For all of the people addicted to Coca Cola in its various incarnations, today is the day to sing “Happy Birthday.” And back in the good old days, coca was really an essentially part of the drink.

Actually, Coke did not begin its life as a carbonated beverage but rather as a patent medicine, developed by an Atlanta chemist named John Pemberton. In the late 19th century, patent medicines flourished, promising to do everything from curing liver dysfunction to growing hair on a bald male head. Pemberton created quite a collection, including Triplex Liver Pills and Globe of Flower Cough Syrup, but his most famous formula was the “Esteemed Brain Tonic and Intellectual Beverage.” This was a cure all for nervous affections, sick headache, neuralgia, hysteria, and melancholy.

His highly touted formula, which many came to enjoy immensely and become quite addicted to, contained carbonated water, cane sugar syrup, caffeine, and extracts of coca leaves and kola nuts. In other words, cocaine was a primary ingredient. The forerunner to modern day Coca Cola was unveiled on March 29, 1886. But because Pemberton was in ill health (not even his coca formula could cure him), he sold most of his business by 1888, and died soon afterwards.

Pemberton would never know how famous his little patent medicine would become. Another Atlanta pharmacist named Asa Candler bought the entire business in 1891 for $2,300. And eventually, while caffeine remained in the drink, the coca leaves were removed.

Speaking of eating disorders…eating in America is a very strange bird. According to the latest statistics from the CDC:

# In 1999–2000, an estimated 30% of U.S adults aged 20 years and older — nearly 59 million people — were obese, defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more.

# In 1999–2000, an estimated 64% of U.S adults aged 20 years and older were either overweight or obese, defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of 25 or more.

And yet, as we grow fatter, our rabid worship of ultra-thin continues. Rather ironic, don’t you think? Fashion models are supposed to glorify perfection, even though many of them are not particularly attractive, and are basically skin and bones. But their emaciated and air brushed photos which grace the covers of fashion magazines are considered “beautiful,” while the sorry little girls making themselves puke and keep their figures at a starvation weight are considered “ill.”

Perhaps the most poignant example of this is how some magazines handle these issue. Case in point: Several years ago I was on a plane, and someone had left a popular woman’s magazine in the seat pocket. I picked it up to skim it before the plane took off (before I was able to turn on my laptop!!), and opened to an article about model Claudia Schiffer. The story was one of those humdrum pieces of nonsense about her “struggle” to keep her weight down, and how she had to drop 10 pounds when she first came over from Europe to model in the U.S. According to this article, Schiffer stands at 5 feet 11 inches and weighed 125 pounds.

I had to take a few deep breaths. I am tiny, just under 5 feet 1 inch. And I weigh 106, and I am thin. I wear a size five shoe, and my brother once commented that I have a wrist like an insect (he was trying to buy me a bracelet). But here is this woman, who stands nearly a foot taller than I am, and weighs only 19 pounds more than me. I cannot begin to imagine how hideously emaciated she must look in person, and yet, we consider this scarecrow an object of great beauty.

Now if this story wasn’t enough to churn your stomach and make you want to rush out and eat a large sized pizza, the magazine also had an article about a girl with anorexia. She was skinnier than Schiffer, no doubt about it, and she looked pretty bad. Scrawny, hair like straw, and so on. Then again, she wasn’t made up by a professional and her photo was raw, and didn’t have the imperfections air-brushed out of it as did Schiffer’s.

What irony. In the front of the magazine, the emaciated look is being glamorized and we are supposed to pat Schiffer on the back and say, “Oh you brave girl, how difficult it must have been to drop from 135 to 125. What courage! How wonderful you look with your ribs sticking out.” But in the other article, we are supposed to be revolted at the ultra-thinness, and feel sorry for this poor mentally deranged girl who equates starvation with beauty.

The only difference between Schiffer and the anorexic girl is simply a few pounds, some make-up, and a good photographer. I have no idea whether or not Schiffer suffers from any sort of eating disorder, that’s not my point. What I’m trying to say is that both are ultra-thin, only the anorexic has just taken it a little further. It’s a fine line between the two, the precarious borderline between what we consider to be beauty and what we consider to be mental depravation.

It did seem so peculiar to put these two articles into the same issue, as though they were entirely unrelated. The schizophrenia of American eating habits and concepts of health and beauty. A nation whose waistlines are bursting at the seams, and who worships women who resemble coat hangers.

If you notice, Terri Schiavo’s name is missing from the headlines. In fact, on Google news, the only “news” about her are several articles about her eating disorder. It is strange how that works, don’t you think? Someone decides, “Okay, enough with the life/death issue, let’s do eating disorders today. And sure enough, it’s the domino effect in action. There are 8 articles today reporting on the woes of eating disorders and how bulimia led to Terri Schiavo’s collapse, subsequent heart attack, and resulting brain damage.

This is old news. Her eating disorder has been highlighted before, and recently, so why the domino effect today? Do all of these papers and online news sites all get together and decide to do a blitz, or is it telepathy? Osmosis, perhaps? I guess with the court battles over, the death watch is getting a bit gruesome. She’s been without food now for 11 or 12 days, maybe more (I’ve lost track), and it does seem to be a very INAPPROPRIATE time to be bringing up an eating disorder. I mean, while this woman is slowly and intentionally being starved to death, is it really in the best taste to bring up her past eating disorder?

I am assuming she is still alive. Slowly becoming dehydrated and going into electrolyte imbalance and organ failure. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again; why not just humanely put her out of her misery? Is a passive death somehow different from active death in this case? Is it not euthanasia to deliberately withhold food from someone who is not terminally ill and not dying?

Please, spare me the semantics. We know what happens if you don’t eat or drink. Unless you are a yogi mystic, who can survive on air and God’s love alone, then you will die. The idea that Terri Schiavo is somehow having a natural death now is just so repugnant. Would a man who shot his child in the head vs. one who deliberately starved his child to death be treated any differently in a court of law?

The kindest thing for someone to do at this point would be to give Terri a nice whopping dose of morphine and let her fall into a peaceful bliss. And die quickly. At least we can treat her with the same respect that we’d give a convicted murderer, don’t you think?