Cooking & Sociologists in the News

For the first time in many months, I have had an excellent week. So I celebrated last night by cooking dinner. I am not as good of a cook as a baker, but I think I did a good job. I made honey-roasted root vegetables and homemade pita and curried hummos. The dinner was great, if I may say so myself. Unfortunately, my wife ended up being ill all night with either a stomach flu or food poisoning, so I cannot claim complete success. I am worried that the veggies are the culprit. But I don't want to throw them out, because they were so tasty (and I did not get sick).

On to "Sociologists in the News..."

Racial Identity and Social Context
A very timely topic for the Chapel Hill folks--sociologists find that outsider perceptions of racial identity are affected by contextual information such as incarceration and job loss. These attributes increase the likelihood that an interviewer will identify an individual as Black, and this has become more true in recent years.

Religion Makes You Healthy
The findings of this study are not shocking. In fact, my primary comment for this article is "when are media outlets going to stop reporting on this topic?" It is not that I disagree with the premise, or that I think it should not be reported at all. It's just that the religion-health link appears to be one of the most reported findings from sociological work. We get it, already! There is more to sociology.

Demographers Rock!
The article is about a possible reduction in fertility and not the obvious fact that demographers are awesome. But I thought I would put in my two cents... Anyway, point is, people have fewer babies when they're worried about their pocketbook.

Families Matter
Using Add Health (yay!), a Penn State sociologist finds that family lifestyle affects obesity as much as genetics do.