Another month? Another round of things to read! This month, more forays into the wide world of gender, with a glance at atheism, mathematics, psychopathy, and obesity, and a whole herd flock pack horde of zombies.
Section 1: Free Things to Read
Gender Analyzer. It turns out that you can analyze a block of text for simple cues that reveal a person’s gender. What’s new for me is that most of my readers have never heard of this. Just copy a few pages of your latest story, or a portion of your favorite blog post, and see how it turns out! If you try it on this paragraph, you’ll discover that Apple Pie’s writing is moderately masculine.
How to Be an Atheist in Medieval Europe. The first in Alec Ryrie’s series of lectures on the history of Western Atheism; you can find them as YouTube videos as well.
Have you heard of the Golden Ratio? Lately it seems people haven’t heard of it, even people with a background in mathematics. This is understandable to a degree, since the Golden Ratio, phi, is more a curiosity than a critical number like pi or e, but it still has some fascinating properties.
Section 2: Free Things to Read (About Zombies)
John Green, Zombicorns. This unprepossessing story is much more fun than it might seem; I read it over a decade ago and still think back on some of the more poignant passages from time to time: “Your father was very tall.” Also available online here.
BerkaZerka, Dead Man Walking. [Not recommended for readers under 16.] The Choose Your Own Adventure Books all American Gen-Xers grew up knowing and loving are still around, somewhere, like at the library or something. But now there’s the Internet and we’ve all grown up and seen way, way too many zombie movies. Also we learned elementary coding skills and we aren’t beholden to those ridiculous page limits from old school Choose Your Own Adventure books. So it turns out there’s an entire website called Choose Your Story filled with these games, and by coincidence the highest-rated horror fun story is Dead Man Walking. It’s very detailed and starts slowly, but patience pays off with this one. Good luck!
Section 3: Free Studies About Things
Men are from Deimos, women are from Eris: We all know that masculine men are more prone to committing violent crimes. The explanation is commonly that the underlying psychological trait, psychopathy, is more common in males. But what about feminine men? Gender exists on something of a spectrum, with the underlying personality trait of Emotionality determining how qualitatively male or female someone seems, so it’s interesting to see that: “Feminine men exhibited more features of all the personality disorders except antisocial.” And of course, when women become more feminine, as when they experience an increase in estradiol (for instance, when they go on the pill), they show more features of Borderline Personality Disorder.
What else could be causing the rise in obesity? Everyone knows people are eating more and moving around less. But you may not have considered ten other explanations:
Reduction in Sleep: “The average amount of sleep has steadily decreased”
Endocrine Distruptors: “Endocrine disruptors have increased in the food chain.”
Air Conditioning: “Exposure to ambient temperatures above or below the thermoneutral zone increases energy expenditure”
Decreased Smoking (bummer, guys)
Pharmaceuticals: “Weight gain is induced by many psychotropic medications”
Demographic Changes: Older and non-white individuals have higher BMI
Delayed Childbearing: “[O]dds of obesity increased 14.4% for every 5-year increment in maternal age.”
Interuterine Effects: “[E]xtremes of energy imbalance in-utero (overfeeding and low birth weight) may contribute to obesity.”
Evolutionary Change: “Number of offspring is positively correlated with BMI among women.”
Assortative Mating: “[C]ombined evidence strongly suggests that assortative mating has contributed to the epidemic”
Is there an obese personality? A bit. Go down to page 29 and see the little black dots, which were significant findings. Obesity is related to trouble regulating diet and exercise; in other words, impulsivity is the main driver of obesity, with the usual relationships to unhappiness. You can substantiate this by looking at personality disorders: personality disorders are risk factors for obesity. This is, incidentally, a good reason not to embarrass people about their weight—many people would be thinner if they were less vulnerable to stress, anxiety, jealousy, and guilt. Feeling down about your weight doesn’t make it any easier to keep it off. Instead, try boosting your mood by exercising, meditating, or reading this blog.
"Cheap food" is not even on the list of causes of obesity?