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People Link Body Shapes with Personality Traits:
When we meet new people, our first impressions of their personality may depend, at least in part, on their body shape, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
"Our research shows that people infer a wide range of personality traits just by looking at the physical features of a particular body," says psychological scientist Ying Hu of the University of Texas at Dallas, first author on the research. "Stereotypes based on body shape can contribute to how we judge and interact with new acquaintances and strangers. Understanding these biases is important for considering how we form first impressions."
Previous research has shown that we infer a considerable amount of social information by looking at other people's faces, but relatively little research has explored whether body shapes also contribute to these judgments.
[...] Hu and colleagues created 140 realistic body models, of which 70 were female and 70 male. The three-dimensional renderings were generated from random values along 10 different body dimensions, using data from laser scans of actual human bodies. Using these models allowed the researchers to know the precise physical measurements of each body shown in the study.
A total of 76 undergraduate participants viewed a set of models — they saw each body from two angles and indicated whether 30 trait words shown on screen applied to that body. The trait words reflected dimensions of the Big Five personality traits (a common measure of personality used in psychology research) typically seen as positive (e.g., enthusiastic, extraverted, dominant) or negative (e.g., quiet, reserved, shy).
[...] Generally, participants judged heavier bodies as being associated with more negative traits, such as being lazy and careless; they judged lighter bodies as having more positive traits, such as being self-confident and enthusiastic.
Furthermore, the participants perceived classically feminine (e.g., pear-shaped) and classically masculine (e.g., broad-shouldered) bodies as being associated with "active" traits, such as being quarrelsome, extraverted, and irritable. Male and female bodies that were more rectangular, on the other hand, were associated with relatively passive traits, such as being trustworthy, shy, dependable, and warm.
[...] These findings add a new layer to the science behind first impressions, revealing "the complicated and value-based judgments that people make about strangers based only on their bodies," Hu concludes.
Journal Reference:
Ying Hu, Connor J. Parde, Matthew Q. Hill, Naureen Mahmood, Alice J. O'Toole. First Impressions of Personality Traits From Body Shapes. Psychological Science, 2018; 095679761879930 DOI: 10.1177/0956797618799300
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday November 02 2018, @03:41PM (32 children)
Character, and being able to afford healthy "real" foods rather than the cheaper heavily-processed corn that makes up a striking percentage of the US diet. And also having the means to get to someplace that sells them, which is such a substantial problem that the USDA has termed them food deserts [usda.gov].
And no, it's not a general "Western society" thing: USAians are on average significantly fatter than Canadians, Brits, Germans, Irish, Poles, Norwegians, Finns, French, and Italians. You also can't generally blame it on non-Western subcultures or genetics within the US: The countries that are fatter than the US are mostly among the Pacific islands and a few of the Arab nations, and there just aren't enough Pacific islanders and Arabs living in the US to skew the numbers that much for the country as a whole.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday November 02 2018, @04:01PM (29 children)
I dunno about "afford healthy "real" foods". Real food consists of things like potatoes, rice, beans, ground beef, and a small myriad of other "basics" or "staples". For all of my life, I've been able to walk into a grocery store, and find a pound of dried beans, or a pound of rice for less than the price of a burger at the local diner/cafe. You can get a ten pound bag of potatoes for about the price of a "supersized" meal. A pound of hamburger costs near about what a Big Mac sells for, maybe a little more.
I can buy staples very cheaply. The difference between me, and may younger Americans is, I know how easy it is to turn a couple potatoes and 1/4 pound of hamburger into a meal.
Those who have never been taught to cook a meal may not have a lot of choices in what they eat. Maybe schools should go back to basics, and teach Home Economics to all students? I mean - if you can cook up some home fries, or O'brien potatoes, maybe you shouldn't be able to graduate? And, beans. I love me some beans. Great Northern beans are really nice. Cook up a pot of Boston Baked Beans with them - hey, I can eat all week! Or, some nice dried Red Beans. Add a little ground beef to those beans, some seasonings and spices, and you've got a pot of chili. With a little practice, you can make chili at home that will shame ANY commercial brand of chili you can buy.
