Are You Big On Little Known Facts?

"Occupy" was 2011's word of the year. That was the decision of the American Dialect Society. Occupy won a runoff vote, beating "FOMO" (an acronym for Fear Of Missing Out, describing anxiety about being overwhelmed by information on social media) and "the 99%" (those thought to be at financial or political disadvantage). Occupy took on new meaning in 2011 due to the Occupy Wall Street movement that spread worldwide as a call to action against unequal distribution of wealth and other issues. Previous year's winners have been "app", "tweet" and "bailout" - each one becoming a "word of honor".

There are fewer children in the U.S. Thirty-six states reported declines in young residents. According to the Census Bureau, there were 73.9 million people under age 18 on July 1, 2011. That's 260,000 less than in 2010. The last drop in child population was in the 1970's, when most of the 77 million Baby Boomers reached adulthood. The drop before that was during the Great Depression. The present decrease in children is attributed to the poor economy and to less immigration. That the overall population is growing at its slowest rate since the mid 1940's is attributed to "growing pains".

Powerful people think they're taller than they actually are. In a study published in Psychological Science, researchers measured the height of 68 volunteers. One-third recalled a time they had power over someone; one-third recalled a time someone had power over them; and one-third recalled what happened the day before. Then all the volunteers were asked to estimate their height in relation to a pole set 20 inches higher than each of their actual heights. Those who'd recalled being powerful tended to think they were taller than the poll. It seems power affects how people see themselves physically. It's the "height of power".

Bodies can be too big to donate to science. Bodies taller than 6-feet-4 or heavier than 300 pounds don't fit on the trays stacked in coolers. Also, big bodies are hard to handle. Donated bodies are primarily used by first-year anatomy students and too much body fat prevents students from learning how a body is supposed to look. According to a 2004 study by Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, about 50% of adults were willing to consider donating their body to science. However, in a country where in 2012 one-third of adults are obese, the availability of bodies could "dead-end".