Amusing the Muse

Oh yes, it was done in the US! You’d think they invented surveys and studies. They certainly invented obesity and so it is only fair that they spend as much time as they can, trying to reverse it.

And this one is a dream come true! Literally!

Here’s the lowdown:

Sleep less than four hours and you are 73 percent more likely to be obese than if got the recommended seven to nine hours of rest, so scientists have discovered.

Those who averaged five hours of sleep had 50 percent greater risk, and those who got six hours had 23 percent more.

The study was led by Dr. Steven Heymsfield of Columbia University and St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York and James Gangwisch, a Columbia epidemiologist.

They used information on about 18,000 adults participating in the federal government's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, or NHANES, throughout the 1980s.

This is too good to be true! I mean, all I have to do now is sleep and voila, I wake up a thinner man!

But you know, much as I would like this to be true, the scientist in me rebels. Hey, what are you looking at me like that for? Of course there is a scientist in me. Somewhere!

So this scientist in me protests and says “That’s preposterous! There is no way you can reduce the chances of obesity by sleeping.”

But then the rest of me rationalizes, “Aw, what the hell! If the real scientist blokes say it, it’s gotta be true, djunowatimeen?”

And so I decided to give it a shot. And that led to the discovery of the real truth behind the whole study! And this is how that happened.

The Wife: Get up, you fat steak, you are late for work! I haven’t seen a lazier man than you ever

Me, filled with righteous indignation: I will have you know that I am not lazy. In fact, right up till this moment before you disturbed me, I was very busy shedding weight.

The Wife: You’ve been lying in your bed all day! What do you mean shedding weight?

Me: Oh you wouldn’t understand. It is too scientific for you. But every minute you stand there talking to me, I am putting on some weight. So please do me a favour and go away. Let me sleep...um…lose weight in peace

The Wife: If you really want to lose weight, get up and exercise or something!

Me: You ignorant woman, you live in the Dark Ages! Exercise is old news, obsolete, poof! Sleeping is the in thing! The more you sleep, the slimmer you become! It is all part of a new study, I tell you.

The Wife, thinking for a minute: Well, it does make sense in a way. At least, you will eat less if you sleep more. Most of your waking hours are devoted to eating!

Eureka! So that's it! The secret Heymsfield and Gangwisch have left unsaid. Trust the wife to clear up the obfuscation!

Sleep more, eat less, lose weight! Huh, what's the fun in that, now?

So after…hmm, let’s see now – November, December, January, February, March, April, May – seven whole months!!! I don’t believe it! Time simply flies! Well, anyway, so after seven long months, the Muse is back, ready to take up where we left off last.

And among the first things in the To Do list is to acknowledge all who had, during the Muse’s long absence, visited this blog and clamoured – yes actually clamoured – for more!

Truly, I am flattered! Thank you!

Of course, I am not going to go about giving any elaborate and long-winded but patently false excuse for my extended silence. It would not be fair to anyone, least of all to myself.

So, what shall we blog about today?

A serious issue that seems to be gripping the Indian blogosphere these days is the reservation question. The GoI seems all set to table the bill that reserves 49.5 percent of seats in educational institutions to the so-called “lower-caste” candidates. A whopping 49.5 %, stopping just short of the magic number 50%, no doubt based on recommendations of several psycho-statistical analyses.

And since the brain cells are yet to get into the blog mode, I shall pass off a forward doing its rounds in the email today. It is funny, really! Here’s what the author has to say.

I think we should have job reservations in all the fields. I completely support the PM and all the politicians for promoting this. Let's start the reservation with our cricket team. We should have 9.5% reservation for Muslims, 40% percent for OBC, and SC/ST, totaling of course to 49.5%.

Cricket rules should be modified accordingly. The boundary circle should be reduced for an SC/ST player. The four hit by an OBC player should be considered as a six and a six hit by an OBC player should be counted as 8 runs. An OBC century is 60 runs.

We should influence ICC and make rules so that the pace bowlers like Shoaib Akhtar should not bowl fast balls to our OBC player. Bowlers can be allowed a maximum speed of 80 kilometer per hour when playing against an OBC player. Any delivery above this speed should be made illegal.