Scary statistic of the day

In 1995, 34 percent of high school-age girls in the United States thought they were overweight. Today, 90 percent do.

--Courtney Martin, "Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters"

Books that make you dumb

I finally looked at this much-buzzed-about chart of Facebook favorite books (the top 10 per college) correlated with the SAT scores of that college. It is pretty amusing and in many ways what you would expect, but I was surprised by a few things. Like, "Their Eyes were watching God" and "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" were both correlated with lower SAT scores than Dan Brown & the Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons and (no offense, Kelly) "My Sister's Keeper." Anyway, even just my reaction to this site makes me feel like a snob. For the record, my favorite books on Facebook are:

eros the bittersweet, midnight's children, still life with woodpecker, vonnegut, the unbearable lightness of being, lolita, anne of green gables, the betsy-tacy books, calvin and hobbes, the big sleep, little women, ring of endless light, his dark materials, farewell to arms, the beauty of the husband, exodus, harry potter, house of mirth, madame bovary, prep, joan didion, alice munro, george saunders, the accidental, lonesome dove, the dwindling party, 3 days on a river in a red canoe, jude the obscure, eat pray love, the singing boones, then we came to the end, the road

Only four of those are on the chart.

(via)