Why Tech Companies Can't Keep Good Women Employees

Nathalie Miller pitches Doxa to a Venture Capitalist

My son recently got a job in development at a Tech firm, and one of the many praises he has for the company, SmartSheet, is that half of its staff are men and half women.

"That's not the usual composition in a tech company," he adds, and indeed, a story on the cover of the New York Times Business section by Claire Cain Miller bears him out, noting that "30 percent of employees at big tech companies including Google, Facebook and Apple are women..."

The question is, "Why?" The NY Times story implies why, but you'll never find the answer stated explicitly, because it's completely politically incorrect--though hardly a secret.

The reason is that women choose to divert attention to their families.

Nathalie Miller, now 34, went on the fast track to career success. Raised in Berkeley, California, she got a degree from Harvard, then moved to VietNam (she's of Vietnamese and European descent), starting a micro-finance nonprofit.

Returning to the US in 2013, she signed on as employee number 20 with Instacart, a grocery-delivery start-up, and watched it expand to 120 employees and 4,000 contractors within a year.

Then "a new employee told her that he had ranked the hottest women at the company, and she was No. 1. She reported the comment to managers, and the employee was fired the next day," reports the NY Times piece.

This brought interest in matching female candidates with pro-women high-tech openings, leading her to leave Instacart, partner with an engineer, and create Doxa, a site that would collect data on companies, give job seekers online personality tests, and facilitate hiring. She hoped to increase awareness of issues important to women by including info on companies' policies.

She built the company to "820 active users and 300 companies on a waiting list to be included," and so sought money to expand. About then she discovered that she and her husband were expecting their first child. She "plotted strategy," and planned to mention her impending parenthood only on a second meeting with potential investors, and then say "...I'm married to a man who will be a primary caregiver, and this is no different from investing in a man whose wife is pregnant."

Nathalie Miller worked diligently to hone her pitch, refining her content and look with a mentor. She met with more than 40 venture capitalists, one a Ms. Yuan of Cowboy Ventures, who said of the software, "It enables companies to be responsive: 'Let's get a maternity policy because we don't want to be up on your platform without that.'" Still, none she approached chose to fund Doxa, and when her engineer partner got greater responsibility at this day job, Ms. Miller was faced with finding a new technical expert. 

The article details issues facing women in Silicon Valley, including differences in men's and women's presentation styles, and the way women are received by male execs and co-workers. It relates the difficulties of a start-up in the competitive tech world to the problems encountered by Doxa.

 Ultimately, however, Nathalie Miller chose another worthwhile path: motherhood.

"Ms. Miller's plan was to take a month off and get back to work," explains the NY Times story. "Then...she gave birth to a girl, Zadie Mai, and changed her mind. 'I feel a mixture of intense love and protectiveness,' she said. 'I want to hang out with the baby forever. There are my real physical needs and the physical dependence of the baby, all this stuff I didn't expect to be so consuming.'

...She decided to take at least six months off, doing some work from home after three or four months," the article notes. "Her husband, meanwhile, had found a full-time job in advertising."

Yep. The setting might now be Silicon Valley, but the same switch of ambition happened to a generation before the millennials. Feminist baby boomers (like me), took advantage of new openings in a raft of fields, and yet found themselves pairing up, responding to biology and, when their babies came on the scene, falling in love. Whether it's hormones, or simply gaining the perspective that raising your own child is valuable and rewarding, women often opt out of promising careers at a certain stage. Is this really a surprise? Or a problem?

Companies may find that they can populate their tech staffs with competent, sharp women right out of college, who serve them eagerly and well for several years and then realize they've "been there, done that." These women know they've got a window of time to have children and raise families, and prefer to fully participate in that (just as they fully embraced their tech jobs) rather than take a month or even a few and then leave their babies in day care or with a nanny.

It's ironic that Nathalie Miller, whose start-up aimed to place women in responsible roles in companies sensitive to women's needs, stepped away from her own such position, lured by the sweet coos of her baby--but it's also laudable and not unusual. Silicon Valley and Seattle, where I live, are filled with growing tech companies snapping up capable college grads, but most of their hires aren't women in the mothering phase (who often carve out part-time or work-from-home alternatives), or older males or females.

I'll be interested to see the proportion of tech companies who keep their women employees throughout long careers. But I expect that many women launched in upward trajectories in these demanding enterprises will be attracted to a pause, the kind that brings a payoff far exceeding dollars and cents.

