A decent proposal

Guys, if you haven’t proposed to your beloved yet, don’t bother planning anything romantic. Just text her, “Will u marry me?” along with a link to Amazon’s jewelry section. Because unless you’re prepared to rent a stadium, hire a 50-piece band to play your own original composition, and arrange a pyrotechnics display that would put Metallica to shame, there’s no way your efforts can compare to Kanye West’s proposal to Kim Kardashian (and don’t think your girlfriend doesn’t know that). The couple’s infant daughter North was not in attendance, as it was past her bedtime. Kanye was thinking of North’s safety, however, when he bought the engagement diamond: The rock is far too large to fit in a baby’s mouth.

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Spare rods?

When it’s running slow, admit it, you sometimes smack your computer. Our IT consultant says that’s why he has to keep replacing my keyboard, but it just feels so good, you know? According to two companion studies in this month’s Pediatrics, spanking children makes about that much sense, and it doesn’t feel nearly as good, perhaps because computers rarely cry.

Most parents say they spank in order to gets their children to behave, although it’s possible some of them simply suffer sudden, uncontrolled arm movements. Both of the new studies demonstrated that spanking actually worsens children’s behavior in the long term, and one also showed a strong correlation with poor receptive language skills at age 9 years. Essentially, spanking kids is like punishing your car by driving it without oil.

The glaring difference between the studies, aside from their focus on different age groups (under age 2 in one, ages 3-5 years in the other), is that the one with the toddlers found that only white children suffer behavioral effects from spanking. The logical conclusion of this finding would of course be that we provide racially specific counseling to parents of toddlers, suggesting for example that biracial children only be spanked on one buttock. The study of preschoolers failed to find racial differences in the harm attributable to spanking, presumably because, before they ran the statistics, the investigators remembered to whack their computers.

Culture club

Is it just me, or are there some things you still just shouldn’t buy online? I get all these e-mail offers for Viagra, which, even if I had, you know, pulmonary hypertension, I still probably wouldn’t be ordering from some Internet operation in Chechnya. So was anyone surprised to see the article in Pediatrics this week with what has to be the least suspenseful headline ever: “Microbial Contamination of Human Milk Purchased via the Internet”?

The authors ordered 101 different human milk samples online and had them delivered to a rented mailbox in Ohio. (“Breast-milk again, huh? You guys sure do seem to get a lot of that stuff!”) They then checked the bacterial content of this milk, finding that nearly three-quarters of the samples were colonized with high counts of bacteria, including E. coli, Staphylococcus, and Salmonella. I don’t think that’s what they mean when they say, “probiotics.”

The authors suggest that mothers who require supplemental breast milk for their babies work with lactation consultants and approved milk banks instead of buying the milk from strangers all over the country online and waiting for it to arrive at an anonymous mailbox in Ohio. The authors do not comment on whether they gave the sellers of contaminated milk poor reviews on eBay.

You want fries with that?

You know what constitutes a First World problem? Picky eaters. You think there are kids in Southern Sudan going, “I don’t like hummus, I only want chicken nuggets!”? But apparently in England as in America, there are kids who refuse to taste vegetables and insist on eating only macaroni and cheese or bangers and mash or whatever it is picky British toddlers survive on. Now, however, researchers in England have hit upon a solution: the Tiny Tastes program. And no, it does not involve sending children to live in Southern Sudan.

Investigators publishing in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics challenged 196 little picky eaters to try small bites of vegetables in return for rewards. The program involved a video-training program, a booklet, and stickers to give to cooperative kids (because we know food rewards are about as useful as whacking a computer). Compared with kids in the control group, children who got stickers became virtual Peter Rabbits, with 141 enjoying vegetables at the end of the experiment, up from 39 at the beginning. Future research will focus on how many vegetables children will eat in return for Kim Kardashian’s engagement ring.

David L. Hill, M.D., FAAP is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like a Pro (AAP Publishing, 2012). He is also vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, N.C., and  adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He serves as Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and as 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.

