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Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on the Jersey shore, including a key setting of the popular MTV series Jersey Shore, the Seaside Heights Boardwalk (now re-named the Seaside Heights Planks-Floating-At-Sea). Hardcore fans, however, should not despair. Not only has MTV already planned a benefit show to help rebuild Seaside Heights, but breakout star “Snooki” (Nicole Polizzi) has tweeted that she is cleaning out her closet to donate clothes to the relief effort. Having seen what she wears on the show, I can only imagine her leopard-print tank tops and micro-minis providing warmth for scores of grateful preschoolers.
Northern Exposure
As a member of the AAP’s Council On Communications And The Media, I was excited to see a paper this week examining the effects of an intervention to help Canadian families reduce preschoolers’ screen time. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work. It wasn’t for lack of an elegant hypothesis: a short behavioral counseling session focusing on reducing screen time, especially TV-watching during meals, should lead kids to watch less TV, and we know from previous research that those kids’ diets would then improve and their BMI’s would fall, after which fairies should fly out of my left ear. As it turned out, none of that happened, unless fairies are orange and gooey.
What did happen was that kids in the intervention group ended up eating fewer meals in front of the television, down from two a day to 1.6 (and remember, this was in Canada, where televised sports include curling). Total hours of television watched per child did not fall, nor did the percentage of children with televisions in their bedrooms. Kids’ BMIs also didn’t budge, although is anyone really surprised in the country that perfected the art of bacon? Asked to comment on the fact that I appear to be wasting hours every week counseling families on media use, University at Albany - SUNY, media expert Dayna M. Maniccia, DrPH responded, "The new study is great because it means that people are looking at this and pediatricians are taking it seriously." Yes, I am seriously considering giving up.
Finger Lickin’ Finger Pointing
While counseling doesn’t seem to change families’ unhealthy eating habits, parents are at least willing to take the blame, according to a new study from Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. According to their most recent annual survey, parents feel that 60% of America’s childhood obesity problem rests squarely in their laps. Parents admitted to giving in to their kids’ requests too often and to not always being great dietary role models themselves. Researchers concurred, noting that many of the returned surveys had to be processed by hand on account of grease stains.
As for the other 40% of the blame, parents cited the costs of healthy food, ease of access to unhealthy foods in schools, and that hellishly catchy “Doo-doo-doo-dee-doo, I’m lovin’ it,” jingle. The Rudd Center has been especially critical of the insidious ways corporations market unhealthy foods to vulnerable children, but industry spokesperson Elaine Kalish responded in an interview, “Food marketing to children isn’t exactly the foremost thing on parents' minds,” possibly adding under her breath, “and that’s just the way we like it.”
Say It...
Epidemiologists publishing in the New England Journal of Medicine have determined that while mumps vaccine is highly effective, its protection can be overwhelmed if someone spits in your face for hours. That, at least, appears to be the upshot of their analysis of a mumps outbreak occurring in Orthodox Jewish communities in New York and New Jersey in 2009 and 2010. The researchers blamed the outbreak on the practice peculiar to yeshivas of chavrusa study, in which two partners sit face-to-face engaging in often impassioned theological debate. A related article in Pediatrics suggests that a third dose of mumps vaccine could provide protection against even intense exposures, but until then you might take a good long look at your Uncle Walter’s cheeks before getting him started on politics this Thanksgiving. Alternately, if you can get to the Jersey Shore, you might be able to cover your nose and mouth with one of Snooki’s dresses.
David L. Hill, M.D, FAAP, is vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, NC and is an adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television and Internet outlets. Dr. Hill is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like A Pro (AAP Publishing 2012).
Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on the Jersey shore, including a key setting of the popular MTV series Jersey Shore, the Seaside Heights Boardwalk (now re-named the Seaside Heights Planks-Floating-At-Sea). Hardcore fans, however, should not despair. Not only has MTV already planned a benefit show to help rebuild Seaside Heights, but breakout star “Snooki” (Nicole Polizzi) has tweeted that she is cleaning out her closet to donate clothes to the relief effort. Having seen what she wears on the show, I can only imagine her leopard-print tank tops and micro-minis providing warmth for scores of grateful preschoolers.
Northern Exposure
As a member of the AAP’s Council On Communications And The Media, I was excited to see a paper this week examining the effects of an intervention to help Canadian families reduce preschoolers’ screen time. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work. It wasn’t for lack of an elegant hypothesis: a short behavioral counseling session focusing on reducing screen time, especially TV-watching during meals, should lead kids to watch less TV, and we know from previous research that those kids’ diets would then improve and their BMI’s would fall, after which fairies should fly out of my left ear. As it turned out, none of that happened, unless fairies are orange and gooey.
What did happen was that kids in the intervention group ended up eating fewer meals in front of the television, down from two a day to 1.6 (and remember, this was in Canada, where televised sports include curling). Total hours of television watched per child did not fall, nor did the percentage of children with televisions in their bedrooms. Kids’ BMIs also didn’t budge, although is anyone really surprised in the country that perfected the art of bacon? Asked to comment on the fact that I appear to be wasting hours every week counseling families on media use, University at Albany - SUNY, media expert Dayna M. Maniccia, DrPH responded, "The new study is great because it means that people are looking at this and pediatricians are taking it seriously." Yes, I am seriously considering giving up.