Photo credits: Top, Jason Henry for the New York Times

"Inequality" has nothing to do with divorce. But personal behavior does.

Sen. Rubio: Marriage is a route out of poverty

So, I'm writing a book on divorce. Actually, it's on why you should NOT divorce. Therefore I collect articles on the subject, and one I was just filing was from last week's New York Times, titled "Marriage, Poverty and the Political Divide."

The piece suggests that economic inequality works against marriage. It discounts Sen. Marco Rubio's assertion that marriage can lift parents and children from poverty.

But it doesn't get to the point--that the values of marriage shrink poverty rates, and it takes personal behavioral choices, not scrapping "inequality" with legal and policy change, to both support marriage and curb poverty. 

Sen. Rubio bases this pro-marriage remark on a Heritage Foundation report showing that 71% of families in poverty are headed by unmarried individuals. Of those who are not poor, 73% are headed by married couples. Married people are better off financially.

Makes sense. Certainly a couple pulling together can bring in more income than a single parent, and make what they have go further. Stay-at-home parents contribute by saving on day care and providing other services that make the family function.

One would hope that an absent parent would contribute to his child's support. The trouble is, among the poor, this is infrequently the case. In 2011, only half of all custodial parents had a child support agreement. Those with child support agreements actually received only 62% of what they were due. Of all custodial parents receiving child support, 24% were in poverty. Thirty percent of custodial mothers live below the poverty line.

So how does inequality shape a couple's future together?  How does the fact someone else earns a lot more than you do harm your marriage? Not clear. 

Writer Andrew L. Yarrow's article claims "Poorer Americans already aspire to marriage at similar or higher rates than their higher-income counterparts, according to a 2012 UCLA study. But when they do marry, their marriages are much more likely to end in divorce."

The piece neglects to mention that divorce not only correlates with poverty but also with education of the partners. The more education partners have, the more likely a couple will stay together, finds the Heritage Foundation.

And of course education is highly correlated with income. In other words, those with the tenacity and ability to make it through college or advanced degrees more often have the tenacity and ability to both earn more money and form an enduring marriage. 

This isn't sinister "inequality,"a societal ill to be corrected by policy-makers. This is simple variation among individuals. Certain personal abilities, values and behaviors promote certain outcomes. It's less a governmental problem than a personal problem, a values and behavioral problem. Individuals who exhibit characteristics that promote happy marriage can much more often sustain happy marriages.

The term "inequality" implies that something's askew, that everyone would have the same positive outcomes were it not for unfairness. Look at how the poor scramble to survive, while the rich buy $5,000 designer purses! If you believe that all individuals begin with the same potential, it follows that only factors imposed by luck or malice stand in anyone's way. And therefore laws and policies should remove those barriers. But if you look around, you notice that humans were not created with the same potentials, though we rightly offer everyone the same opportunities to maximize the potentials they have.

"Marriage is far from the magic bullet to end poverty that some conservatives claim," says Melissa Boteach of the Center for American Progress in the Times piece.

Nobody says it's magic, but being in a marriage is one of those opportunities that allows us to maximize our best selves. Says W. Bradford Wilcox of the National Marriage Project,"Americans are more likely to realize the American dream if they get and stay married, and grow up in communities where marriage is stronger. Marriage fosters saving, facilitates economies of scale and encourages stability and family life, all things that are good for the average American's pocketbook."

In other words, the same values that support marriage support financial success. So it seems Sen. Rubio is right--a shortcut out of poverty could be living the commitment and values marriage requires. 

Fancy Mogadishu Hotel is like the setting for a novel--but Reality is more Gripping and Horrifying

The Sahafi Hotel, before the attack

"If there is one hotel everyone knows in Mogadishu, it is the Sahafi. Warlords and militants alike used to hang out and plot schemes in the lounge and courtyard while sipping grapefruit juice and pulling apart camel meat steaks."

"...the hotel's owner, Abdirashid Ilgayte, used to welcome guests into his incense-scented office just off the hotel's entrance and regale them with stories of violence and intrigue from Somalia's darkest days..."

Sounds like the beginning of a spy novel. You can almost inhale those succulent camel meat steaks pulling tenderly from the bone...

