If you want to talk economics, how about the fact that overweight women earn less than men or thin women. then their clothes are more expensive by almost twice. then they can't afford healthy food. then they're judged and criticized and threatened in their jobs and in society in general.

sure, but that very possibly likely to be just a result of the hormones they were exposed to prenatally.

like really, for serious.

If you want to talk economics, how about the fact that overweight women earn less than men or thin women. then their clothes are more expensive by almost twice. then they can't afford healthy food. then they're judged and criticized and threatened in their jobs and in society in general.

living through that will generally make someone empathetic to fellow humans of all types, and thus more conscious of social reform, and thus a democrat.

Notice that no one cared that dick cheney is nearly obese, or if that would effect his voiting or his candidacy.

...personally!

Because the fat wheezing sweating mall rhinos are gonna make it impossible to squeeze my normal sized body into the building to vote. We should make the Bulky-Americans stand outside in a tent with the rest of the zoo animals.

another senseless article in Salon that means nothing, says nothing, and concludes nothing.

Where do fat people shop? Wal-Mart? There's a political connection.

Are fat people too lazy to go and vote? There's a political connection.

Are fat people suffering from low self-esteem and might lean toward guys like W that they can relate to? There's a political connection.

See how silly it all is?

yesterday i sent a letter to the judson blog stating that this fat piece woud have been very well written by Sarah Pnalin-was trying tobe funny, not really-. i guess they found my comment abusive.. didnt publish, i asked again: no answer. This isnt the first time it happens I wonder about this blog. yesterday fat column was so fat eith inanity

I can understand why studying how hormones might affect someone's political views as an adult might be interesting, I'm just not sure why the effect of hormones related to obesity would be of more interest than hormones related to other factors. I didn't see anything in Judson's article that would provide any rationale for focusing on obesity over any other condition or circumstance.

To me, then, it appears that the choice of obesity as a means to introduce the topic of hormonal influence on political views was picked simply because obesity is such a hot-button topic that would get the article more widely read and discussed (which, as we can see here, is working.)

I think other situations could also be illuminating. What impact does alcohol, drug use or smoking have on a mother's hormones - and what impact might that have on future beliefs? What about medications a woman might need to take while pregnant? What if the woman is under stress for reasons other than her weight? What about any genetic abnormalities she might have? There are so many things beyond weight that can alter what hormones a fetus might be exposed to, but Judson doesn't hypothesise about any of them.

The whole issue does raise another question, though - admittedly just as hypothetic (and possibly more paranoid) than the one Judson wrote about: If we can determine what effect different hormones have, and what circumstances create which hormones, will we someday be faced with the prospect of people attempting to manipulate the hormones of a growing fetus - possibly by having the mother take certain medications or other similar methods - in an attempt to tilt the political beliefs of the next generation?

I'll admit, it's probably pretty far-fetched, but there's also no doubt that there are people and groups out there who would do pretty much anything they could to create the political reality they want. Trying to create people with an inborn tendency to agree with one particular political viewpoint or another could, at the very least, be quite tempting.

But only when they're well-structured and their points are argued effectively. This is just sloppy, bitchy and without full context. It seems like Rossmeier is more obsessed with proving his superiority over Judson than clearly and explicitly pointing out the flaws in her article. This could have been written much better than it is.

The article puts some interesting observations together and suggests a hypothesis. This is how scientific inquiry begins, not ends. A strong scientific theory (or "fact" in layman's terms) is a hypothesis buttressed by overwhelming evidence. Yet it can start with no evidence but a collection of suggestive observations such as Judson provides.

Her case in formulating her hypothesis is based on a well-established finding that prenatal hormones influence adult behavior in mammals along with some new (and thus more tentative) findings that human political views and reactions to sudden stress correlate and that maternal stress also seems to correlate with an offspring's reaction to stress. There are some intriguing dots which might be connected, here, but not enough findings to make those connections. And I don't think she claims otherwise. But it might only take a couple of studies based on her hypothesis to either pencil in those connections -- or erase them.

I find such science writing interesting, but I see it for what it is: informed speculation which along the way happens to describe some intriguing observations. I can toss away the overall premise and still learn a lot; good science writing is like that, especially, as Judson does, when it provides references for further reading.

Clearly if a person has not been taught to think critically then they can't wade their way through Republican scaremongering and lies. I don't believe that being overweight has any affect on critical thinking, but any factor that does could certainly affect politics in the future.

I read the original NYT piece, clear through to the end, expecting to find ANY discussion of how prenatal influences might ultimately affect later political views. I have to agree with Rossmeier's take -- after a lengthy and well-written piece about how prenatal conditions have been found to influence some types of behavior, the author never even attempted to tie political beliefs with any prenatal conditions. She also seemed to conclude -- without any particular factual basis that I could find -- that Republicans are a different personality type than Democrats. Even though I'm a Democrat, I thought this was really flawed reasoning. I can think of many factors that might account for peoples' political affiliation (income? education? geography? family background? race?), none of which will ever correlate with personality type, which might in turn have correlated with maternal obesity. And, none of these possible correlations was really supported by the studies cited in the article.