You mean because someone else said it was "vocabulary"?

No, that's vocabulary. She used the wrong word.

Right. Because you don't live next to cows. Good thing you're an engineer so you understand the issue so well. Nice that you're so charming, too.

Dear Troll, You know that cows farting contribute to global climate change, right? So it really doesn't matter if you live next to them or not.

I don't really know who is the most popular, although I've certainly heard of Kate Upton and seen photos of her. This discussion prompted me to check out askmen to see if I'm completely wrong about what men like, and the women I saw are all thin and mostly pretty curvy (Kate Upton is there, too, at #6). And maybe I'm…

So when I said "I have no idea what her current state of health is, and didn't claim to," that to you means that I was categorizing her as healthy or unhealthy? It is an undeniable fact that being obese is a risk factor for all kinds of poor health outcomes. That does not mean that she is ill now, and it also does not…

Thickness at the waist? But nowhere else?

I'm confused by this. I don't watch these pagents, so I googled swimsuit photos of contestants and they all look about the same size as Miss Indiana, just with more defined waistlines. The stereotype for "the body type men actually want" is curvy, ie. hourglass-shaped. But you seem to be saying that men want a woman…

I think it's just badly rounded - the average height for women in the US, according to the CDC report from 2008 is 63.8 inches, so closer to 5'4". And yes, it's the mean: www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr010.pdf

Women's average height in the US is closer to 5'4" according to the CDC (63.8 inches). www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr010.pdf It's not a big difference, but I can't help wondering why the error: did the author of the LA Times article round down because it served her point better or is she math challenged? And why oh…

So, BMI is suddenly relevant now that we're talking about someone being UNDER the ideal?

It's so difficult that there's so much uncertainty around any cancer treatment. I'm surprised that doctors would still be telling someone they are "cancer free" - I didn't think they did that because they can't possibly know for sure.

Maybe some of the difficulty is that within each type of cancer, there are different…

Actually, I misused the word "malignant" here - that only applies to cells that have started dividing out of control. My point stands, though, that having some cancer cells is not the same thing as having cancer.

I agree that there are variations and that different people can handle different kinds of diets. I recently stopped eating meat for health reasons, but others do OK on meat. And I eat non-fat Greek yogurt and beans for protein, and take fish oil capsules for good oils. It's new enough that I'm still working on getting…

It's true that we may have malignant cells in our bodies at any given time and that most of the time, our immune systems can combat them. This study, though, doesn't talk about an increased incidence in malignant cells that our immune system may or may not be able to handle. The study talks about an increase in cases…

If you don't eat red meat, it's better for your health AND it's more ethical. Raising cattle is a significant contributor to climate change. So as far as beef goes, there's no health-vs-ethics dilemma.

Me too! I never eat the store-bought stuff because it has added sugar. But fat-free Greek yogurt with blueberries is a staple at my house.

Most people are saying that her waist isn't nipped in, which makes her look more "normal". "Curvy" is when a woman's waistline is significantly smaller than her chest and hips. It just amazes me that "having curves" has come to be used to describe the exact opposite of what it actually means.

The rental costs must be huge on a place like this! All I can think is that if I had her money I'd never rent anything - it seems like a waste of money if you have the choice.

A beauty pagent isn't about "OK" or "acceptable" - it's about beautiful. Lots of sizes are acceptable in our society, but they just aren't all considered to be the most beautiful.