• Even beauty queens are feeling the pinch of the recession: CBS reports that many pageant contestants have been forced to wear their dresses more than once or, worst case scenario, sell their costumes. •
• A recent survey found that eight out of 10 people suffering from an eating disorder have faced bullying or discrimination. In response, Beat, a UK-based charity, has released a manifesto, which calls for “self-esteem promoting” programs to be introduced to schools. “We can’t continue to wrap our children in candyfloss,” it argues. • Britain’s Royal College of Psychiatrists criticized the media today for “glamourizing” eating disorders and promoting an unhealthy body image. The group is calling for an end to the use of underweight models, a label for digitally manipulated images, and the establishment of a government panel of experts that would draw up a new ethics code for magazine editors. • The Guardian has collected the stories of four women who gave birth in prison. As one might expect, most of them didn’t have a remotely easy time of it – especially considering the handcuffs. • Kim Anderson, associate professor in the MU School of Social Work, says that while most domestic violence treatment programs just address the victim’s problems, they should focus more on the survivor’s strengths. “What are normally regarded as negative traits in survivors of family violence might actually be their survival strengths,” Anderson said. “Traits that practitioners often try to change may be extremely important to maintain and can help survivors thrive in environments where there isn’t violence.” • French feminists are going after president Sarkozy for a billboard that depicts Marianne, the personification of the French republic, as a pregnant woman dressed in white. “The hand of the state should not be in my uterus, and certainly not to look for money,” said Le Féminin l’Emporte, a feminist blog. • A new report indicates that black women may be at a higher risk for developing a potentially deadly weakening around the heart muscle during childbirth. Other risk factors include hypertension, being unmarried, smoking, and having more than two previous pregnancies. • The adult daughter of Joe Stack, the man who crashed a plane into the Austin IRS building last week, says her father was a hero for his anti-government views, though his actions were “inappropriate.” The son of Vernon Hunter, who was killed in the attack, responded, “My dad didn’t write the tax law. Nobody in that building wrote the tax law.” • Want Michelle Obama’s awesome guns? Her trainer, Cornell McClellan, tells CBS exactly how to get those arms. Spoiler alert: It’s gonna take some work. • Danish researchers have found that antidepressant use among pregnant woman can delay when their children hit certain developmental milestones. Antidepressants can cause delays up of to a month, but fortunately, the children are still within the normal range, and by six months, the differences have evened out. • Can you imagine a worse person to speak at a benefit for rape survivors than Bill O’Reilly? Except for maybe Sarah Palin, we can’t think of anyone less suited for the job than the man who said this about a rape victim: “Now Moore, Jennifer Moore, 18, on her way to college. She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning.” • It turns out that Latino teens aren’t any more promiscuous, or any less likely to use condoms, than the rest of the population. Despite previous studies on race and sexuality, once you control for socioeconomic factors, the differences between Latino teens and other groups largely disappears, according to a researcher from the University of Illinois. • Doctors and nutritionists are complaining that The Biggest Loser‘s focus on competitive weight loss is dangerous. Sedentary contestants are pushed into strenuous activity too fast and encouraged to drop a lot of weight quickly, while doctors recommend losing only one to two pounds per week. Also, many contestants regain the weight. “They’re not working with a trainer every day, they’re not on national TV every day, they’re back to life,” says Robert Kushner, director of the Northwestern University Comprehensive Center on Obesity. “It’s very difficult to sustain.” • Scientists found there’s truth to the idea that dieters should eat their food slowly. When you wolf down your food, the body doesn’t have time to release hormones that tell the body it’s full. • According to a report from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Association, female veterans are more likely to become homeless when their service is over because they make on average $10,000 per year less than their male counterparts and have less access to homeless shelters and other services. “It’s disgusting,” said Paul Rieckhoff, the head of the organization. “It’s a national disgrace that these heroic people are coming home and ending up homeless.” • After Cord Ivanyi, a Latin teacher at the Gilbert Classical Academy in Arizona noticed high school boys were treating girls in class “pretty roughly,” he started instructing the boys in etiquette, teaching them to pull out the girls’ chairs, stand when girls enter the room and open doors for them. While it seems Ivanyi’s heart is in the right place, statements like, “There’s a different tenor in the class, a gravity attached to the girls. They’ve been more feminized in the boys’ eyes,” are problematic. •