Haven't even touched on salads yet. Here, I admit, I'm almost as lazy as most Americans. I seldom go through the produce section, with the goal in mind, of making a killer salad. But, it really doesn't take much. Few tomatoes, an onion, a cucumber, a pepper if you like peppers, a small lettuce. You've already got your basic salad - look around. Croutons? Bacon bits? Pickles? Maybe a slice of ham? Oh - belay that last. It's growing less and less possible to walk into the deli section of a grocery store, and ask for a slice, or even a pound, of anything. Butchers seem to be a dying breed. Still - some meat is an option. Or cheese. OLIVES!! No salad is truly complete without some olives, preferably ripe olives.
It's a little difficult for me to believe that people can NOT find basic staples. It's far easier to believe that people don't know WTF they are looking for, or how to use them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 02 2018, @04:15PM
It helps if you don't mistake Walmart for a grocery store.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday November 02 2018, @04:41PM (11 children)
1. Imagine you don't own a car.
2. Imagine you live in a place where the nearest grocery store further than you can easily walk.
As the map I linked showed, there are millions of Americans in that exact situation. If they're too broke to own a car, their options are:
1. Eat fast food, which I think we can all agree is generally awful for you.
2. Eat the stuff you can buy in a convenience store or drug store. Again, no signs of rice, beans, fresh-cut meat, or produce here.
3. Do grocery shopping by bus or other public transit. This will often make what should be a 30-minute trip into a 2-hour trip. 2 hours that they may not have.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday November 02 2018, @05:15PM (8 children)
Hasn't grocery store deliveries come to the US yet? You order online, and they deliver everything you want to your door in a cooled truck the same or the next day at a time of your choice. It would be odd if non of the big chains could do that. Sure they charge about $3 bucks for that over here, there are drawbacks tho that you can't pick out say fruits and veg and you might miss out on various promotional things in the store. On the other hand the giant upside is that you don't have to go to the store, or drive there or stand in lines etc. When I go to the store now it's mostly to pick up fruit and veg, I like to pick the once I want. But for a packer or deliveryboy (or whomever they use in the store) to pick up like X box of something doesn't matter since they are all the same. Might as well let them do that part.
If Amazon can deliver things to your door it would be odd if say (insert name of big food chain local to your area here) could do it. If they can't learn that I would assume that soon Amazon will start or branch off into Amazon FOOD and then just do it themselves.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday November 02 2018, @05:25PM (2 children)
Grocery delivery is available in large parts of the US. I don't know what the limitations and costs associated with using it are.
What really isn't considered is time. Many people are holding down two minimum wage jobs to try to meet their rent. This doesn't leave time to do anything else. The only time they can shop is when they're between (one of their) jobs, and they without an income. Admittedly the employers arrange that they're between jobs frequently enough that they never become a permanent employee...unless the employers is ensuring this my keeping their hours at less than 20/week, and on call rather than at predictable times.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Friday November 02 2018, @07:01PM (1 child)
How long does it take to boil pasta or chop a carrot and throw it in a slow cooker?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday November 03 2018, @04:20PM
1) I think you need to look at your proposed nutrient balance.
2) You have to wait for it to cook.
Both can be dealt with, in most situations that I've been in, but I've seen lots of situations where that just wasn't practical...or sometimes even possible.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday November 02 2018, @05:47PM (4 children)
Using what computer and Internet connection, exactly? Remember, these are folks that are very poor.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 02 2018, @07:17PM
And also:
- doesn't help rural folks
- doesn't help folks who can't afford to spend $100 to get free delivery
- doesn't help folks who can't order blind "10lbs potatoes, 2lbs carrots, 1lb ground meat" but need "I have $10 and need to feed us for three days, what's inexpensive today"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 03 2018, @01:18AM (2 children)
There's never a shortage of people who can't understand why the poor don't just spend their way out of poverty.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 03 2018, @02:42AM (1 child)
You can't spend your way out of poverty, but you can reduce your spending to make your situation less bad. This can be done in the vast majority of cases, even for people who are not in poverty. Too many people buy too much useless shit and then whine about not having money.
