Put down those wings, pay attention

The Guys know you come to this site looking for our particular brand of comedy, but you know what’s not funny? Eating disorders.

Doctors are growing more concerned about Web sites that encourage anorexia and bulimia, and some of them are actually getting pulled off the Internet.

To make sure we stay online keep you healthy and reading, we will no longer joke about starving and/or vomiting. And, just so you know we’re being serious instead of sarcastic, we’re adding special punctuation to any statement that addresses these serious medical issues.

For instance:

You should eat at least three meals a day, with a proportional amount of each food group ; )

Puking after a big meal does not rock ; )

Food allergies are never an excuse, so eat the goddamn peanut butter ; )

So, just look for that punctuation to know that we care about you and want you to be as healthy as can be ; )

Take pleasure in their pain

It’s no surprise that cigarettes are harder to quit than heroin. We’ve heard the stats and arguments about this before multiple times by now. But are other guilty pleasures just as addictive-like, say, chocolate?

If you’re a mouse, there’s a good chance of that.

Italian researchers set out to discover just how much compulsive behavior plays a role in eating disorders. Rossella Ventura, leader of the research team at the Santa Lucia Foundation in Rome, took two sets of mice – the experimental group was starved (which we approve) while the control was fed normally (which we don’t approve as much) – and trained them to choose between two chambers in a maze. The first chamber was empty while the second had a bit of chocolate inside. Once this conditioning was established, they added a mild electric shock to the chocolate room.

They then allowed the starved mice to eat their way back to normal weight and let both sets into the maze. The mice that had been well-fed throughout experienced the shock and quickly learned to avoid the chocolate chamber (awww). The previously starved mice, on the other hand, fought through the pain in pursuit of the chocolate (sort of yay), despite the fact that they were now being fed adequately elsewhere.

Ventura believes this willingness to ignore negative consequences in pursuit of food even when there is no great need for it demonstrates part of the behavior components that underlie eating disorders in humans and animals. Frankly, we at SG don’t care if they’ve got bulimia or boo-urnslimia. This is information that we can use in our great war against nature, and boy oh boy, is it good information. Can we suggest attempting the experiment on a larger scale, but then incorporate flamethrowers rather than just electric shocks? Oh, and just starve all the animals in this large scale experiment?

Don’t judge me-we’re at war, people.