But instead of the enticing opening to a juicy intrigue, this is a NY Times news story, dated November 2, reporting the latest bloody attack by "one of Al Queda's most murderous offshoots," the Shabab, who rammed an exploding car through the hotel's front gate to allow entry to a cluster of terrorists who shot everyone in their path, then roamed the floors looking for more to kill. The murderers held the charred, rubble-filled hotel for hours; a second car explosion in front two hours after the first wounding or killing several more people, many of whom had come as reporters to the scene.

The original rampage occurred at dawn; "By 11 am, African Union troops in Somalia, along with government forces, overpowered the attackers and shot them dead."

The Sahafi Hotel, under siege

This is just the latest in a series of hotel attacks the Times calls "one of the hallmarks of the Shabab, who have killed scores in Mogadishu in recent years by overwhelming security guards at the gates and then sending in suicidal fighters." The article, by Mohammed Ibrahim and Jeffrey Gettleman, notes, "most of their victims have been fellow Somali Muslims."

We in America listen to the World Series and plan our Sunday outings, while the rest of the world endures a reality we cannot fathom.

"Mogadishu may be safer than it used to be but it is still not safe," the news article continues. "The Shabab once controlled much of the city, bull-whipping women and terrorizing the population by enforcing a harsh version  of Islamic law." The writers observe that the Shabab "seemed to have perfected mass murder on the cheap, including an attack on a university in Kenya in April in which four young Shabab gunmen killed more than 140 people." On the cheap!?

Did you read this article? Are you as appalled and horrified as I am that this kind of ruthless extermination is almost reported ho-hum--just another instance of ubiquitous violence and murder to further an extremist vision of Islam aimed at the entire world? What are the churches and universities supporting BDS (boycot, divestment and sanctions) against Israel doing to combat this much more lethal and festering Islamism?  Then again, it's easy to protest a democracy; not so simple to cut down terrorist extremists whose suicidal tactics prove their complete disregard for life.

I can pray; I can write blogs pointing out these atrocities. These actions seem lame given the enormity of the enemy and the virulent expansion of this deadly power. Then our privileged life happens and we toss the day's newspaper into the recycle bin. 

Why Mothers Miss their Grown Children (and why this mother dislikes the movie "American Reunion")

I was incredibly touched by a beautifully-written New York Times article about how humans are affected by love. Not sex, which was the theme of a disgusting film I saw last night, "American Reunion," but the kind of visceral, integral connection forged originally by a mother's first bond with her baby, which research now shows determines all future relationships.

The foundation created in the earliest moments is then only subsequently shaped, clarified, and revised.  Those critical emergent, wordless interchanges define for each infant love, trust and the nature and character of the physical and emotional world.

"Every great love affair begins with a scream," writes Diane Ackerman. "An infant is steeped in bright, buzzing, bristling sensations, raw emotions and the curious feelings they unleash, weird objects, a flux of faces, shadowy images and dreams--but most of all a powerfully magnetic primary caregiver whose wizardry astounds."

The magnet propels both souls together in an inseparable joining that compels moms to throw themselves as shields before any threat to their children. It allows them to hear their baby's whimper from far away and identify their own infant's cry within two days of birth from among scores of babies' wails.

"Brain scans show synchrony between the brains of mother and child," Ackerman explains, "but what they can't show is the internal bond that belongs to neither alone, a fusion in which the self feels so permeable it doesn't matter whose body is whose."

"Yes!" I'm thinking, recalling the intensity the arrival my first daughter brought me, the astonishing, complete bonding that unexpectedly transformed my normally in-control being. It fueled my compulsion to leap to soothe her every whine, and to stare at her perfect sleeping face interminably.

"Wordlessly, relying on the heart's semaphores, the mother says all an infant needs to hear, communicating through eyes, face and voice," the article continues. "Thanks to advances in neuro-imaging, we now have evidence that a baby's first attachments imprint its brain. The patterns of a lifetime's behaviors, thoughts, self-regard and choice of sweethearts all begin in this crucible."

The newspaper story then describes the bountiful, beneficial effects of love, as one matures and transfers primary conjunction to a spouse, whose mere touch can reassure, calm and even protect from disease.

But wait, what happens to the mother, the second half, or perhaps the foremost half of the original infant-parent connection?  The other part of the "fusion in which the self feels so permeable it doesn't matter whose body is whose"? Excuse me?