Guys, if you haven’t proposed to your beloved yet, don’t bother planning anything romantic. Just text her, “Will u marry me?” along with a link to Amazon’s jewelry section. Because unless you’re prepared to rent a stadium, hire a 50-piece band to play your own original composition, and arrange a pyrotechnics display that would put Metallica to shame, there’s no way your efforts can compare to Kanye West’s proposal to Kim Kardashian (and don’t think your girlfriend doesn’t know that). The couple’s infant daughter North was not in attendance, as it was past her bedtime. Kanye was thinking of North’s safety, however, when he bought the engagement diamond: The rock is far too large to fit in a baby’s mouth.

iStock

Spare rods?

When it’s running slow, admit it, you sometimes smack your computer. Our IT consultant says that’s why he has to keep replacing my keyboard, but it just feels so good, you know? According to two companion studies in this month’s Pediatrics, spanking children makes about that much sense, and it doesn’t feel nearly as good, perhaps because computers rarely cry.

Most parents say they spank in order to gets their children to behave, although it’s possible some of them simply suffer sudden, uncontrolled arm movements. Both of the new studies demonstrated that spanking actually worsens children’s behavior in the long term, and one also showed a strong correlation with poor receptive language skills at age 9 years. Essentially, spanking kids is like punishing your car by driving it without oil.

The glaring difference between the studies, aside from their focus on different age groups (under age 2 in one, ages 3-5 years in the other), is that the one with the toddlers found that only white children suffer behavioral effects from spanking. The logical conclusion of this finding would of course be that we provide racially specific counseling to parents of toddlers, suggesting for example that biracial children only be spanked on one buttock. The study of preschoolers failed to find racial differences in the harm attributable to spanking, presumably because, before they ran the statistics, the investigators remembered to whack their computers.

Culture club

Is it just me, or are there some things you still just shouldn’t buy online? I get all these e-mail offers for Viagra, which, even if I had, you know, pulmonary hypertension, I still probably wouldn’t be ordering from some Internet operation in Chechnya. So was anyone surprised to see the article in Pediatrics this week with what has to be the least suspenseful headline ever: “Microbial Contamination of Human Milk Purchased via the Internet”?

The authors ordered 101 different human milk samples online and had them delivered to a rented mailbox in Ohio. (“Breast-milk again, huh? You guys sure do seem to get a lot of that stuff!”) They then checked the bacterial content of this milk, finding that nearly three-quarters of the samples were colonized with high counts of bacteria, including E. coli, Staphylococcus, and Salmonella. I don’t think that’s what they mean when they say, “probiotics.”

The authors suggest that mothers who require supplemental breast milk for their babies work with lactation consultants and approved milk banks instead of buying the milk from strangers all over the country online and waiting for it to arrive at an anonymous mailbox in Ohio. The authors do not comment on whether they gave the sellers of contaminated milk poor reviews on eBay.

You want fries with that?

You know what constitutes a First World problem? Picky eaters. You think there are kids in Southern Sudan going, “I don’t like hummus, I only want chicken nuggets!”? But apparently in England as in America, there are kids who refuse to taste vegetables and insist on eating only macaroni and cheese or bangers and mash or whatever it is picky British toddlers survive on. Now, however, researchers in England have hit upon a solution: the Tiny Tastes program. And no, it does not involve sending children to live in Southern Sudan.

Investigators publishing in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics challenged 196 little picky eaters to try small bites of vegetables in return for rewards. The program involved a video-training program, a booklet, and stickers to give to cooperative kids (because we know food rewards are about as useful as whacking a computer). Compared with kids in the control group, children who got stickers became virtual Peter Rabbits, with 141 enjoying vegetables at the end of the experiment, up from 39 at the beginning. Future research will focus on how many vegetables children will eat in return for Kim Kardashian’s engagement ring.

David L. Hill, M.D., FAAP is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like a Pro (AAP Publishing, 2012). He is also vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, N.C., and  adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He serves as Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and as 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.

