Letters

What Really Makes You Fat?

"Scientists sent men to the moon but still cannot suppress our appetites. I'd much rather be thin than go to the moon." DEENA NISSLEY Sherman Oaks, Calif.

"Cracking the Fat Riddle" provided much biological reasoning for American obesity but totally ignored the root cause of the problem: Americans are fat because they are fixated on indulging their every desire [Health, Sept. 2]. Laziness is practically a virtue in our society. It's not the food pyramid, not the wrong diet, not even the fast-food joints that are at fault. The blame lies with the individual who refuses to deny himself, educate himself and get off his rear. ANDRE GALLIATH Valencia, Calif.

What everyone seems to consistently overlook is that no two humans metabolize nutrients in the same way. To believe that one diet can cover everyone's needs is ludicrous. Some will thrive on a low-fat diet like the one devised by Dr. Dean Ornish, while others will do well on Dr. Robert Atkins' low-carbohydrate diet. My conclusion? Moderation. Most Americans just eat too much. Period. LAUREN JONES New York City

The problem with dieting is dieting itself. A diet is not something you go on every few months to lose a couple of pounds. It is something you should follow year round. How can a person expect to go on a diet, lose 10 lbs., then go back to eating ice cream and not expect to regain the weight? The key to losing weight and keeping it off is eating healthfully all the time and throwing away the entire concept of dieting. JAN H. NIELSEN Edmonton, Alta.

Why do researchers insist on investigating obesity as if it were a subject for The X-Files? Too much emphasis is placed on obesity as a disease, with researchers debating the role played by hormones, neuronal activity and genetics. Instead of pinning our hopes on finding the chemical factor causing obesity, we should be looking at how Americans' eating habits have changed in the past 50 years. Today we have more opportunities to eat, more food available and larger portions. But the big question is, Why do we feel the need to engage in such conspicuous consumption? Americans need to take responsibility for their appetites and recognize that less is more. MEREDITH LUCE Founder, Diet Directives Weight Loss Program Orlando, Fla.

What really makes Americans fat? Your story said it all in this sentence: "We are fat because we consume too many calories and expend too few." All other explanations--genes, hormones, carbs and fats--strike me as pale excuses. Want to lose weight? Get off the couch, get off the fad diet, get smart about what you eat, and get moving. TIM HEFFERNAN Somerville, Mass.

Americans don't know how to eat in moderation. After having a baby almost two years ago, I went on Weight Watchers and lost all my pregnancy weight and more. I have now mastered the Zone diet; it easily fits into my routine. Of course I have to make sacrifices to maintain my size 4, but I would rather pass up a trip to Baskin-Robbins than inject myself with hormones. KELLY VALENCIA Sparta, Wis.

The American food industry bears a large part of the responsibility for this national health problem. It is very poor at producing wholesome food products. Why must processed foods be loaded with all kinds of fat and unnecessary junk? Americans have to eat smaller, well-balanced portions of wholesome food. Our health should be a priority if we want the nation to remain strong. JALE MATA New York City

An Elusive Link

The desperate attempts by the hawks in the Bush Administration to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda only highlight the fact that an invasion of Iraq would have nothing to do with the war on terrorism [World, Sept. 2]. The hawks have been calling for the invasion of Iraq ever since the Gulf War; the difference now is that they are cynically exploiting the tragedies of Sept. 11. An invasion would only increase the threat of terrorism by inflaming hatred of the U.S. and diverting attention from al-Qaeda. BRIAN CLUGGISH San Diego

The emotional rhetoric coming from the Bush Administration on the necessity of removing Saddam from power includes very little clear and logical reasoning. A cynical mind might be tempted to think that Bush Jr. just wants to finish what Bush Sr. left undone. However, the world has moved on, and tidying up after Daddy is not a strong enough reason to incite a war. TREV GREGORY Terschuur, the Netherlands

The President of the U.S. has no right to try to remove Saddam, even if he is a despot. Some of us have to work with people from all over the world. I have lived as a foreigner in Germany for nearly 30 years. The world is larger than Texas and much larger than the U.S. Normal citizens of this world can get on well together, as my colleagues and I do at work, where there are no religious excesses or pseudopolitical strains. We are all equal. GORDON H.C. DOWE Gottingen, Germany

Stone-Age Sentencing

So the Islamic law against adultery demands that a Nigerian woman, Amina Lawal, must be stoned to death because she made love to a man she cared about and bore his child [World, Sept. 2]. It seems ever more clear that the human family will never make the journey to wisdom while chained to the dogma of zealots. If the good, the tolerant, the compassionate and the god-free do not speak up soon, evil is going to win. But before it does, maybe somewhere there is someone who can speak loud enough to save the life of one baby's mother. TIM AKEY St. Louis, Mo.

