“Several experts cautioned, however, that the study hints that there still may be some benefits to reducing the total amount of fat in the diet, especially for breast cancer. In addition, there is clear evidence from this and other studies that particular fats -- saturated fats from meat and trans fats from processed foods -- are unhealthful and should be avoided.

. . .

Willett and other researchers fear that the findings will leave the public skeptical about all health advice, or will be misinterpreted to mean that diet and lifestyle are unimportant. A large and convincing body of evidence shows that eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains and low in saturated and trans fats; avoiding smoking; exercising regularly; and maintaining an appropriate weight have a powerful effect on health, they said.

. . .

The women on the low-fat diet had slightly lower levels of "bad" cholesterol -- low-density lipoprotein -- and blood pressure, but their risk of heart attack, stroke and heart disease was unaffected, one paper showed. There were indications, however, that women who cut down on saturated fat, or who ate more fruits and vegetables, did lower their risk.”

That is to say, Salon’s featuring this book and uncritical review in praise of animal fat just helped make your readership a little more stupid and significantly more prone to morbidity and early death.

by the distortions and misconceptions in responses to Mr. Wallace’s death and by evasion of the meaning of his distress and suicide are human health, dignity and life. We are, as one early commenter noted before reflexively telling a story about himself, “grateful” to evade this meaning – profoundly relieved to attribute the suicide to the comforting lie of depression as an unmanageable “disease”, to note that Wallace fell off a cliff or was struck by an out-of-control bus then move along and away quickly before the personal, social and cultural meanings of mental illness and suicide can intrude.

We desperately want the magical utterances “disease”, “depression”, “family” etc. to distract us and strip away nagging thoughts and doubts about what could have and should have been done for someone with mental/emotional distress who was letting the world know about his suffering.

It won’t work, but what might help is to begin to face what we already know.

Like the fact that mental illness is no more a “disease” of the brain than is addiction, and no more likely to be successfully treated by the latest class-action-suit-ready chemical fix of the day. Mental illness represents maladaptive attempts to cope with a very poor fit between an individual and his environment, or his inner cognitive/emotional representations of past environments, e.g. the childhood vacuum of a neurotic mother and cold, distant or demanding father. Yes, there are times when masking acute symptoms with medications is needed to get to actual treatment – psychosocial interventions like therapy and changes in behaviors and environments – and medication can help with stability during treatment.

The therapeutic interventions that can provide long-term relief from mental illness are provided by professionals trained in mental health, therapists, like clinical psychologists and MSWs, not by the M.D. happy to provide the newest chemical fix for an unbalanced psyche and life. Not by your veterinarian either, for that matter.

What is also not helpful for the distress of a mental illness is adding stressors, pathology, or additional delusional structure to the distress, like:

1. Mythological “Family” – truly supportive relationships are healing and critically therapeutic, while family of origin is almost always part of the root of mental health problems. That’s a big difference.

2. Religiosity and its pathology of control, moralism, judgment, and disempowerment.

3. Cults whose function is specifically to avoid the work of therapeutic growth and to avoid access to the here-and-now inner material at the root of distress by e.g. evasive story-telling; chanting of safe, content-free utterances (“One day at a time”, “Keep coming back.”); and ritualistic, group use of dangerous and addictive mood-altering substances, like nicotine, to mask symptoms.

Regardless of what we may ever know about the details of Mr. Wallace’s life and death, his suicide and responses to it have become a high-profile illustration of some of the systems barriers to gaining relief from mental health symptoms: religion, the medical model, the self-help model, and the myth of family of origin as therapeutic.

Self-parody or actually just . . . . . shit? Next up – Will History Recognize the Intellectualism of the Bush Years?

But well worth the scroll through to link to Bill Wyman’s brilliant 2000 Salon send-up/dismantling of pablum from David Foster Wallace, apparently so bereft as to construct the disordered bomb-dropping entitled cartoon military action figure somehow as a legitimate public figure, a hero and potential leader. Postmodernism as style, as ego defense (“Whatever.”) to protect against facing a vacuum of pain that would need to construct an attentive, protecting, fatherly hero, even if out of a slick poser.