The Skinny On New York's Beauty Obsession, Part Two

OK, maybe I stretched the post title a little—this is really about women across the nation. Today's Daily News prints the results of that earth-shattering study by Meredith Corporation and NBC Universal that women would rather be skinny than worry about cancer. Excuse me while I roll my eyes and say, "No kidding. You needed to interview 3,000 women for that?"

But this time, I'm not out to criticize the 56 percent of women that obsess about their diets more so than cancer. To me, it makes perfect sense. See, I think most people live in the here and now and can't wrap their minds around their own mortality when that's better left to the future. (Better depressed tomorrow than today.) Of course diet and weight is in the forefront of your mind when you look in the mirror every day!

Thoughts like "This dress doesn't fit the same after that pint of Ben & Jerry's last night" or "Look at my muffin top over these jeans!" are in the present. Thinking, "Maybe smoking will give me cancer," or, "You know, these $30 cocktails aren't damaging my liver any less" is not going to stop you from trading in the hedonism today for the worries of tomorrow! Most people deal with that when they come to it. It that smart as a prevention strategy? Probably not. But if you could look in the mirror and see what you're doing to your internal organs the same way you can see the effects of Chunky Monkey, maybe it would be different.

Of course, this is my snap judgment of the "Daily News" simplistic reading of the study. Based on the study's "findings," actually, I have no clue what it was originally supposed to be about, since it seems to cover everything from weight to diet to cancer to identity issues. What were these researchers asking??

[The Skinny On New York's Beauty Obsession]