now at Yale University, reported the im-
pact of society's fixation on slenderness
on her adolescence in an article for Ms.
magazine.
"Had I been born years ago, when
America worshipped a different beauty
ideal, I might have been not only
happy as is, but a sex object. In 1940,
the nude woman pictured on the label
of the White Rock soda bottle was five
feet four and weighed 140 pounds. (my
proportions exactly). Today's White
Rock "girl" is five feet eight and weighs
118 pounds. Imagine! Forty years ago I
could have appeared naked on a soft-
drink bottle, while today I cannot leave
my house in anything less than long
wide-legged pants and a roomy, long-
sleeved shirt."
Harold B., a West Bloomfield attorney,
described his daughter, now a sophomore
at an ivy league college. Typical of most
college students during their first year of
eating dormitory food, she put on some
weight.
"Why, she weighed 100 pounds,"
Harold said. "She's five feet two inches
tall. She was obese!"
She was not.
Whether you are small. medium or
large-framed, the National Institute of
Health (NIH) defines obesity as being
more than 20 percent over ideal weight.
To be classified as obese, according to
the 1983 Metropolitan Life Insurance
Company tables, a five foot, two inch
adult woman of medium frame would
have to weigh 158 pounds or more.
Some critics consider the standard in-
surance tables too generous, but they
do reflect the weights at which people
who bought life insurance lived longest.
Since "overweight" is understood as
being 110 to 120 percent above ideal
weight, Harold's daughter wasn't even
officially overweight. NIH recently con-
cluded that about 34 million American
adults are overweight, 11 million ser-
iously obese. Their risk of death from
heart disease, cancer or diabetes is
greatly increased as a result. And while
doctors are interested in weight control
as a means of reducing overall risk of
disease, most dieters seem to be
motivated not so much by health fac-
tors as by simple unhappiness with
their appearance.

D

feting is big news these days.
January cover stories on
weight control appeared in
Time, New York and U.S.
News & World Report magazines.
Smithsonian magazine the same month
featured a major story reporting new
research on physiological causes of

74

overweight. Union Memorial Hospital
attracted an SRO audience of doctors,
nutritionists and the public to a sym-
posium in March on nutrition, dieting
and eating disorders.
At least two paradoxical anomalies af-
flict Americans, illustrating the love-
hate relationship with food:
• We have the heftiest population in
the world. At the same time the experts
tell us we are suffering an epidemic of
bulimia (gorging followed by purging)
and anorexia nervosa;
• We seem weight-obsessed and food-
obsessed, concurrently, a delicate teeter
to totter. A burning interest in gourmet
goodies, especially chocolate, now blazes
nearly as powerfully as the national am-
bition to be thin. We now have
chocolate festivals, chocolate magazines
and even chocolate clubs to satisfy
America's flaming choco-holism.
Despite frustrations, dieting to lose
weight has developed into a massive
business - grossing an estimated $5
billion annually, and encompassing diet
manuals, over-the-counter diet drugs
and low-calorie foods as well as weight
loss programs and fitness clubs, but ex-
cluding medical fees, which mount up
to additional billions.
Do Jews have special problems with
overweight and other eating disorders?

The most striking evidence that we
may comes from a recent survey by Dr.
Albert Stunkard of the University of
Pennsylvania School of Medicine who
found that Jews ranked as the heftiest
religious grouping in the American
population (Protestants are the lightest,
Catholics somewhat heavier). Further-
more, the forebears of the most
overweight ethnic groups in America
hailed from Poland and Russia, as did a
substantial proportion of the Jewish
community (Americans with English
ancestors are the thinnest).

The late Nathan Pritikin told the

JEWISH TIMES (in an interview shortly

before his death last year) that the
traditional American Jewish diet does
more harm to the well-being of the
Jewish people than Hitler did. He
particularly blamed refined sugar, eggs —
which he would have declared unfit for
would have had declared unfit for
human consumption — heavily salted
foods and high fat foods such as that
found in red meat and dairy
products.
A new study by Dr. Stunkard,
described in a recent issue of The

New England Journal of Medicine,

strongly suggests that heredity, not
environment, plays the main, and

Friday, September 26, 1986 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

possibly the only role in determining
an individual's fatness or thinness. In
a study of 540 adults who had been
adopted, adoptive family environment
alone was found to have virtually no
effect on fatness. Even when raised by
others, the subjects resembled their
biological parents in weight
characteristics, with the strongest
parallel occurring between mothers
and daughters. Earlier studies of iden-
tical twins support the same conclu-
sion — long a canon of folk
wisdom — that fat runs in families
and perhaps in ethnic groups.
But if Jews are especially susceptible
to overweight, is their heredity or
their environment to blame? Could
both influences be important? And
can the susceptibility be overcome?
Oscar Levant, the late pianist and

humorist, once quipped: "Underneath
this flabby exterior is an enormous
lack of character." Too many people
believed him. Only recently has
anyone pondered whether Oscar got
flabby because his mother fed him
too much chicken fat. Or nagged him
to practice the piano. Or bequeathed
him a set of flabby family genes.
Researchers interested in the
physiological and psychological bases
of overweight have not arrived at
definitive answers. And no new magic
formula has emerged for melting off
pounds painlessly. But fighting flab is
big business, and when the ultimate
diet is developed, chances are that
the R & D process will have involved
a thoroughgoing study of the relation-
ship between Jews and food.

For The
Kosher Gourmet

BARBARA PASH

Special to The Jewish News

T

here's a new product on the
market for people who keep
kosher. Not a food. Not a
brand name. Rather, it's
Kosher Gourmet, a magazine for the
modern kosher consumer; the first and
only publication of its kind.
Kosher Gourmet is the brainchild of
Gil Marks, who hopes that the
magazine will interest not only tradi-
tional Jewish families but will also ap-
peal to the growing number of young
professionals who observe kashruth.
As publisher and editor of the
magazine, whose first issue appeared
this past March, Marks intends to offer
recipes, menu ideas and articles that
please and excite his readers.
Marks brings a diverse background,
to say the least, to his new venture. A
native of Richmond, Virginia, he was
graduated from Baltimore's Talmudical
Academy, received his ordination as a
rabbi from Yeshiva University, and
earned master's degrees in social work
and in history.
He worked at the Philadelphia
Jewish Community Relations Council
before moving to New York City
where, for the past four years, he serv-

ed as director of guidance at a yeshiva
high school.
"As far as food goes, I'm self-taught. I
learned how to cook as a child," says
Marks, who is also an Eagle Scout. "I
never took cooking classes." Apparent-
ly, though, he became a good enough
cook to "moonlight for caterers, as a
baker, for the past three or four years,
and I also catered free-lance for shuls in
Manhattan."
Kosher Gourmet is being published
six times a year. Each issue will have
special features on the holiday that is
closest to publication date, namely,
Marks enumerates, "Purim, Passover,
Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah and Thanks-
giving." The first issue, for example,
coincided with Purim, and had articles
on "A Non-Traditional Purim Seudah"
and "Shalachmones, A Dozen Treats
To Delight Your Friends."
The 24-page first issue was mailed to
almost 1,000 subscribers. By next year,
Marks is hoping to increase both the
number of subscribers, to 10,000, and
the number of pages, depending on the
advertisements he can obtain.
Although the magazine is available
primarily by subscription, Marks does
have a few outlets (in Baltimore, at
Pern's Hebrew Book & Gift Store)
where it can be bought.

