BPart BDirections: Write an essay of 160-200 words based on the following information./B

The earliest controversies about the relationship between photography and art centered on whether photographer"s fidelity to appearances and dependence on a machine allowed it to be a fine art (1)_____ distinctive from merely a practical art. Throughout the nineteenth century, the defense of photography was identical with the (2)_____ to establish it as a fine art. (3)_____ the charge that photographers was a soulless mechanical duplication of (4)_____, photographers (5)_____ that it was instead a privileged (6)_____ of seeing, a revolt against commonplace vision, and (7)_____ worthy an art than painting. Ironically, (8)_____ photography is securely established as a fine art, many photographers find it pretentious or (9)_____ to label it as such. Serious photographers are no longer willing to (10)_____ whether photography is not involved with art, (11)_____ to proclaim that their own work is not involved with it. This shows the extent (12)_____ which they simply take for granted the concept of art imposed by the (13)_____ of Modernism. the better the art, the more subversive it is of the traditional aims of art. Photographers" disclaimers of any interest in making art tell us more about the troubled status of the contemporary (14)_____ of art (15)_____ about whether photography is or is not art. Photography, (16)_____ Pop painting, reassures viewers that art is not hard; photography seems to be more about its subjects than about art. Photography, (17)_____, has developed all the (18)_____ and self-consciousness of a classic Modernist art. Many professionals privately have begun to worry that the (19)_____ of photography as an activity subversive of the traditional pretensions of art has gone so far that the public will forget that photography is a distinctive and exalted activity—(20)_____, an art.

They appear every summer; a rash of articles raising the alarm about the "summer slide", or the loss of learning that grade-school students experience over the months when classes are out. Concern about this leads many a parent to stock up on workbooks, or to enroll their children in educational camps or enrichment programs. But is the summer slide really the seasonal disaster? A close look at the research reveals a more complicated picture. For kids from middle- and upper-middle-income households, the summer slide doesn't exist at all—at least in terms of reading skills. Affluent children actually make slight gains in reading over the summer months, according to an analysis of 13 researches led by Cooper, professor at Duke University. Meanwhile, lower-income kids lose more than two months of reading achievement over the same period. Even among underprivileged students, however, the summer slide is not universal. A study published last year in the Journal of Education reported that "not all low-SES [socio-economic status] students experience summer learning loss." Johns Hopkins University sociologist Slate, identified a sample of poor children who gained as much as their higher-SES peers in reading or math during at least three of the four summers of elementary school. What makes these "outliers" different? Their parents, the investigator found, are significantly more likely than other low-income parents to take their children to the library during the summer and to check out books while there. The parents of these "exceptional summer learners" also read to their children for longer periods of time, and are more likely to check their children's homework and have higher expectations for their children's conduct grade during the school year—"types of parental involvement that could well carry over into the summer months," the researcher noted. Reading books can reverse the summer slide in literacy skills for even the poorest children. Allington, a professor at the University of Tennessee, found that giving kids 12 books to read over the summer was as effective as summer school in raising the students' reading scores. The increase in test scores was especially pronounced for those who were most economically disadvantaged. The children in Allington's study were allowed to pick their own books, while parents may cringe at their selections, and the researchers believe that giving students a choice of reading material is a critical part of their intervention: not only are the kids more motivated to read the books, but the words and facts they learn build on knowledge they already possess. Another study—led by Kim of the Harvard Graduate School of Education—found that regardless of family income, the effect of reading four to five books over the summer was large enough to prevent a decline in reading-achievement scores from spring to fall. Kim's other finding: children who said they had easy access to books over the summer ended up reading more. So seasonal alarm bells aside, the best way to push back against the summer slide is with your library card.