Finger Lickin’ Finger Pointing
While counseling doesn’t seem to change families’ unhealthy eating habits, parents are at least willing to take the blame, according to a new study from Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. According to their most recent annual survey, parents feel that 60% of America’s childhood obesity problem rests squarely in their laps. Parents admitted to giving in to their kids’ requests too often and to not always being great dietary role models themselves. Researchers concurred, noting that many of the returned surveys had to be processed by hand on account of grease stains.
As for the other 40% of the blame, parents cited the costs of healthy food, ease of access to unhealthy foods in schools, and that hellishly catchy “Doo-doo-doo-dee-doo, I’m lovin’ it,” jingle. The Rudd Center has been especially critical of the insidious ways corporations market unhealthy foods to vulnerable children, but industry spokesperson Elaine Kalish responded in an interview, “Food marketing to children isn’t exactly the foremost thing on parents' minds,” possibly adding under her breath, “and that’s just the way we like it.”
Say It...
Epidemiologists publishing in the New England Journal of Medicine have determined that while mumps vaccine is highly effective, its protection can be overwhelmed if someone spits in your face for hours. That, at least, appears to be the upshot of their analysis of a mumps outbreak occurring in Orthodox Jewish communities in New York and New Jersey in 2009 and 2010. The researchers blamed the outbreak on the practice peculiar to yeshivas of chavrusa study, in which two partners sit face-to-face engaging in often impassioned theological debate. A related article in Pediatrics suggests that a third dose of mumps vaccine could provide protection against even intense exposures, but until then you might take a good long look at your Uncle Walter’s cheeks before getting him started on politics this Thanksgiving. Alternately, if you can get to the Jersey Shore, you might be able to cover your nose and mouth with one of Snooki’s dresses.
David L. Hill, M.D, FAAP, is vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, NC and is an adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television and Internet outlets. Dr. Hill is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like A Pro (AAP Publishing 2012).
Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on the Jersey shore, including a key setting of the popular MTV series Jersey Shore, the Seaside Heights Boardwalk (now re-named the Seaside Heights Planks-Floating-At-Sea). Hardcore fans, however, should not despair. Not only has MTV already planned a benefit show to help rebuild Seaside Heights, but breakout star “Snooki” (Nicole Polizzi) has tweeted that she is cleaning out her closet to donate clothes to the relief effort. Having seen what she wears on the show, I can only imagine her leopard-print tank tops and micro-minis providing warmth for scores of grateful preschoolers.
Northern Exposure
As a member of the AAP’s Council On Communications And The Media, I was excited to see a paper this week examining the effects of an intervention to help Canadian families reduce preschoolers’ screen time. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work. It wasn’t for lack of an elegant hypothesis: a short behavioral counseling session focusing on reducing screen time, especially TV-watching during meals, should lead kids to watch less TV, and we know from previous research that those kids’ diets would then improve and their BMI’s would fall, after which fairies should fly out of my left ear. As it turned out, none of that happened, unless fairies are orange and gooey.
What did happen was that kids in the intervention group ended up eating fewer meals in front of the television, down from two a day to 1.6 (and remember, this was in Canada, where televised sports include curling). Total hours of television watched per child did not fall, nor did the percentage of children with televisions in their bedrooms. Kids’ BMIs also didn’t budge, although is anyone really surprised in the country that perfected the art of bacon? Asked to comment on the fact that I appear to be wasting hours every week counseling families on media use, University at Albany - SUNY, media expert Dayna M. Maniccia, DrPH responded, "The new study is great because it means that people are looking at this and pediatricians are taking it seriously." Yes, I am seriously considering giving up.
Finger Lickin’ Finger Pointing
While counseling doesn’t seem to change families’ unhealthy eating habits, parents are at least willing to take the blame, according to a new study from Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. According to their most recent annual survey, parents feel that 60% of America’s childhood obesity problem rests squarely in their laps. Parents admitted to giving in to their kids’ requests too often and to not always being great dietary role models themselves. Researchers concurred, noting that many of the returned surveys had to be processed by hand on account of grease stains.
As for the other 40% of the blame, parents cited the costs of healthy food, ease of access to unhealthy foods in schools, and that hellishly catchy “Doo-doo-doo-dee-doo, I’m lovin’ it,” jingle. The Rudd Center has been especially critical of the insidious ways corporations market unhealthy foods to vulnerable children, but industry spokesperson Elaine Kalish responded in an interview, “Food marketing to children isn’t exactly the foremost thing on parents' minds,” possibly adding under her breath, “and that’s just the way we like it.”
Say It...
Epidemiologists publishing in the New England Journal of Medicine have determined that while mumps vaccine is highly effective, its protection can be overwhelmed if someone spits in your face for hours. That, at least, appears to be the upshot of their analysis of a mumps outbreak occurring in Orthodox Jewish communities in New York and New Jersey in 2009 and 2010. The researchers blamed the outbreak on the practice peculiar to yeshivas of chavrusa study, in which two partners sit face-to-face engaging in often impassioned theological debate. A related article in Pediatrics suggests that a third dose of mumps vaccine could provide protection against even intense exposures, but until then you might take a good long look at your Uncle Walter’s cheeks before getting him started on politics this Thanksgiving. Alternately, if you can get to the Jersey Shore, you might be able to cover your nose and mouth with one of Snooki’s dresses.
David L. Hill, M.D, FAAP, is vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, NC and is an adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television and Internet outlets. Dr. Hill is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like A Pro (AAP Publishing 2012).