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OK, who isn't sick of counting calories?  Or, if you're a Weight Watcher's aficionado like I am, points? Now a new survey is saying not only are we what we eat , we're also who we know. Say what? Put simply, a new study by by Vanderbilt University researchers reveals new nuances in the links between a person’s weight and the socioeconomic status of the people close to them, and suggests that gender plays a significant role in that relationship, according to newswise.com. Though in the West high socioeconomic status is associated with slenderness, the relationship between status and weight is actually more nuanced than that. Using nationally representative data from the 2004 U.S. General Social Survey, Lijun Song, professor of sociology, and graduate students Philip Pettis and Bhumika PiyaSong analyzed the relationship between an individual’s weight as measured by a visual evaluation, the socioeconomic status of the people they’re close to as measured b...

Do you look like your name? A new study says it's entirely possible.  Research shows people can match names to faces of strangers with surprising accuracy, according to newswise.com. Now, I'm not so sure I look like a Debbie.  I'm not bouncy and cute, with swinging blonde hair, like Debbie Reynolds, who I suspect I was named after, as there are no other Debbie's within miles of my family. Big surprise.  It may have something to do with the cultural stereotypes we attach to names. I could never see naming a baby "Fred" (as my first boyfriend's parents did), or "Arthur," or Selma.  Those names conjure up old people, I'm sure, unlike "Tiffany" or "Heather" or "Sean" or "Ethan."  (Don't know what you make of names like "Apple" and "Blue.") But names can give away a person's age, it's come to my attention.  You don't see too many Dolores' or Betty's (or...

You're probably not old enough to remember this movie, where the guy says to the girl, "Love means never having to say you're sorry."  Which, in my life, is totally the opposite.  I'm always having to say "I'm sorry," when my husband and I fight (he's very stubborn).  But a new study says that saying sorry is not enough, especially when you're talking gender stereotypes.  Say what? "Whether it's a boss, co-worker or the public, saying sorry is not always enough to win back broken trust, especially when gender stereotypes are also broken. Both have happened with Clinton and Trump in the last few months," says Shayna Frawley, PhD candidate in human resource management at York U who led the study with York U alumna Jennifer Harrison, now at NEOMA Business School in France, at newswise.com. Gender stereotypes continue to be an issue in the workplace and on the campaign trail. Women are still expected to be benevolent ...

It figures.   High-intensity training works for older men, but not for older women. According to a new study, researchers focused on obese senior males and females 62 and older. The subjects were assigned a regimen of high-intensity exercise that occurred three times per week for six weeks. Each session included five one-minute bursts of exercise performed at 125 percent of a measurement of how how cells metabolize energy.  A different type of scoring was used to measure the subjects’ muscle and abdominal fat, along with how the cells used this energy, body composition and several other metabolic measurements before and after the exercise regimens were performed. While males increased both the ways their cells metabolize energy and other measurements of the fat in their muscles, they were able to reduce their body fat percentage by the end of the six weeks.   But no changes were seen in females. The researchers did note, however, that one measurement of...

This probably won't surprise too many of us.  But women are more empathetic than most, but not all, men. A fascinating new study has revealed that men and women attracted to men are more empathetic than men and women attracted to women, according to a new study from the Department of Psychology at the University of Haifa. “People attracted to a particular gender, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual, have common social tools, and thus exhibit the same level of empathy,” says Professor Simone Shamay-Tsoory of the Department of Psychology at the University of Haifa who conducted the study, according to newswise.com. Sociologists claim that empathy plays an important role in the development of human society in that it contributes to peoples’ understanding of others and causes them to take the latter’s feelings into account. Behavioral and brain studies show that activities related to empathy are regulated differently in men and women, based on preferences tha...

I've always loved my husband's hands.  Thin and long-fingered, they're delicate, like a sculptor's or a pianist's, and yet strong, too.  (He's yanked many a tooth in his career.) Now experts are saying that you can tell a lot about a man by looking at his hands . Not to be confused with other parts of his body! But men with short index fingers and long ring fingers are on average nicer towards women, and this stems -- believe it or not -- from the hormones these men have been exposed to in their mother’s womb, according to a new study by researchers at McGill University.  Something new to blame mothers for! Men with these kinds of hands also tend to have more children. That's not entirely clear but there's a definite link between fetal life and adult behavior.  “It is fascinating to see that moderate variations of hormones before birth can actually influence adult behaviour in a selective way,” says Simon Young, a McGill Emeritus Professor ...

