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Outside Magazine December 2003
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The Pulse
Bulletins from the fitness frontier

By Tim Sohn


Illustration by Christoph Niemann
[Supersize Diet]
Paul Rozin, a University of Pennsylvania psychology professor who specializes in why people choose the foods they eat, recently took a big step toward explaining why only 7.4 percent of the French are obese—despite a diet rich in cheeses, pastries, and other high-fat foods—while 22.3 percent of Americans are unhealthily rotund. His research comparing portion sizes served up in Philadelphia and Paris revealed that the French eat smaller portions than supersize-obsessed Americans. Here's a sampling of what he found:

One Point Five Billion
The United States, Japan, and Western Europe quaffed a combined 1.5 billion gallons of sports drinks in 2002, enough to fill nearly 1,500 Olympic-size swimming pools.

SOURCE: Zenith International Consultants
Regular Fries at McDonald's:
72% larger in U.S.

A Pizza Hut pizza:
32% larger in U.S.

Average chocolate bar:
41% larger in U.S.

Average Coca-Cola:
52% larger in U.S.

Average hot dog:
63% larger in U.S.

Average serving of ice cream:
24% larger in U.S.

[Health]
The next time you catch a cold, count your blessings. Recent immunology research suggests that winter's routine colds, flus, and stomach viruses, no matter how lousy they make you feel, may represent a sort of natural cross-training for your body. "They make your immune system more robust," says Kent Sepkowitz, an infectious-disease specialist at New York City's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.


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