Breakfast is indispensable. Not only does it provide essential early-morning nourishment to people of all ages throughout the week, it"s also becoming more and more trendy for both business meetings and social gatherings. Any time families and friends want to get together in a relaxed setting, they consider breakfast. Why? Because the meal has a universal appeal to all ages and all pocketbooks. Low-carb diets also have brought once-forbidden breakfast foods back into favor. Egg consumption has risen steadily in recent years. "In 1993, it was 234.6 per capita; in 2003, the figure was 254.1," says Linda Braun, director of consumer education for the American Egg Board. Miss Braun attributes some of this to dietary trends but says a more compelling reason is that eggs offer some newly identified benefits. "The yolks are rich in choline, a nutrient that shows promise in early studies for preventing memory loss in later life, and lutein, known to combat age-related macular degeneration and cataracts," she says. Whatever the rationale, steak and eggs and a barnyard full of other egg dishes from frittatas to huevos rancheros are being devoured with gusto. At home, omelets and toast have always been popular, in the week hours after a night on the town or when you"re alone and want to curl up with some comfort food, a blanket, and a good book. In restaurants, the meal once was pretty much over by 10 a.m. Today, that"s no longer true. With changing lifestyles, people are enjoying breakfast fare at all hours of the day and evening, too. Numerous restaurants across America, including the most fashionable eateries, serve traditional morning foods well past noon. At the Stamford, Conn., City Limits Diner, one of three diners by this name in the area, manager Margaret Callanan says that within the past few years, breakfast business probably has doubled. "The first segment to arrive in morning are the "suits", competitive lawyers and businessmen who use the hour to treat clients like guests rather than serving them bagels in their office," she says. Typical of many diners, City Limits offers an enormous menu. Along with waffles and pancakes, it serves refined dishes that are surprising at a place in this category. A great favorite is Maryland-lump-crab-and-lobster cake Benedict. (If you leave out the English muffin, the rich combination is even low-carb-friendly.) The most popular item is the country breakfast. It includes eggs, house-made hash brown potatoes, sausage, bacon and ham, plus multigrain toast from bread baked on the premises. At $7, it is a bargain.

Tuning in round the clock, via satellite or internet blog, to any bout of mayhem anywhere, you might not think the world was becoming a more peaceable place. But in some ways it is, and measurably so. A recent Human Security Report released by the Liu Institute at the University of British Columbia registers a 40% drop in the number of armed conflicts between 1992 and 2003, with the worst wars, those claiming more than a thousand lives in battle, down by 80%. While 28 armed struggles for self-determination ignited or reignited between 1991 and 2004, an encouraging 43 others were contained or doused. Yet measured in a different way, from the point of view of the half of the world"s population that is female, argues the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of the Armed Forces, the world is an awfully violent place, and not just in its war zones. Men still fill most of the bodybags in wartime, including in civil wars, even on DCAF"s figures, but their sisters, mothers, wives and daughters, it argues in a new report entitled "Women in an Insecure World", face nothing short of a "hidden gendercide". Violence against women is nothing new. DCAF"s contribution is to collate the many figures and estimates—not all of them easily verifiable, it has to be said—on everything from infanticide to rape (in both war and peace), dowry deaths, sex trafficking and domestic violence (in richer countries as well as poorer ones). According to one UN estimate cited by DCAF, between 113m and 200m women are now demographically "missing". This gender gap is a result of the aborting of girl foetuses and infanticide in countries where boys are preferred; lack of food and medical attention that goes instead to brothers, fathers, husbands and sons, so-called "honour killings" and dowry deaths; and other sorts of domestic violence. It implies that each year between 1.5m and 3m women and girls are lost to gender based violence. In other words, every two to four years the world looks away from a victim count on the scale of Hitler"s Holocaust. Women between the ages of 15 and 44 are more likely to be maimed or die from violence inflicted one way or another by their menfolk than through cancer, malaria, traffic accidents or war combined. Poor health care means that 600,000 women are lost each year to childbirth (a toll roughly equal annually to that of the Rwandan genocide). The World Health Organisation estimates that 6,000 girls a day (more than 2m a year), mostly in the poor world, undergo genital mutilation. Other WHO figures suggest that, around the world, one woman in five is likely to be a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime.

Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese. Your translation should be written clearly on ANSWER SHEET 2.@(10 points) Through necessity, Japan has adopted the bicycle as an essential component of transportation. The island nation"s limited geography, high density and lack of petroleum makes it an ideal location for small, efficient bicycles. (46) The destruction of Japan"s infrastructure during the second world war forced citizens to employ non-motorized means of transportation until the nation"s high speed railways were developed in the 1950s. With renewed infrastructure in place, the Japanese were quick to reject bicycling and its post-war reconstruction connotations and took to riding collector buses to and from railway stations. The bus system began to be overburdened in the late 1960s and riders began to find the system slow, expensive and inconvenient. (47) The disincentives of bus travel and surging environmental concerns associated with motorized travel initiated a shift in public opinion in favor of bicycling and bike ownership began to grow at 10% annually. Bicycles inundated railway stations and caused a bike pollution problem, inciting the Ministry of Transportation and Ministry of Construction to take action and build 22, 000 bicycle parking spaces in 1973. Japanese bike ownership doubled between 1975 and 1977, demanding additional construction projects in 1978. The Japanese government recognized that bike travel was favorable to other modes of transport for many reasons. Biking requires no petroleum and cyclists consume only 32 calories per mile compared to automobiles" 1, 800 cal/m demand. Cyclists" respiration contribute a scant 2 grams of carbon dioxide per passenger mile, while single-occupancy automobile emits 85 CO2 grams per mile. (48) On the road, eight cyclists can occupy the space needed for one automobile and when stopped, twenty bikes can be parked where there is space for just one automobile. These advantages prompted the government to consider other ways to promote bike travel including considerable urban design changes and the addition of 37,000 miles of bike/pedestrian pathways during the 1970s. From an energy, pollution and density standpoint, the bicycle is more efficient that any other mode of short-trip travel. (49) Because commuters are reluctant to pedal more than about four miles, railway stations are located near residential areas to that commuters will be willing to pedal to the nearest train stop; innovations in high-density bicycle parking offers travelers in the busiest stations safe, fully automated mechanical storage facilities. Construction of the most expensive facilities cost $2,000 per bike, compared to $4,000 to $18,000 for a single automobile parking space in the United States. (50) Japanese investments in bicycle infrastructure are offset by savings in subsidized bus systems as bicycle growth has surpassed bus rider ship growth; at some railway stations, more than 50% of commuters arrive by bike.

In hindsight one of the worst things about America"s subprime housing bust is how predictable it was. Subprime borrowers were by definition people of limited means with poor credit histories. Yet economists who have looked at the pattern of payments on subprime mortgages point out that even when house prices topped out and then began to fall, not all subprime borrowers defaulted. Only a minority of borrowers abruptly ceased to make payments, as someone choosing to default would. More typically, payments went from being regular to being erratic: borrowers fell behind, then became current again, only to fall behind once more. Those patterns are indicative of people trying, but struggling, to keep up with their payments. A trio of economists set out to find out what differentiated those borrowers who did not keep up with their payments from the rest. Their answer, according to a new working paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, is simple: numeracy. The economists tracked down a large number of subprime borrowers in New England on whom they already had detailed information, including the terms of their mortgages and their repayment histories. These borrowers were then subjected to a series of questions that required simple calculations about percentages and interest rates. Even accounting for a host of differences between people—including attitudes to risk, income levels and credit scores—those who fell behind on their mortgages were noticeably less numerate than those who kept up with their payments in the same overall circumstances. The least numerate fell behind about 25% of the time. For those who did best on the test, the number of payments they missed was almost 12%. A fifth of the least numerate group had been in foreclosure(the creditor taking possession of a property because the money has not been repaid), but only 7% of those who were more numerically adept had. Surprisingly, the least numerate were not making loan choices that differed much from their peers. They were about as likely to have a fixed-rate mortgage as the more numerically able. They did not borrow a larger share of their income. And loans were about the same fraction of the house"s value. Stephan Meier, one of the study"s authors, reckons that the innumerate may be worse at managing their daily finances, leaving them with little room for manoeuvre when things get difficult. Those better at sums might, for instance, have put a bit more aside in more plentiful times. Normally, such differences might not matter much. But in bleaker circumstances, a small pot of savings may be all that stands between homeownership and foreclosure.

Most worthwhile careers require some kind of specialized training. Ideally, therefore, the choice of an 【C1】______should be made even before choice of a curriculum in high school. Actually,【C2】______, most people make several job choices during their working lives,【C3】______because of economic and industrial changes and partly to improve【C4】______position. The "one perfect job" does not exist. Young people should【C5】______enter into a broad flexible training program that will【C6】______them for a field of work rather than for a single【C7】______. Unfortunately many young people have to make career plans【C8】______benefit of help from a competent vocational counselor or psychologist. Knowing【C9】______about the occupational world, or themselves for that matter, they choose their lifework on a hit-or-miss【C10】______. Some drift from job to job. Others【C11】______to work in which they are unhappy and for which they are not fitted. One common mistake is choosing an occupation for【C12】______real or imagined prestige. Too many high school students or their parents for them choose the professional field,【C13】______both the relatively small proportion of workers in the professions and the extremely high educational and personal【C14】______. The imagined or real prestige of a profession or a "white-collar" job is【C15】______good reason for choosing it as life" s work.【C16】______, these occupations are not always well paid. Since a large proportion of jobs are in mechanical and manual work, the【C17】______of young people should give serious【C18】______to these fields. Before making an occupational choice, a person should have a general idea of what he wants 【C19】______life and how hard he is willing to work to get it. Some people desire social prestige, others intellectual satisfaction. Some want security; others are willing to take【C20】______for financial gain. Each occupational choice has its demands as well as its rewards.

TheDangersofSmokingWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,andthen3)giveyourcomments.

LowCarbonLifestyleWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)interpretitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

DifferentStudents,DifferentDifficultiesA.Studythechartcarefullyandwriteanessayof160-200words.B.Youressayshouldcoverthesethreepoints:1)differentdifficultiesfacedbystudentsfromcitiesandthosefromcountryside2)possiblereasons3)yoursuggestions

BuildaHarmoniousWorldWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

Nowadays people usually prefer driving to being driven.

A few years back, many hospitals in America were embarrassed by revelations that some of their neediest patients, the uninsured, were being charged the most. These patients were getting slammed with the full list price for health care while those with insurance got negotiated discounts. The outcry prompted congressional hearings and state inquiries. All not-for-profit hospitals in Illinois haveadopted voluntary guidelines, set by the Illinois Hospital Association, to dole out free or discounted care. But Illinois attorney general Lisa Madigan says that"s not nearly enough. Madigan announced recently that most Illinois hospitals spend less than 1 percent on charitable care. She proposed that hospitals be required by law to spend at least 8 percent of their operating costs on charity: free health care, community clinics. This is a terrible idea. For starters—amazing as this may sound—Madigan hasn"t calculated how much this law would cost hospitals. No overall cost, nor the cost to any single hospital in the state. The Illinois Hospital Association says her bill would require 133 hospitals to spend $739 million more a year on charity care. That, the IHA says, would push 45 of those hospitals into the red, and 28 hospitals that already operate at a loss would be pushed closer to bankruptcy. Madigan disputes those figures. How did Madigan settle on the magic 8 percent? She cites her office"s investigation of hospitals and a task force she convened. But the task force didn"t issue a report and may never do so. She all but acknowledges that her claim that Illinois hospitals provide a miserly 1 percent in charitable care isn"t the whole story. That figure excludes much of what hospitals absorb, including the gap between what they spend on Medicaid patients and what they receive for that care. The IHA argues convincingly that mandating a high percentage of revenues to be spent on free care ignores the reality that many hospitals operate in the red. Draining more money would weaken hospitals—and encourage cost-cutting in nursing care, equipment or other essentials. Why are we talking about charitable giving by hospitals, as opposed to muffler shops, fast-food restaurants or beauty salons? Because most hospitals are tax-exempt by law: They don"t pay any federal, state or local taxes. In return, they"re required to provide services to the needy. But the law doesn"t say exactly how much. So they do have a charitable obligation. And some hospitals—even some not-for-profit hospitals-have hefty revenues. It"s useful to see how much they"re giving back to their communities. But the hospitals also have an obligation to stay solvent. No one profits when a hospital closes its doors. Madigan"s proposed mandate carries too much risk.

