Word: socialism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Really, an "obesity bug"? In 2007, Harvard researcher Nicholas Christakis and his colleagues analyzed 32 years' worth of data from an interconnected social network of 12,000 adults and found that a person's chances of becoming obese increased 37% if a spouse had become obese, 40% if a sibling had and 57% if a friend...
...study's author Meredith Young, a cognitive psychologist, says the social comfort of a same-sex lunch partner probably makes a difference - but evolutionary instincts are also at play. The women are using food as a signal of attractiveness. "In past studies, when you compare the exact same woman either eating a meatball sub or a dainty salad, people find the salad eater more alluring and more desirable as a friend," she says. Young thinks that men, on the other hand, are probably focused on spending more money on the food instead of eating it, because evolutionary biology says that...
...parents who are less worried about subconscious dating rituals and more worried about overweight kids influencing their own, the answer isn't to encourage ditching fat friends. Shaming kids over their bodies could drive them to social isolation, a much worse place to be, according to Salvy. Her previous research found that overweight teens eat an average of 400 calories more when they're alone, compared with when they're in the company of friends of any weight group. (Read "Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food...
...security: "By a ratio of nearly two-to-one, survey respondents say they would prefer a job that offers better security (59%) over one that offers higher pay (33%) but less stability. It's not the recession that drives this preference. A similar question asked by the General Social Survey in 1989 (when the economy was in the midst of an expansion) produced a similar result...
...natural political process. When politicians talk about spending their political capital, they are talking about their poll numbers - and the cliché is somewhat misleading. They are actually investing their political capital, hoping for a greater return if their gamble succeeds. George W. Bush invested his capital in privatizing Social Security, and the stock tanked. Barack Obama is investing in health-care reform. We are at the point of the legislative process where all seems hopeless, but Obama should be heartened by the fact that most of his Republican adversaries oppose the bill for crass political rather than ideological reasons...