Here's to good health and bad fat

A new study says that men are now happier than women.

Women will say: Of course, they have us.

Men will say: Hey, it's not our fault women aren't happy. They have us.

But I wondered about why men are happier.

Could it be that men, as a whole, have matured; that they have learned to take a calmer, more reasoned approach to life -- an approach that focuses more on their spiritual and psychological needs rather than the emptiness of chasing material possessions? Or could it be those cool new flat-screen TVs? And don't get me started on HD TV. It's just incredible ... and another perfectly acceptable path toward enlightenment.

The study also noted that men might be happier because "since the 1960s, men have gradually cut back of tasks they dislike." Women, on the other hand, "are spending more time doing things they don't enjoy." Well, duh! What are men supposed to do if women refuse to help themselves? As that TV pitchwoman used to say (actually, shout): "Stop the Insanity!" Another area of American life where insanity rules is eating. (No, really?) Consider this real-live headline from Men's Health: "What if bad fat isn't so bad?" According to the article, no one's ever proved that saturated fat causes heart disease.

Are you kidding me? This is like the surgeon general calling a press conference, lighting up a smoke and announcing, "You know, no one's actually proven a link between cigarettes and lung cancer." I know this because I lived through the Great Saturated-Fat Popcorn Scare of 1983. Younger readers may be shocked, but I recall a time when movie theater popcorn wasn't considered junk food. I'd polish off a tub or two and congratulate myself on my healthy eating habits.

Then came word that movie theater popcorn was so bad for you, so incredibly unhealthy, that it was a wonder that heart surgeons didn't hang out at the Cineplex handing out business cards.

To back up its heretical headline, the article discussed the men of the Masai tribe in Kenya, who live on a diet of red meat, whole milk and enormous tubs of movie theater popcorn.

OK, scratch the popcorn part, but the rest is true. They live on a diet so bad by the standards of America's health experts that you could get arrested for serving it in San Francisco.

(True fact: San Francisco's mayor recently advocated charging a fee to stores that sell sugary sodas as a way, as The New York Times put it, "to trim the city's waistline," which has gotten bigger and now spills over the city's belt. Also, the city's collective butt is looking pretty big too.) And yet the Masai are close to physical perfection, tall and lean with some of the "lowest levels of cholesterol ever recorded and were virtually free of heart disease."

Obviously, American men have something very important to learn from the Masai men -- namely how we can eat the food we love and stay healthy while attaining a state of spiritual oneness with our flat-screen TV.

Write to Don Flood in care of King Features Weekly Service, P.O. Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475, or send e-mails to dflood287@comcast.net.