VOA常速英语2016--远离非理性减肥（在线收听）

远离非理性减肥

We Americans have gone nearly certifiably insane over our weight.

我们美国人已经对于减肥一事已经几近疯狂。

It wasn't enough that the government completely re-designed its "food pyramid" nutrition guide into colored bands - wide ones for recommended good stuff like grains and green veggies, skinny bands for naughty sugars and fats. Or that it tries, with little success, to teach us the difference between "good fats" and "bad fats."

美国政府光是把“食物金字塔”的营养指南彻底重塑为宽窄不一的多彩色带还不够（宽的代表比较推荐营养食物，比如谷物和蔬菜；窄的代表糖类和脂肪）。政府还试图教我们区别“好脂肪”和“坏脂肪”，虽然这招也并不太成功。

We did the grapefruit diet. Then the low-fat, low-carbohydrate, high-carbohydrate, South Beach, Detox, Protein Power, Atkins and Zone diets. We count calories or point totals assigned to each and every morsel of food. We grunt through treadmill ordeals, jazzy exercises, and contorted workouts on machines straight out of the Inquisition.

柚子减肥法我们也试过了。然后又尝试了低脂减肥法、低碳水化合物减肥法、高碳水化合物减肥法、迈阿密饮食法(South Beach)、排毒减肥法(Detox)、低糖高蛋白减肥法(Protein Power)、阿特金斯减肥法(Atkins)和分区饮食法(Zone diets)。我们掂掇着食物的卡路里，细数着吃多少口食物会摄入多少能量。我们艰难地穿梭在跑步机、爵士舞和各种让我们惨叫喋喋的健身器械之间，犹如接受审判一般。

But in the mirror, we're still a long way from Adonis and Aphrodite.

但照镜子时，我们离女神和男神的标准仍然还有很大的差距。

A new dieting service allows people to take pictures of their meal to email to a nutritionist for feedback.

现在又出现一种新的瘦身服务，人们可以将所吃的食物拍照，然后发邮件给营养师，听他们的反馈。

So someone has combined three American obsessions - with weight, with technology, and with convenience and comfort - into something called a "dieting service."

所以就有人将美国人痴迷的三大件儿——减肥、科技、省事儿又舒适，融合在一起，美其名曰“瘦身服务”。

Here's how it works: before you put even a speck of food in your mouth - a potato chip, a stick of gum, a beefsteak dinner - you flip open your camera phone, snap a picture of the item, and e-mail it to a dietician. No need to count calories: the picture tells the tale.

所谓的“瘦身服务”是这样一回事：在你把食物放进嘴里之前（比如你吃的是土豆片、口香糖、牛排晚餐），你要先打开手机相机功能，给这些食物拍张张片，然后发邮件给营养师。无需计算卡路里：图片就能表明一切。

Some time after you've dined, back comes the dietician's analysis - and perhaps a scolding - on an Internet Web site designed especially for you.

等你吃完饭一段时间之后，营养师的反馈分析才姗姗来迟——还可能是一段责备的话——这个结果要到一个专门的瘦身服务网站上看。

According to common perceptions, Italians gorge from pasta bowls the size of Sicily; Frenchmen drink jeroboams of red wine; and Greeks can seemingly drip vats of olive oil directly into their veins. They all look like supermodels and live to 125. Weight-obsessed Americans have been reduced to photographing our every crust of bread, in the hope that a picture can save 1,000 calories.

大家普遍认为，意大利人吃面的碗有西西里岛那么大；法国人喝红酒都用香槟酒杯；而希腊人可以将成桶的橄榄油直接注射到血管中。但他们都是超模的身材，还能活到125岁。美国人太过痴迷于减肥，以致于寄希望于给食物拍张照片就能让食物里的1000卡路里凭空消失。