More than any other industry, America"s multi-billion-dollar entertainment business is caught in the crossfire of the country"s culture war. Media firms have always had to walk a fine line between giving adults realistic shows and shielding children from sex and bad language. But thanks to the current political influence of social conservatives, TV and radio firms are under more attack than ever for allegedly corrupting America"s youth. Congress is threatening to increase sharply fines for airing indecent material. Over 80% of American homes subscribe either to cable or satellite TV, but only broadcast television, which is technically free, is subject to indecency regulation. The media industry fears that new rules could damage its business model. The Federal Communications Commission(FCC), the media industry"s regulator, defines indecency as language or material that describes sexual actions or organs and which is considered "offensive by contemporary community standards." Solely for the sake of children(present in one-third of American homes), indecency is forbidden from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. on broadcast TV and radio. In contrast to "obscenity"—illegal all the time—indecency mostly consists of swearing, partial nudity and sexuality. America"s current battles over indecency began in 2003 when Bono, a rock star, said "this is really, really fucking brilliant" at a live awards show. The FCC decided to do nothing. Then came a glimpse of Janet Jackson"s breast in Super Bowl, outraging some viewers. Pressed by Congress, the FCC reversed its decision on Bono and said it would get tough on indecency. In 2004 it fined media firms nearly $8m, five times what it had levied in the previous ten years combined. For these firms such fines are puny. Yet fearing what future measures might be deployed against them, they have increasingly censored themselves. Last year several TV stations declined to air "Saving Private Ryan", a war movie with lots of swearing. The media industry faces a powerful bipartisan coalition of politicians who see votes in cleansing the airwaves. Republicans are leading the effort, but some Democrats are joining in—not surprisingly, as many parents do seem worried. One defensive strategy for the media industry is to play the moralizing wing of the Republican Party off against its substantial libertarian wing, which is opposed to giving the government more power to censor. News Corporation and General Electric"s NBC have together enlisted the support of the American Conservative Union, Americans for Tax Reform and the US Chamber of Commerce. Advances in technology, these groups argue, mean that the government no longer needs to police the airwaves for indecency. Many parents now have V-chips in their TV sets to block out pornographic material. Set-top boxes for cable and satellite TV also give parents control.

Whatever happened to the death of newspapers? A year ago the end seemed near. The recession threatened to remove the advertising and readers that had not already fled to the internet. Newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle were chronicling their own doom. America' s Federal Trade commission launched a round of talks about how to save newspapers. Should they become charitable corporations? Should the state subsidize them? It will hold another meeting soon. But the discussions now seem out of date. In much of the world there is little sign of crisis. German and Brazilian papers have shrugged off the recession. Even American newspapers, which inhabit the most troubled corner of the global industry, have not only survived but often returned to profit. Not the 20% profit margins that were routine a few years ago, but profit all the same. It has not been much fun. Many papers stayed afloat by pushing journalists overboard. The American Society of News Editors reckons that 13,500 newsroom jobs have gone since 2007. Readers are paying more for slimmer products. Some papers even had the nerve to refuse delivery to distant suburbs. Yet these desperate measures have proved the right ones and, sadly for many journalists, they can be pushed further. Newspapers are becoming more balanced businesses, with a healthier mix of revenues from readers and advertisers. American papers have long been highly unusual in their reliance on ads. Fully 87% of their revenues came from advertising in 2008, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Develop-ment(OECD). In Japan the proportion is 35%. Not surprisingly, Japanese newspapers are much more stable. The whirlwind that swept through newsrooms harmed everybody, but much of the damage has been concentrated in areas where newspaper are least distinctive. Car and film reviewers have gone. So have science and general business reporters. Foreign bureaus have been savagely cut off. Newspapers are less complete as a result. But completeness is no longer a virtue in the newspaper business.

OnBriberyWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)interpretitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

You want to study at a certain foreign university. Write a letter to ask about the situation there as regards accommodation and fees, possible scholarships, and what qualifications one needs for acceptance. You should write about 100 words on the ANSWER SHEET. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address. (10 points)

"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog," read the title of a famous Peter Steiner cartoon,【C1】______nowhere is it truer than Internet dating. The experience is by now familiar: the【C2】______mate who seemed just your【C3】______in a profile turns out to be a disappointment in person. There may be ways, however, to【C4】______a lying person before you find yourself【C5】______from him or her at a table lit by candles. Researchers from Cornell University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison compared the【C6】______heights, weights, and ages of 78 Internet dating participants to their profiles on four dating websites. They noticed several【C7】______from people who were less than【C8】______. For example, they were less likely to【C9】______to themselves as "I"; used indirect expressions,【C10】______"not boring" instead of "exciting" to describe themselves; and stuck to【C11】______descriptions. "People do this because they want to【C12】______themselves from their misleading statements," explained Catalina Toma, an author of the study, in a statement. Using these indications, the researchers【C13】______identified liars about 65 percent of the time. People lied most frequently about their【C14】______, with women slimming down, on average, by 8.5 pounds, and men by 1.5 pounds. At least half the subjects【C15】______their height, and nearly 20 percent changed their age. Despite the【C16】______of lies, volunteers proved【C17】______at catching them. Fortunately, Toma and the team's research【C18】______up the possibility of a software that could【C19】______lies for you, though Internet dating participants should be careful what they wish for—nearly everyone in the study lied in some【C20】______way.