As the child grows and adds to his repertoire of relationships, the mother continues to provide unconditional nurturing, adapting her style to the youngster's ever-changing needs.  Mom teaches, scolds and indulges, carrying dirty plates to the sink and washing them willingly, with only a knowing shake of the head that her child didn't do it himself.  Later, she absorbs the teenager's moodiness and sometimes even rejection by increasing her capacity for patience.  The mother continues, no increases, her love and appreciation of the newly blossoming personality, seeking only that her child flourish.

And then, dum-dum DUM. The child leaves home. Oh sure, the kid's bedroom remains intact, but it instantly shifts from residence and cocoon to relic and souvenir. Storage for the chatchkes that don't look cool in the new apartment.

After all those years of caring, it isn't that mothers require someone to dote upon and respond to them. Speaking as a relatively recent empty nester, let me say, I miss my children because I miss who they are, how they speak, what they're thinking, and the unique whirlwinds of activity they create that reflect their interests and irritants, their basic needs (even the food-crusted empty bowls) and their emotional complexities. Skype doesn't cut it.

This article, called "The Brain on Love," capsulized for me the depth of connection that is lost when a child moves out and on.  For the child, it's replaced--with sorority life, with schoolwork, with generating new friendships and eventually that grand replacement in which the hand held for support and nurturing becomes a soul mate. Though parental devotion can be sublimated and redirected, the craving to hold, kiss and cuddle your unique child can no longer be fulfilled.

That may be life, but given how intrinsic and essential the mother-child bond is--and its permanent impact--adult children should at least humor their moms. "Honor thy father and thy mother" doesn't just mean to show up at Thanksgiving, but to let parents into your daily life; tell them the funny incident that happened today, let them know who you're mad at and the quandries you're pondering. Let them hear the sound of your voice and not feel they're imposing on your busy schedule.

"American Reunion" is rife with the adolescent scatological stupidity fans of the previous two "American Pie" films expect.  Having not viewed the originals, I was unprepared by the trailer for the extent of gross and graphic content, and was falsely lured by the notion of married-with-kids 31-year-olds (ie grown-ups) returning for their midwest high school's 13th reunion.  Part of the plot was the relationship between Jim (Jason Biggs) and his dad (Eugene Levy), and while a single contrived and superficial scene aims to illustrate their bond, it simply reinforces the pervasive message of the movie--that sex is constantly essential.

During the parts of the film when I closed my eyes (and there were plenty) I didn't hear the audience laughing--instead they went "eeew!" or "aargh!" or "ack!", responses to repulsive thwacks or, um, other actions that for some bring entertainment.

But none of the characters showed any real connection. The dad sat on the couch pathetically watching his son's bar mitzvah video. Stifler's mom reclined on a chaise with her anatomy bursting a satin gown. The cadre of friends seemed only to reinforce each others' immaturity, and the peripheral wives and girlfriends symbolized sanity but didn't exhibit it.

Watching that kind of display at least fueled my gratitude for the indelible connections that enrich real life. I'm glad I have my own husband's touch to soothe and reassure. But I do miss those little ones for whom I could define love.

Sex is Popular, in Yoga and Politics

Just came out of my Yoga-lattes class, rolled mat in hand, to read the NY Times story about fallen Yoga guru John Friend, who was apparently more-than to many of the female adherents of his self-developed Anusara yoga.

The article details Tantric roots of the philosophy, where sexuality is a major part of its gestalt.  I can't say that the fifteen ladies in our unsteady downward-facing dogs, happy babies and pigeon poses were excited by anything more than being able to hold a "teaser," but Mr. Friend stands accused of financial malfeasance, Wiccan sexual activities, and, I'm sure, violating his community's ethical principle called "Brahmacharya," which involves "Practicing sexual moderation, restraining from sexual misconduct, and avoiding lustful behavior. Includes sexual chastity."

Ethical guidelines for teachers on the Anusara website also admonish, "When sexual attraction occurs between you and a student, be very disciplined and mindful to avoid any adharmic behavior. Never give an improper or imbalanced amount of attention to an attractive student or one with whom you are in an intimate relationship while in the classroom. Outside the classroom develop any intimate or romantic relationship slowly and do not act on sexual attraction until a steady trust in the relationship has developed."

I won't comment on the grammar that suggests an "intimate relationship while in the classroom," but in case you're wondering, "adharmic" is a Hindu yoga term for a-(against) dharmic (laws of the universe).  At present, Friend has dropped out of sight and sold half of Anusara to Israeli Michal Lichtman, who promises a re-vamp. Ohmmmmm.