Guys, if you haven’t proposed to your beloved yet, don’t bother planning anything romantic. Just text her, “Will u marry me?” along with a link to Amazon’s jewelry section. Because unless you’re prepared to rent a stadium, hire a 50-piece band to play your own original composition, and arrange a pyrotechnics display that would put Metallica to shame, there’s no way your efforts can compare to Kanye West’s proposal to Kim Kardashian (and don’t think your girlfriend doesn’t know that). The couple’s infant daughter North was not in attendance, as it was past her bedtime. Kanye was thinking of North’s safety, however, when he bought the engagement diamond: The rock is far too large to fit in a baby’s mouth.

iStock

Spare rods?

When it’s running slow, admit it, you sometimes smack your computer. Our IT consultant says that’s why he has to keep replacing my keyboard, but it just feels so good, you know? According to two companion studies in this month’s Pediatrics, spanking children makes about that much sense, and it doesn’t feel nearly as good, perhaps because computers rarely cry.

Most parents say they spank in order to gets their children to behave, although it’s possible some of them simply suffer sudden, uncontrolled arm movements. Both of the new studies demonstrated that spanking actually worsens children’s behavior in the long term, and one also showed a strong correlation with poor receptive language skills at age 9 years. Essentially, spanking kids is like punishing your car by driving it without oil.

The glaring difference between the studies, aside from their focus on different age groups (under age 2 in one, ages 3-5 years in the other), is that the one with the toddlers found that only white children suffer behavioral effects from spanking. The logical conclusion of this finding would of course be that we provide racially specific counseling to parents of toddlers, suggesting for example that biracial children only be spanked on one buttock. The study of preschoolers failed to find racial differences in the harm attributable to spanking, presumably because, before they ran the statistics, the investigators remembered to whack their computers.

Culture club

Is it just me, or are there some things you still just shouldn’t buy online? I get all these e-mail offers for Viagra, which, even if I had, you know, pulmonary hypertension, I still probably wouldn’t be ordering from some Internet operation in Chechnya. So was anyone surprised to see the article in Pediatrics this week with what has to be the least suspenseful headline ever: “Microbial Contamination of Human Milk Purchased via the Internet”?

The authors ordered 101 different human milk samples online and had them delivered to a rented mailbox in Ohio. (“Breast-milk again, huh? You guys sure do seem to get a lot of that stuff!”) They then checked the bacterial content of this milk, finding that nearly three-quarters of the samples were colonized with high counts of bacteria, including E. coli, Staphylococcus, and Salmonella. I don’t think that’s what they mean when they say, “probiotics.”

The authors suggest that mothers who require supplemental breast milk for their babies work with lactation consultants and approved milk banks instead of buying the milk from strangers all over the country online and waiting for it to arrive at an anonymous mailbox in Ohio. The authors do not comment on whether they gave the sellers of contaminated milk poor reviews on eBay.

You want fries with that?

You know what constitutes a First World problem? Picky eaters. You think there are kids in Southern Sudan going, “I don’t like hummus, I only want chicken nuggets!”? But apparently in England as in America, there are kids who refuse to taste vegetables and insist on eating only macaroni and cheese or bangers and mash or whatever it is picky British toddlers survive on. Now, however, researchers in England have hit upon a solution: the Tiny Tastes program. And no, it does not involve sending children to live in Southern Sudan.

Investigators publishing in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics challenged 196 little picky eaters to try small bites of vegetables in return for rewards. The program involved a video-training program, a booklet, and stickers to give to cooperative kids (because we know food rewards are about as useful as whacking a computer). Compared with kids in the control group, children who got stickers became virtual Peter Rabbits, with 141 enjoying vegetables at the end of the experiment, up from 39 at the beginning. Future research will focus on how many vegetables children will eat in return for Kim Kardashian’s engagement ring.

David L. Hill, M.D., FAAP is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like a Pro (AAP Publishing, 2012). He is also vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, N.C., and  adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He serves as Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and as 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.