(Score: 2) by https on Sunday November 04 2018, @04:02PM
It's OK, you're among friends here. You can say "I don't know any poor people personally."
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 02 2018, @07:27PM (1 child)
Imagine they are a quadriplegic. Now imagine they are also blind and deaf. Imagine that they were on disability, but all of their caretakers beat them. Imagine they inherited a billion dollars, but were starving to death because every care taker would beat them, take their money and leave them naked out in the road.
Now imagine your a naked, blind quadriplegic laying out in the road. And it starts to snow, but you don't have any clothes on. At least you're not cold because you can't feel your body below your chin.
Just imagine
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 03 2018, @01:17PM
You forgot the part about child rape and making the world safe for men.
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Friday November 02 2018, @06:35PM (1 child)
It's not only cooking, but basic life skills, coping mechanism, communication skills.
I had the idea of extending the school year. Nine months of standard curriculum and three months of basically how to be a human. Ungraded, but mandatory attendance. Learn how to cook, clean, wash clothes, change light bulbs, unclog a toilet, make a budget, take care of an animal, etc.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Saturday November 03 2018, @01:40AM
Don't forget History and Moral Philosophy.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 02 2018, @06:37PM (10 children)
There is money and there is time. They are not the same.
If you include the time to prepare, cook, and clean-up, getting a good meal takes maybe 1-2 hours. Plus time to travel to the store and buy stuff. In contrast, a trip to the local fast food store is probably 30 minutes total.
For me personally I tend to cook something big on the weekend and then re-heat it through the week, but a lot of people want more variety. I can see the time adding up, especially if stressed out with children and juggling multiple jobs.
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Friday November 02 2018, @07:07PM (9 children)
What meal takes two hours to cook? Or even one hour? I can cook pretty good means in ten minutes (including cleanup). It just takes a little practice which is what the OP was talking about.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday November 02 2018, @10:09PM (2 children)
If you're starting from dry beans, you need to cook them for a good long while. Of course, you don't need to monitor them while they're cooking, so it's a good thing to set up on, say, a Saturday morning while you're doing something else.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Friday November 02 2018, @11:22PM
42 minutes in a pressure cooker. or with a slow cooker, 2 minutes in the morning and they're done when you get home
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Friday November 02 2018, @11:44PM
https://www.wellplated.com/instant-pot-black-beans/ [wellplated.com]
2 cups completely dry black beans, 3 cups water. Pressure cook for 35 minutes in Instant Pot, let pressure release naturally.
I used to bother with overnight soaking and hard boiling, now I just do this. You can make several meals for the week very quickly this way.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday November 02 2018, @11:11PM (2 children)
Any spaghetti sauce worthy of the name. :) Of course, the pasta is quick, but the sauce... that needs to go most of the day. We start ours in the morning so it'll be ready for the evening meal.
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Friday November 02 2018, @11:24PM
use an electric pressure cooker. Twenty minutes and you don't have to babysit it
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday November 03 2018, @11:29AM
Try fresh tomatoes, olive oil and garlic. Chop the tomatoes and garlic, add to olive oil in a pan at high heat, stir lightly until tomatoes begin to soften. Takes about two minutes to cook, if that.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday November 02 2018, @11:12PM (2 children)
um, and Chili. A decent chili is another takes-a-while to cook meal.
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Saturday November 03 2018, @10:38AM (1 child)
https://www.amazon.com/Multi-Function-Multi-Use-Stainless-Non-Stick-Removable/dp/B0758CW261/ref=sr_1_29?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1541241222&sr=1-29&keywords=electric+pressure+cooker [amazon.com]
These things are amazing. Melt in your mouth meat, vegetables and beans in half an hour. Same as cooking on a stove for 6 hours plus it won't burn to the bottom. And it uses less energy.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Saturday November 03 2018, @04:06PM
We have instant pots (I think we have 3 different sizes) and yes, many things go very well, and very quickly in them. But long term slow cooking goes through a different chemical process; for instance, with tomatoes, long term cooking significantly reduces acidity. With meat (sous vide steak, for instance, or all-day ribs), long-term cooking produces considerably more consistent cooking throughout the cut.
