Salon.com > Deena Shanker

The Atlantic’s latest silly idea is wrong: No, fast food won’t cure obesity

Sun, 30 Jun 2013 11:00:00 +0000

In one particularly telling moment of Morgan Spurlock’s 2004 documentary "Super Size Me," the vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association – a lobbying organization that represents companies like Kellogg’s, Nestle, Kraft, General Mills, Campbell’s and Pepsi, to name just a few – made what was then considered to be a shocking admission about Big Food’s role in the country’s obesity problem: “We’re part of the problem, and we also are part of the solution.” Nine years later, that has become the industry’s siren song. And now, The Atlantic is selling the same message.

Here’s how David H. Freedman puts it in his cover story, “How Junk Food Can End Obesity”:

To be sure, many of Big Food’s most popular products are loaded with appalling amounts of fat and sugar and other problem carbs (as well as salt), and the plentitude of these ingredients, exacerbated by large portion sizes, has clearly helped foment the obesity crisis… But will switching to wholesome foods free us from this scourge? It could in theory, but in practice, it’s hard to see how.

Country music has always been feminist, even if Taylor Swift isn’t

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Taylor Swift might not want to be a feminist, but that hasn’t stopped the rest of us from wishing that she were. Sure, she throws us a female empowerment bone every once in a while, giving the occasional public, barely veiled middle finger to the men who have wronged her (who among us hasn’t dreamed of the opportunity to do the same?), but then she does something like picking a fight with universally idolized feminist icons Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, or refusing to identify herself as a feminist, and we find ourselves once again shaking our heads at the singer, even if we are simultaneously singing along to her undeniably catchy singles.

Don’t mess with “The Hobbit”!

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000

This weekend, I will join millions of J.R.R. Tolkien fans all over the country flocking to theaters for the first installation of the story of the unlikely, pint-size hero, Bilbo Baggins, and his defeat of the fire-breathing, treasure-hoarding dragon, Smaug. A classic David versus Goliath tale, Peter Jackson’s $270 million return to Middle-earth in "The Hobbit," nine years after "The Return of the King," can easily be called one of the most anticipated cinematic events of 2012.

If not for the noble efforts of federal Judge Philip S. Gutierrez, I may have accidentally watched “Age of the Hobbits” online instead. Luckily for all of us planning to trek to Middle-earth this weekend, Judge Gutierrez agreed with producers Warner Bros., MGM and Saul Zaentz Co. that the $500K straight-to-Internet-and-DVD “Age of the Hobbits” starring Bai Ling would confuse consumers and cause the big studios “irreparable injury.” On Tuesday, the federal district court in L.A. issued a temporary restraining order against the release of the straight-to-the-Internet knockoff by “mockbuster” production company Global Asylum (the studio behind such well-known and critically acclaimed films as "Transmorphers" and "Snakes on a Train"), stopping it from releasing its movie, conveniently scheduled to make its debut the same weekend as "The Hobbit" hits American theaters.

Meningitis outbreak shows why we need regulation

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 20:50:00 +0000

If the Democrats needed an opportunity to show voters what a deregulated market really looks like, the New England Compounding Center, the company responsible for the current meningitis outbreak, has served one up.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Framingham, Mass., center made as many as “17,676 potentially tainted steroid injections, which were then shipped to 75 clinics in 23 states.” So far 14 people have died and 170 have fallen ill from the contaminated shots. The questions on everybody’s mind now are: How could this happen? And where was the Food and Drug Administration, the federal agency that's supposed to oversee the pharmaceutical industry?

How could it happen? Simple: There are almost no laws regulating pharmaceutical compounding, the process of making made-to-order prescriptions tailored to the unique needs of individual clients. This process used to take place on a small scale. But in the past 20 years, changes in the pharmaceuticals market allowed compounding to explode into a new industry of below-the-radar, unregulated mass drug production.