The bigger the Walmart, the bigger the waistline?

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Published on
January 21, 2011

We end the week here at the Daily Briefing with new takes on big stories.

Supercenter: You've probably heard about Michelle Obama's appearance at a WalMart corporate event to announce healthier food options, but the Montreal Gazette reported on a study this week that shows a connection between the size of a Walmart and weight gain in communities.

Cheap Health Insurance? It's possible -- but for Indian farmers. Listen to Kavitha Cardoza's Marketplace report.

Global Health Funding: David Bryden at Science Speaks provides a rundown and analysis of the positions of key members of the new Congress (see posts one and two).

Youth News: A personal essay by 16-year-old Ronsanise Johnson about the importance of having a hospital nearby.

Journalism Reminders: Former Guardian science editor (among other titles) Tim Radford shares a manifesto, including this lovely lesson:

"You are not writing to impress the scientist you have just interviewed, nor the professor who got you through your degree, nor the editor who foolishly turned you down, or the rather dishy person you just met at a party and told you were a writer. Or even your mother. You are writing to impress someone hanging from a strap in the tube between Parson's Green and Putney, who will stop reading in a fifth of a second, given a chance."

And another:

"Beware of long and preposterous words. Beware of jargon. If you are a science writer this is doubly important. If you are a science writer, you occasionally have to bandy words that no ordinary human ever uses, like phenotype, mitochondrion, cosmic inflation, Gaussian distribution and isostasy. So you really don't want to be effulgent or felicitous as well. You could just try being bright and happy."