Jump now to an observation by Fave Radio Host, marveling at Rick Santorum's stomach-dropping plunge in Rasmussen GOP likely-voter polls: he went from a lead of twelve points to a deficit of 16 points, a breathataking swing of 28 points in just 14 days. Yesterday's (Feb. 29) respondents picked Romney, 40% compared to Santorum's 24%; just two weeks ago Santorum was up, 39% to Mitt's 27%.

 My Cultural Crusader had an astute analysis of Righteous Rick's self-destruct: "Could it have something to do with deciding to rant against contraception, pre-natal testing, college, JFK, working women, separation of church and state, and more? Alex Castellanos said it very well. 'Republicans are in trouble if the public gets the idea that we're against sex. Sex is popular.'"

Sex is indeed popular, though inappropriate in some contexts and unrestrainable in others. I notice that John Friend's "Igniting the World 2012 Tour" appearances through June are all "postponed."  Similarly, if Republicans hope to make headway by November, they've got to refocus the debate away from bedrooms and into pocketbooks, as well as the deep trench known as Obama's $1.2-trillion deficit, and a national debt that CBS News notes is "more than the total national debt of about $4.1672 trillion accumulated by all 41 U.S. presidents from George Washington through George H.W. Bush combined."

This Shabbat is Washington State caucus day, and my husband and I are planning to walk to our local precinct site to participate. Super Tuesday is a blink away.  I do think Sen. Santorum cooked his goose with his unsolicited opinions on sexuality, and clearly plenty of others are crying fowl, er, foul, in the yoga world, including the NY Times article writer William Broad, whose new book evaluates the totality of yoga and concludes that despite scandals and risks, it offers "more good than harm."

Let us only hope that the candidate succeeding in November will do the same.

Why Childhood Obesity-Fighting Programs Fail, and What they Should Do

A front-page story in today's New York Times business section laments the lack of effective obesity-fighting programs for children. Many such programs have sprung up, in true entrepreneurial style, since the Obama health care law mandates reimbursement for obesity screening and counseling for children.  The trouble is, these conventional-wisdom Kool-aid-slurping approaches are going about it the wrong way.

Calories in equal calories out?  Family awareness about "good" versus "bad" foods? Encouragement to exercise?  These have comprised kids' school health programs since the 1960s.  Weigh-ins and group therapy? The article is accompanied by an adult peering over the shoulder of a chubby pre-teen to read the numbers on a scale.  Does this warm-hearted and well-meaning supervision inspire a lean life?

There's no data supporting long-term positive outcomes for any of these programs, and indeed, for any of the thriving diet industry offerings for either adults or children.  Knowledge doesn't bring long-term skinniness, even if will-power and "simple adjustments" slice off a few pounds. "If this were easy, if there were clear outcomes for success, we would be investing in these," confesses Dr. Samuel R. Nussbaum, chief medical officer for a huge health insurer.

You can bet more and more of these anti-fat education programs will proliferate, as long as big butts bring big bucks. But from the research I've been conducting for a book on the topic, they'll add to the national deficit, perhaps bring some short-term shape shrinkage, but won't return our population to slimness levels of past decades.

That's for two reasons. First, the shape of Americans has changed, and shoehorning Americans back into their sizes of yesteryear will be akin to putting toothpaste back in the tube.  Average height has enlarged from 5-foot-six, which was the mean for men at the turn of this century, (a figure that fluctuated since 1700 reflecting disease as well as nutrition) to  5-foot-ten among Americans born here in 1970. The National Center for Health Statistics reports that in 2006, the average height for all American males (including immigrants) was 69.2 inches, a little over five-foot-nine. It's a major body expansion, but nobody is campaigning to reverse growth in that direction.

At the same time, bodies have ballooned outward. A CDC study found that between 1960 and 2002 the average weight of a man aged 20-74 rose from 166 lbs. to a more portly 191 lbs. Women similarly enlarged, from 140 lbs. to 164.  In those same 42 years, life expectancy rose from age 66 for men and 73 for women (1960) to 75 for men and 80 women today (2010).  Hmmmm. We're getting taller, fatter and living longer. Correlation does not imply causation.