For spaghetti sauce, we prefer a sweet, low-acid tomato sauce with cooked mushrooms, finely chopped garlic, just a little bit of finely chopped onion, same for green pepper, and bay leaf. Plus salt, pepper, etc. We have tried several different variations with an instant pot, but none have come close to a 12-hour slow cook, particularly in the area of the character of the tomato base. This is all relative to our perceptions an our palettes, of course. YMMV.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by legont on Friday November 02 2018, @08:23PM (1 child)
It's an attractive argument, but unfortunately not a valid one. The US food industry produces at least 20% more calories than healthy people can eat. If people go on diet, the US economy will collapse.
To stuff all that feed (can't call it food, sorry) into the population the US food industry employs highly educated and well paid scientists. No, one can't win in this situation unless one has a very serious character.
P.S. As you, I cook for myself and so on, but even that is not enough. There is constantly a pressure. Restaurants on the streets smell (no, they smell much less in say Europe), people in the office joke about diets, while jokes about their fat asses are against the code of conduct and so on and so on.
I greatly admire people who, with average genes, are able to keep themselves in shape; and when I have a word, I prefer them.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 03 2018, @10:43AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPMS6tGOACo [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Saturday November 03 2018, @02:42PM
Runaway, like me... you are almost as lazy as most Americans.
That makes a big difference in what we are willing to do to remain healthy (or smart or whatever). Knowing how to use raw ingredients to make something worth eating--and not burning the water while doing so--is an art being lost.
For anyone that hasn't had the luxury of doing so, I recommend the Instant Pot appliance--my girlfriend's Hello Kitty rice steamer (yes... we had one) failed due to her inability to attend to its maintenance needs (overflowed for the last time and sizzled goop in the innards and fried too many things inside to salvage it).
The Instant Pot is like a pressure cooker that has been modernized--you can make complete meals in it, but the best results are from making aspects of a meal in it to either save time or get something off the stove or out of the oven to leave room for other cooking tasks.
The Instant Pot can then do a wide variety of cooking methods (as far as boiling, heating, and pressure cooking is concerned) and save a lot of time--boils rice, cooks beans, can make a pot roast, soup, potatoes, even make bread if you're willing to accept something sort of like bread (in my results at least).
For all the non-Millenials out there that scoff at it--don't. It's a modern replacement for pressure cookers and crock pots and acts as a supplemental tool for cooking that allow you to save time.
Combine that with Runaway's basics and you can feed yourself with decent meals on a regular basis--it can work on a timer too; drop in what you want to eat for dinner before you go to work in the AM, and it can turn on and make that pot roast or stew or whatever by the time you get home. Few things are better than getting home with a meal already waiting for you (it might not replace a significant other's cooking as far as how good it can get... but if she's not home from work yet, it might replace your cooking!)
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Friday November 02 2018, @06:57PM
Canadians are getting fatter
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/canadians-getting-fatter-statscan-says/article1373046/ [theglobeandmail.com]
Brits are getting fatter (at twice the rate of the US)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/children/7853104/British-children-getting-fatter-at-twice-the-rate-of-American-youngsters.html [telegraph.co.uk]
Germans getting fatter
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2010-06-germans-fatter-statistics.html [medicalxpress.com]
Irish getting fatter
http://www.ipcra.org/ [ipcra.org]
France s getting fatter
https://www.frenchentree.com/living-in-france/culture/france-is-getting-fatter/ [frenchentree.com]
Norway is getting fatter
https://www.thelocal.no/20150506/norways-men-soon-to-be-among-europes-fattest-who [thelocal.no]
Europeans Are Getting Fatter, Just Like Americans
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/05/09/311116522/europeans-are-getting-fatter-just-like-americans [npr.org]
The US just got there first, and it's called exponential growth (no pun)
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday November 02 2018, @08:30PM
Western society is not a geographical, but economic and cultural term. Other than that I totally agree with you. I can add that Malthus was right and no more than 10% of the current population can be fed reasonably well. However, we are part of lucky few who can afford good food if one invests money, time and most importantly character. It's a lifetime quest. When you see one, appreciate one as one of better ones.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.