It's a  compelling question.  Must women be seen to be heard? A new study has found that consumers respond differently to male voices selling things than female voices.  That's probably why 80% of all voice-overs are done by men. Another interesting fact: any female voice-overs are predominantly embodied by an attractive woman, whereas male voices are often disembodied or represented by both ugly and attractive men. Think of some recent commercials.  The new one for Samsung phones comes to mind, a beautiful blonde woman who's pregnant (another stereotype) who cries over seeing a cat and dog cuddle, or sits by the pool with a drink (hopefully, non-alcoholic) watching someone doing Pilates on TV.  When her husband comments, she says, "Eyes are muscles, too." There have been some very interesting commercials on lately, where more and more of the actors are overweight.  Have you seen the one for some pizza chain with an overweight man listening to mu...

Doesn't it just make you want to laugh (or cry)?  A new study has found that men who try to balance their work/home lives are viewed more favorably than women. Say what? According to newswise.com, while some suggest that flexible work arrangements have the potential to reduce workplace inequality, a new study finds these arrangements may exacerbate discrimination based on parental status and gender. Among those who made flexible work requests, men who asked to work from home two days a week in order to care for a child were significantly advantaged compared to women who made the same request. Study author Christin Munsch, an assistant professor of sociology at Furman University, also found that both men and women who made flexible work requests for childcare-related reasons were advantaged compared to those who made the same requests for other reasons.  For her study, Munsch used a sample of 646 people who ranged in age from 18 to 65 and resided in the U.S. Par...

I remember the first month I was married driving home and thinking, well, I made it through one month.  Now only a couple of thousand more.  A new study is saying that same-sex couples may feel the same way. In fact, legalization may drive them apart. The study, by economists at the University of Arkansas, shows that relationship hazard rates – the threat of breakups – among same-sex couples will likely increase with the probability of legalization. “Though this and our other findings suggest legalization may not be advantageous for all same-sex couples, we are not advocating for same-sex marriage to remain illegal,” newswise.com quotes Amy Farmer, professor in the Sam M. Walton College of Business. “We’re simply focusing on economics of the household, showing how this rapidly changing issue – through legislation and court decisions – will affect people in this area.”  The study involved three stages.  Stage one began with participants in a dating rel...

I admit I did it.  Found out the sex of my baby.  But it took me so long to get pregnant, I wasn't interested in any surprises. Now a study has found that moms (and dads) who want to know the sex of their unborn baby are perfectionists, and "may be giving subtle clues about (their) views on proper gender roles," according to newswise.com.  The study found that women who choose not to learn their child’s sex may be more open to new experiences, and combine egalitarian views about the roles of men and women in society with conscientiousness. I've always thought of myself as a risk-taker, but this would prove otherwise.  After losing two pregnancies, I wanted to know everything about this baby -- the health of his heart, his other vital organs, the length of his fingers and toes, and how many.   My husband was more a nervous wreck than I, not sure he really wanted to have children at all. Expectant mothers who scored high on a test of parenting perfectio...

A fascinating op-ed in The New York Times today.  Do kids like male or female teachers better?  The writer has a unique perspective.  She used to be a man. Jennifer Finney Boylan writes that a recent study found that " girls were more likely to report that they did not think a class would be useful to their future if it was taught by a man, and boys were more likely to say they did not look forward to a particular subject if it was taught by a woman." Say what? Boylan goes on to note that m any scholars suggest that other variables, "like a teacher’s experience and the number of students in his or her class, are much more important to students’ success. And yet the way we relate to our students and our teachers surely has something to do with whether we are male or female." She writes poignantly, " When I began teaching, I was a young man fresh out of graduate school. I know I felt more comfortable being funny in the classroom back then; as a woman I s...