And we're adjusting to our increased proportions. An article in the NY Times discussed "the New Calculus of Broader Backsides," as Transit Authorities replace their subway and train cars.  Perhaps in honor of its governor, New Jersey Transit, the piece noted, has increased its seat width from 17.55 inches to a comfortable 19.75 inches. Connecticut Metro-North Rail Commuter Council chair Jim Cameron was most pithy in his approving self-interest: "Why subject my girth to other people?"

Yes, we all want to protect our girth, which is exactly why all these lauded weight-reduction programs are doomed to failure. Everybody's fat, including our icons like Oprah and Rush Limbaugh, and with a fourth of the nation (35% of blacks) self-reporting themselves obese (perhaps underestimating a bit?) "fitting in" means to a size 14 average for women--and those sizes have themselves become more, uh, roomy.

The second, and more crucial reason for the failure of these earnest efforts to stem childhood obesity (which in the past three years has leveled off, by the way) is that their tactics are wrong.  Most big programs, like WellPoint, involve dietitians who instruct on creating healthy low-calorie meals, limiting portions and choosing wisely. Does this sound enticing? Exciting?

How about the programs where participants weigh in in front of an authority? Just what kids want to do. Weight Watchers tried a web-based course for youth that they scuttled "after discovering children were regaining their weight after a year, with some even gaining more than they might have had they not participated."

There's an elephant in the room, and it's not just the collective tonnage of overweight children.  It's the fact that we don't truly know what makes people obese, and we haven't found any way--other than obsessive, life-long restriction and vigilance--to keep people thin once they lose weight. It's not a simple equation of calories in, energy out, as Tara Parker Pope wrote quite eloquently in a New York Times Magazine cover story a couple of weeks ago called "The Fat Trap." You see, there are a raft of hereditary and biological forces that not only conspire to bulk us up but to maintain fat on human bodies. She disclosed that exercising and eating properly haven't allowed her to lose the 60 extra pounds on her frame. Her research revealed that they're apparently programmed to stay there.

Telling that to pudgy kids and their families won't inspire much hope, however, and won't get them leaping onto the "Let's Move!" bandwagon. Instead, institutions and companies eager for Obamacare dollars mislead audiences into thinking their diets and measurements can solve the problem. "What we're learning about treating childhood obesity is that there is no magic bullet in dropping weight in kids," admits Roanoke, Virginia pediatrician Dr. Colleen Kraft, who's affiliated with the WellPoint program that tried.

We know that about 19% of children aged 6-18 are obese, but it's tougher to find the percentage that are morbidly obese, of whom Randy Seeley, associate director of the Obesity Research Center at the University of Cincinnati Medical School says in Time Magazine, "zero percent will grow up to be normal-weight adults."  Googling "morbidly obese children" only yields hundreds of articles discussing the merits of snatching these kids out of their biological parents' homes into foster care--for their own good, of course.

If taxpayer-paid programs can't reverse childhood obesity despite financial incentives, what can we do? That desperate question underlies a progressive value that assumes intervention--anything--is required for every problem. Given that science has yet to understand whether it's DNA, stress, or even an adenovirus that has spiked rates of obesity over the past 20 years in both children and adults, it's naive to assume more instruction that repeats mandatory school health lessons about square, uh, pyramidal, uh plate-shaped diets combined with exercise, will work.

What will work is dropping all the federal funding in this squeezed economy for spongy, feel-good programs with no basis or track-record. Scale back on the school breakfasts and lunches, even the ones with the salad and apples designed to model healthy meals (that end up in the trash). Keep the health courses that offer basic nutritional information but focus not on some mythical ideal dinner plate but instead on learning what real hunger and satiation feel like, and why listening to those physical (and associated mental) cues--rather than emotional needs and ubiquitous come-ons of fast food and supermarket munchies--is the way people stay naturally healthy and in sync with their bodies.

At this point, until science catches up with some definitive information, we also need to discuss and to some extent embrace the reality that overweight (not obesity) is actually the most healthy status. Paul Campos, in his book The Obesity Myth documents that greatest longevity accrues to those in the "overweight" BMI category. In an interview in The Atlantic, Campos, a law professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, says "There is literally not a shred of evidence that turning fat people into thin people improves their health. And the reason there's no evidence is that there's no way to do it."

Do we want healthy Americans, or do we want fashionably thin ones? With Michelle Obama's chisled biceps as models, used as she gracefully shovels dirt for the White House vegetable garden, it seems the latter.  There's no harm in recognizing healthy foods and activities, but insisting that over-riding our own intuitive means to know what's healthy for us individually, and what's satisfying to us physiologically, eliminates the most time-tested and simple means to stay our personal best weights, whatever the number on the scale.