Muslims know it, but they don't want to admit that something is wrong with Islamic law, Shari'a. They fear that if they voiced their opinion, it would endanger Islam as a whole. How else to explain the support for the Shari'a court that sentenced Lawal to death by stoning as punishment for adultery and allowed the man she was involved with to walk free? As Jesus said, with regard to the woman caught in adultery, Any one of the executioners who has not sinned should be the first to cast a stone. BUNMI AKINSEMOLA Akure, Nigeria

Planetary Preservation

At the end of her excellent article "A Glimpse of Home," [Special Report, Aug. 26] former astronaut Kathryn Sullivan asks, "As homeowners we wouldn't neglect or damage our houses until they weren't fit to live in. Why would we do that with our planet?" I suggest that the answer lies in what economists know as the law of the commons. When a limited, nonrenewable (or slowly renewable) resource is being consumed by a large number of individuals making independent consumption decisions, there are two possible outcomes: 1) the individual decisions will, in due course, lead to the complete destruction of the resource, or 2) only if the individuals eventually come together to husband the resource and agree on mutually accepted controls on consumption do they have a chance of saving it from destruction. JOHN JACOB LYONS London

Your Special Report focused primarily on sustainable development, and quite rightly so, as the summit in Johannesburg was taking place. However, for one to get the full value of these articles, the phrase sustainable development needs to be defined: as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. We must not take for granted that everyone understands this. AIKA PATEL Lisbon

I used to believe in the idea of sustainable development, but not anymore. I do not need to look at the statistics of CO2 emission, deforestation or destruction of species to reach my bleak but wiser view of our common future. In the past 10 years, how many computers, cell phones, pdas and digital cameras has each of us junked? Not to mention the array of batteries and rechargers that have come and gone with all of them. Didn't we hope that information technology, telecommunication and cyberspace entertainment would help curtail materialism? Your Special Issue proves me right. While still making rosy statements about saving the earth, you advocate products claiming to be good for a "Green Century." Commercialism has truly perfected the art of sugar-coating consumption with false environmentalism. CY C. CHEN Taipei

Arming the Airmen

"Pilots Packing Heat" suggests that we should not trust airline pilots with guns because we don't even let grannies on board with knitting needles [Nation, Sept. 2]. Before Sept. 11, I would have had reservations about guns in the cockpit, but that has all changed. I trust pilots with my life every time I get on a plane. Let's give them the means to deter further acts of airline terrorism. MICHAEL SAVAGE San Francisco

As a flight attendant for a major airline and a 30-year veteran who has worked for three air carriers, I strongly oppose guns in the cockpit. If we want to keep hijackers out of the cockpit, let's give the gun to someone outside it: an air marshal. On every flight. ANN PRICE New York City

Assaultive Advertising

I am not surprised that television advertisers are losing their audience [Business, Sept. 2]. Maybe if they refrained from the raucous, head-splitting noises that accompany just about every commercial, viewers like me would not have to hit the mute button or limit our viewing to channels that have no ads. If advertisers would make ads that are tolerable to listen to, we might watch them. BEVERLY FARRAND Fairfax, Va.

Correction

Our report on the city of Sacramento [Sept. 2] incorrectly stated that the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University used raw U.S. Census data to determine that the city is the nation's most integrated. We should have said that Harvard used, in part, Census data analyzed by the Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research. For more information on the Center, visit www.albany.edu/mumford

Reasons to Be Fearful

Charles Krauthammer's argument for invading Iraq in "The Terrible Logic of Nukes" [Essay, Sept. 2] is just that: terrible logic. Iraq wants nuclear weapons to balance Israel's, which built them to balance Arab conventional superiority. Pakistan wanted to balance India, which had to balance China, which had to balance Russia, which had to balance the U.S. and its allies, which had to balance Russia's presumed European-theater superiority. Throughout this balancing act, the world has been no more than 30 minutes away from Armageddon. The only logical way to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of madmen is to renounce them ourselves. NEIL ARYA, M.D. International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Waterloo, Ont.