Fit at Any Size Nikki Blonsky is exactly the role model most parents dream of for their kids. She"s happy, she"s successful, she"s overcome obstacles—no wonder her young fans adore her. She"s also overweight— by some measures very overweight—in a culture that fetishizes thin. (41)Blonsky is such a lucky dog, because she wouldn"t have been a popular figure she had been born a decade earlier. (42)Happiness might be the most difficult word to define, but at least people are increasingly aware of the fact that the body shape does not determine happiness. (43)Nobody likes to be over-weighted, yet it"s not our right to make the decision. (44)Before you let your kids to lose weight, you should make sure what they are losing, weight or health. (45)I{ you only feel hungry, then you can freely enjoy the joy of eating and drinking; however, if you bear the word "weight" in your mind, you can"t do that. Amid all this back-and-forth, however, there is one point that everyone agrees on: exercise definitely improves a child"s overall sense of well-being. Cooper, who invented aerobics a generation ago, has been testing the physical fitness of schoolchildren over the past decade and has consistently found that active kids do better academically, have fewer disciplinary issues and maintain better medical histories. "A child doesn"t need to be a star athlete or a tong-distance runner," Cooper says. "Even taking the stairs instead of an elevator has positive effects. " [A] There"s little doubt that being obese puts inactive youngsters at a higher risk for several health conditions, including Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. But almost no studies have been done evaluating the pros and cons of kids being fat yet active. Plus, reports on adults in similar situations have conflicted. Since the 1970s, doctors at the nonprofit Cooper Institute in Dallas have gathered data from more than 100,000 patients who have been weighed, measured and made to run on treadmills while their vital signs are monitored. "We"ve long concluded that people who are overweight and active can be healthier than those who are thin but sedentary", says Dr. Kenneth Cooper, the institute"s director. "There"s no reason to believe that conclusion doesn"t apply to our children too. " [B] Behind the push to get kids fit is the growing recognition that, in many cases, there"s just no fighting the natural rhythms or shape of a child"s body. Throughout childhood and adolescence, hormones may cause weight to fluctuate dramatically. Plus, nature determines whether we"re all going to be stocky, a beanpole or something in between before we"re even born. "Most body weights and types for children and adults are genetically determined", says Glenn Gaesser, a professor of exercise physiology at the University of Virginia. "There are a lot of kids who are just naturally heavier than their peers but may be even healthier. " [C] Difficult as it is to hear that your child is overweight, placing a child on an enforced diet may do more long-term harm than good. Doctors have yet to find a weight-loss program that has proved universally effective and safe, especially for children. More often, dieters will lose weight in the short run only to regain it. Research suggests that the repeated losing-regaining cycle can lead to loss in bone density and lean muscle mass, organs and bones, jeopardizing overall health. In fact, at least 15 major studies have shown higher death rates for adults after repeated losing regaining weight cycling. [D] Plus-size celebrities like Blonsky—or, for that matter, her Hairspray co-stars John Travolta (albeit in a latex fat suit) and Queen Latifah—are increasingly spreading the message that slim is not the last word in happy. Fit means happy too; so does staying active; so does loving your body no matter its shape. The key is to get that body healthy and keep it that way. The numbers on the scale—pediatricians, nutritionists and psychologists now argue—should start to come second to physical fitness as a gauge for health. [E] As many as 10 million women and 1 million men in the U. S. suffer from an eating disorder, according to the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA). Nearly 90% of those afflicted are under the age of 20, and females between the ages of 15 and 24 are 12 times as likely to die from anorexia as any one other cause of, death. A 2005 study published in the journal Pediatrics determined that of 10,000 teens surveyed, less than half of the males and about a third of the females were happy with their bodies. "Parents face a complicated situation", Tim Brownell, an expert from NEDA, says. "They have to promote healthy weight, but they also don"t want to change children into diet-crazed fanatics. " [F] There was a time when that alone would have been enough to keep Blonsky, the 19-year-old star of the movie Hairspray, out of the fan magazines and off the posters decorating grade-schoolers" bedroom walls. But that time may at last be ending. The national obesity epidemic did not happen in a vacuum. It occurred in an era in which fashion models have got thinner and thinner, the tolerance for even a little flab has grown lower and lower, and the rates of eating disorders like anorexia have climbed higher and higher. In that environment, children and adolescents trying to develop a healthy body image have almost no chance at all.