruptcy, this is the cruel oppression, that the ideal should serve the actual, that the head should serve the feet. Then first, I am forced to inquire if the ideal might not also be tried. Is it to be taken for granted that it is impracticable? Behold the boasted world has come to nothing. Prudence itself is at her wits’ end.

Pride, and Thrift, and Expediency, who jeered and chirped and were so well pleased with themselves, and made merry with the dream, as they termed it, of Philosophy and Love, — behold they are all flat, and here is the Soul erect and unconquered still. What answer is it now to say, “It has always been so?” I acknowledge that, as far back as I can see the widening procession of humanity, the marchers are lame and blind and deaf; but to the soul that whole past is but one finite series in its infinite scope. Deteriorating ever and now desperate. Let me begin anew. Let me teach the finite to know its master. Let me ascend above my fate and work down upon my world.

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To do or to be? That is the question

William James wrote: "Lives based on having are less free than lives based on doing or being." But what is the distinction between a life based on "doing" Vs one centered on "being"?

The career of a highly creative but much maligned military strategist named John Boyd may provide some clues.

Because a "Yes men" mentality prevails in the US military, journalist James Fallows was pleasantly surprised when the US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates brought up the name of the late John Boyd before a gathering 0f Air Force brass. Even if we do not approve of the administration Gates works for, the Defense Secretary's comments regarding Boyd's career are thought-provoking:

Boyd, who was a brilliant, eccentric and stubborn character, had to overcome a large measure of bureaucratic resistance and institutional hostility.

He had some advice that he used to pass on to his colleagues and subordinates that is worth sharing with you. Boyd would say — and I quote — “One day you will take a fork in the road, and you’re going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go. If you go one way, you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises, and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club, and you will get promoted and get good assignments. Or you can go the other way, and you can do something, something for your country and for your Air Force and for yourself. If you decide to do something, you may not get promoted, and you may not get good assignments, and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors, but you won’t have to compromise yourself. To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That’s when you have to make a decision: to be or to do.”

For the kinds of challenges America faces and will face, the armed forces will need principled, creative, reform-minded leaders, men and women who, as Boyd put it, want to do something, not be somebody.

Even for those of us not in the military, the distinction between "doing" and "being" is worth thinking about.

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Pi Day Resolutions

Friday is Pi Day.

Because a circle is the symbol for completeness and renewal, Friday presents a golden opportunity to take stock of your New Year's Resolutions, or make some new ones. Why not call them your "Pi Resolutions" and then begin to jot away your stress?
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Why Pi Day is meaningful to me.

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Overcome Email Overload

Mike Davidson proposes a "5 sentence rule" to make email communications less burdensome. He proposes that email replies be limited to five sentences "regardless of recipient or subject."

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