Calorie Restriction: Prescription for a Long Life or a Short One?

The idea that restricting your calories will lengthen your life is an increasingly popular one--unless of course you are among the one billion people who go to bed hungry every night and can look forward to a shortened life expectancy as a consequence. The research on caloric restriction is taking place in the richer countries with high life expectancy, and so ignores the fact that for most of human history people were struggling to increase their caloric intake. Indeed, the evidence suggests that improved diets (more calories) helped Europeans to lead the way to lower mortality because better nutrition increases the body's chances of fending off disease. However, the nutrition transition, first put forward by Barry Popkin of UNC Chapel Hill, suggest that as societies modernize, their diet and exercise patterns change and we become prone to obesity as a result of, among other things, excessive caloric intake:

Citizens of the world's richest countries are getting fatter and fatter and the United States is leading the charge, an organization of leading economies said Thursday in its first ever obesity forecast.

Three out of four Americans will be overweight or obese by 2020, and disease rates and health care spending will balloon, unless governments, individuals and industry cooperate on a comprehensive strategy to combat the epidemic, the study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said.

The Paris-based organization, which brings together 33 of the world's leading economies, is better known for forecasting deficit and employment levels than for measuring waistlines. But the economic cost of excess weight — in health care, and in lives cut short and resources wasted — is a growing concern for many governments.

Waiting for Superman, or Should it be Superwoman?

The movie "Waiting for Superman" has stirred up the debate about how to improve the quality of education. Almost completely lost in the discussion has been the impact of the changing demographics of both teachers and students on the American educational system. For several decades in the twentieth century--up until about the 1970s--school districts were able to hire the best and the brightest among women because there were relatively few other really attractive career options (one of the other being nursing--which as also been dramatically affected by changing demographics). As labor force discrimination eased (even if we still have a long way to go), many of those women who previously would have become teachers have gone on to be physicians, lawyers, college professors, and CEOs. But, because we had it in our collective minds that we could get good teachers without having to pay them much, the public has not stepped up to change the system in order to recruit those highest quality people in the face of stiff competition from other jobs.

At quite literally the same time, the demographics of the "public" have changed. Beginning with the loosening in the mid-1960s of the restrictive immigration laws, we have witnessed an increasing fraction of students who are children of immigrants and whose parents are not in a good position to help their children with school because they themselves do not know much about the US educational system and are unaware of how important the role of parents is in the educational success of children. This is compounded by the increasing family and household diversity which has raised the fraction of young Americans who are not growing up in a two-parent family and for that reason may have a diminished support system for their schooling.

The Recession Has Not Improved Job Discrimination Against Women

The U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) has analyzed the American Community Survey data for 2000 through 2007 to see if there was any noticeable effect from the recession on gender inequity in the labor market. Several conclusions emerge from this analysis: (1) women continue to be paid less than men for doing the same work, but the recession did not seem to affect this one way or the other; (2) women continue to be less likely than men to be in management positions than men, but the recession did not seem to affect this one or another; (3) children are "to blame" for some, but not most, of the disadvantage of women in the labor force, but the recession did not seem to affect this one way or the other; and (4) the recession hit men harder than women, so the income of women in households has been disproportionately important during the recession. It seems obvious that the recession hit men harder than women precisely because they make more money than women. Thus, the discrimination (largely by men) against women in the labor force turns out to lead to an implicit discrimination (probably also by men) against men when it comes time for layoffs.