Rosh Hashana, Apple Cake and Getting Fat

The Jewish calendar reveals that it's almost Rosh Hashana, the beginning of the New Year, and despite our religion's lack of superstition, when our future hangs in the balance--literally, with our good deeds weighed by God against our bad--we bring on the symbolism.

With food.

Since early Jewish commentaries (Gemara tractate K'risos 6a) where "Abaye said '...at the beginning of each year, each person should accustom himself to eat gourds (squash), fenugreek (or sesame seeds or black-eyed peas), leeks, beets and dates...'," families have adopted the custom to put these and four other foods on their tables, eaten ceremoniously, each with a request to God.  The others are pomegranate, a whole fish, and the most famous, apple, eaten dipped in honey.

The foods were chosen because their names relate to ideas for increase and sweetness for the coming year, and protection from harm.

The apple dipped in honey idea has led to holiday menus incorporating permutations of both, including apple cake and honey cake.  I usually serve a first-night menu that features honey in every dish.  Even the challah, the egg bread that's shaped as a braid the rest of the year, gets a new form--round in a circle, representing the circular nature of passages in time.

Since our college-freshman son was in third grade, we've made apple cake from a class cookbook of the kids' favorites.  It's easy and delicious, more like chunks of apple held together with sweet crumbles:

Max’s Grandma’s Apple Cake

2 cups flour

1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
3 cups peeled and sliced apples
½ cup vegetable/canola oil
1 egg, beaten

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray a bundt or springform pan with non-stick cooking spray.

Combine flour, sugar, soda, salt, and cinnamon in a large bowl. Mix in oil, egg and apples. 

Pour into pan and bake about 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Every culture has its culinarily-based traditions, and certainly Jews imbue their food with more than flavors and guilt. We use it to elevate ourselves above animals by a "ritual" washing and blessings, and we are commanded in the Torah to "eat, be satisfied, and thank the Lord your God for the good land he has given you."  But even beyond all that, Rosh Hashana food is far more than merely reminiscent of the holiday.

Jewish scholars have noted that the point isn't the foods themselves, but rather the humility and respect for God viewing them invokes in us.  Even if you don't like the symbolic foods, or you're allergic, you'd still put them on the table to focus our yearnings.  As the one cooking and planning, I'd guess that all the extra effort that goes into gathering all these symbols earns a bit of God's attention.

An article last week in the New York Times bears upon America's food traditions, connecting changes in family habits with the sharp rise in obesity between 1980 and 2000.  Imbuing food with symbolic powers and emotional connections, like Jews do on Rosh Hashana, isn't the culprit in humanity's higher BMIs--instead it's the eeeevil corporations who market bounteous food at low prices. And it's irresistible sloth-enticements like television and computers, robbing the young of fresh-air playtime. 

A current series of articles in The Lancet, chock-full of politically-correct messages, say that no culture has ever reversed its obesity trends--which "increases the urgency for evidence-creating policy action, with a priority on reduction of the supply-side drivers."  In other words, government must mandate less food availability, so people have to eat less and thus get thin. In a reversal of the war on hunger, Lancet pundits suggest a war on plenty.

In the Times article, health writer Jane Brody reminisces about the good-old days of her childhood, when, lacking nearby vending machines and fast-food outlets, she had to "walk or bike many blocks to buy an ice cream cone," no doubt through ten feet of snow. Kids "went out to run around and play until dark," TV was a week-end special event, and nightly home-cooked meals included no "convenience foods" other than canned fruits and vegetables.

OK, I can play that game too.  When I was a kid, yes, my family did have dinner together, and when I'd ask my mom "What's for dez?" (dessert), she'd usually answer, "canned fruit."  You know, the kind in that heavy sugar-syrup.  Because fruit was healthy.  I'd be disappointed, but sometimes she'd bring home a coffee cake, which we'd devour slathered in butter.

We consumed lots of beef. Mostly ground, the fattier kind, because it was cheaper than the lean.  An eating-out treat was buying a big bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.  So greasy I'd use half a roll of paper towels blotting it first. It came with mayonnaisy cole slaw.

We drank our milk from those quaint glass bottles the milkman would leave by our back door.  Whole milk, of course.  It was better for children than the only other type, skim.

I didn't come from a family that kept kosher, and every Sunday, my mom would fry up a huge pan of bacon.  Pig bacon, and sausages, served with eggs and pancakes with butter and syrup and glasses of whole milk.

Being a girl, "going out to play" meant confabs or poring over Seventeen Magazine with my best friends.  It meant card games and sometimes sidewalk roller skating.  Good thing there weren't so many skateboarders around. (Why aren't those guys at their computers??)  I had a lot of homework, hand-written from notes taken sitting for hours at the library. 

But we know, suggests Jane Brody and the Lancet crew, that fast foods, corn-syrup-laden store products, aggressive advertising and TV and computers caused the rise in US obesity. 

What, then, has caused its slight decline over the last decade?  What has caused increased obesity in developing countries without these innovations? 

I suspect that alarm over the "obesity epidemic" is exacerbating it.  The more experts insert themselves in our eating choices, by law, policy or admonition, the more we feel guilty about food.  And the stress makes us eat. Or convolute our diets so our bodies don't get what they really need.

Which brings me back to Rosh Hashana, when particular foods are not seen as cholesterol, calories, trans-fats, raw or slow.  Instead, they're sweetness, plenty, protection, and entreaty to God.  In a sense, it's a good thing to have an occasion when we see beyond the sensory pleasure of food to the long-term meaning of sustenance--to continue through another day, and another year.

To my Jewish friends, have a stevia-sweet 5772 of svelte and active health.  And to us all, may every taste remind us of heaven.

Writing Avoidance and "Social Media"

The New York Times' business section is something I usually scan and toss--until today. I kept reading articles--one on Tumblr, touted as a cross between Facebook and Twitter. Another on author Buzz Bissinger's conversion from Twitter con to Twitter pro, as in he used to despise it, now lives by it.  As psychological release during writer's angst.

Reading the first piece, my visceral reaction was: "Both Facebook and Twitter are such colossal time-wasters, and they're turning everyone narcissistic. Now there's another tiresome 'social network' to soak up the day for suckers." Simultaneously, my other brain is thinking, "hmm, better join Tumblr."

Because unlike Buzz Bissinger (right), who wrote the sports classic "Friday Night Lights" 22 years ago and, while yet to duplicate that success, keeps churning out product, I use any number of procrastination, distraction and obfuscation techniques to keep from completing projects I could be whipping out.

Do I need Twitter to jump-start my industrious spirit?  Do I need to emulate Buzz Bissinger, who Tweets, "When people call me over-the-hill I react with profane defensiveness. But maybe it is true. It crawls into my head every minute, every day" and then, unburdened, returns to his keyboard?

Um, maybe. Writing is lonely, but if there's something to say--and someone waiting for it--you really can't dither around much.  But now there's Facebook and its tempting voyeuristic sense of skulking around people's lives.  Email, the old standby, provides an hour of diversion.  Web links, another hour, and then it's time to pick up a kid, or listen to the can't-miss radio show, or start cooking, or get to the market lest we're out of milk.  I wonder if Buzz buys the milk in his family?

On the other hand, Twitter and Facebook and now Tumblr and any number of their competitors can be seen as promotion.  Authors need audiences; even more, they need purchasers.  You don't make money on Twitter, and probably not on Facebook or Tumblr, but supposedly they're required to promote the author "brand."

Truth is, for many of us, the psychological bugaboo is probably low self esteem; fear of failure; the same fear Buzz Tweets about--being told you're no good, over the hill, unworthy.

The over-the-hill idea fits because anyone who grew up with My Space and Facebook and YouTube doesn't have that fear.  Used to being "right out there," casually insulted, and publicly teased--and even more often, praised and "friended," kids just don't care about others' judgements.  Their self-esteem is so secure, so lauded, so intact, they'll easily put up a video of themselves singing off-key the 3,000th "cover" of a song, just because the world can see it. Once you can click onto a website and see yourself singing, you're famous; you feel good.  Now, just get other people to subscribe to your channel and "follow" you. No need for any authorities to validate your worth.  These are the seeds of the out-of-control egos and "look at me" mentality that are everywhere.  America's got talent, and YouTube's got everybody.

Note to self: get over it and learn some bravado from your son, who just had his 18th birthday Friday and has many, many followers of his YouTube channel.

What? Counting followers?  The world's laughing--maybe. Better check Facebook.