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Okay, y’all, I know this is ironic coming from me, but it’s time to lay off Justin Bieber. The jejune pop star has endured an onslaught of criticism for visiting the Anne Frank House Museum in Amsterdam and writing in the guest book that he hoped Anne Frank (in some alternate reality) would have been a “Belieber,” which is not as bad a spelling error as it first appears. In fact, it was just a musing on how the trapped 14-year-old amused herself with pictures of contemporary celebrities. Imagine, for example, what a big star Frank Sinatra might have been if only he’d had Bieber’s haircut!
Rankling
The United States is the world’s wealthiest and most powerful country, right? And we love our children, right? So when the United Nations released their ranking of children’s well-being among the world’s 29 richest countries last week, there’s no question where we fall, right? Put your hands in the air and chant it, people: “We’re number 26! We’re number 26! In your face, Lithuania, Latvia, and Romania! And hey, Greece, Slovakia, Estonia, watch your backs, because we’re coming for you! Just as soon as we finish cutting funding even further for education, health care, and environmental safety! Booyah!”
Of course, when you break well-being down into five categories, the U.S. rises much higher in the rankings, all the way to 23rd for both Behaviors & Risks and Housing & Environment. For Education, however, we drop to 27th; if that’s not a reason to fire even more teachers, I don’t know what is! There was one measure on which the U.S. did actually rank at the top: The U.S. and Ireland were the only two countries in which at least 25% of children reported exercising at least an hour each day. It is not clear from the report whether the survey clarified that “exercise” does not technically include playing Call of Duty III.
Who, then, is on top? It’s those stinking Northern Europeans again, particularly the Dutch. I suppose we, too, could have healthier children if we chose to submit to a Communist dictatorship that forces people to ride bicycles, wear wooden shoes, and smoke marijuana (if you’ve ever tried to ride a bicycle in wooden shoes stoned, you know that only the strongest survive). Besides, what have all those healthy, brilliant Dutch children produced for the world that even comes close to the Big Mac or Ted? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
The social network
You know how some people put a huge amount of resources into the wrong things because they’re missing the bigger picture? Like that guy who buys a Porsche when what he really needs is to not be a jerk? A groundbreaking new study suggests that pediatricians and other vaccine advocates may want to refocus our efforts. We don’t need more data on vaccine safety. We need more friends.
Dr. Emily Brunson at Texas State University, San Marcos, applied the novel approach of social network analysis to determine just who it is that influences parents to delay or forgo vaccines in favor of life-threatening diseases. To find enough such parents, she went to the mother lode of measles, the wealth of whooping cough that is King County, Washington. There, she found 126 parents who vaccinate their children on time (conformers) and 70 who delay or skip vaccines (nonconformers) and asked them to list and rank every person and source that informed their decisions. It turns out that health care providers remain an important influence on parents’ vaccine choices, just less important than spouses, friends, Reiki masters, baristas, parking lot attendants, and dog-eared paperbacks passed on over cups of organic chai latte.
Nonconforming parents, in fact, reported having more friends and seeking more sources on vaccines than did conforming parents. Many of the sources nonconformers turned to actually did support on-time and complete vaccination, but it appears they kept looking until they found a resource that confirmed the biases of their friends and family members. What we need, it appears, is not better websites and handouts for parents. Instead, right now, every pediatrician in America needs to go out and marry at least one vaccine nonconformer, more if local statutes allow. If this seems like too much trouble, then at least have them over for chai and Reiki. And hide your Porsche.
Eine kleine
In what has to be possibly the single most pleasant study ever conducted in a neonatal intensive care unit, music therapists and physicians at Beth Israel Medical Center determined that premature infants respond to live music with improved heart rates and respiratory function and enhanced sucking and caloric intake. Researchers also played a whooshing sound on something called the Remo Ocean Disk and a heartbeat sound on something called a “gato box,” which I must assume does not contain an actual Mexican cat.
The best responses came when a parent sang a culturally relevant lullaby; when they couldn’t think of one, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” was suggested. I just have to wonder, however, what if your mom is, say, Ke$ha? We can only hope she knows “Twinkle, Twinkle.” Or maybe she could ask Justin Bieber to swing by the NICU to sing a few tunes. Could it really happen? Never say never.
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).
Okay, y’all, I know this is ironic coming from me, but it’s time to lay off Justin Bieber. The jejune pop star has endured an onslaught of criticism for visiting the Anne Frank House Museum in Amsterdam and writing in the guest book that he hoped Anne Frank (in some alternate reality) would have been a “Belieber,” which is not as bad a spelling error as it first appears. In fact, it was just a musing on how the trapped 14-year-old amused herself with pictures of contemporary celebrities. Imagine, for example, what a big star Frank Sinatra might have been if only he’d had Bieber’s haircut!
Rankling
The United States is the world’s wealthiest and most powerful country, right? And we love our children, right? So when the United Nations released their ranking of children’s well-being among the world’s 29 richest countries last week, there’s no question where we fall, right? Put your hands in the air and chant it, people: “We’re number 26! We’re number 26! In your face, Lithuania, Latvia, and Romania! And hey, Greece, Slovakia, Estonia, watch your backs, because we’re coming for you! Just as soon as we finish cutting funding even further for education, health care, and environmental safety! Booyah!”
Of course, when you break well-being down into five categories, the U.S. rises much higher in the rankings, all the way to 23rd for both Behaviors & Risks and Housing & Environment. For Education, however, we drop to 27th; if that’s not a reason to fire even more teachers, I don’t know what is! There was one measure on which the U.S. did actually rank at the top: The U.S. and Ireland were the only two countries in which at least 25% of children reported exercising at least an hour each day. It is not clear from the report whether the survey clarified that “exercise” does not technically include playing Call of Duty III.
Who, then, is on top? It’s those stinking Northern Europeans again, particularly the Dutch. I suppose we, too, could have healthier children if we chose to submit to a Communist dictatorship that forces people to ride bicycles, wear wooden shoes, and smoke marijuana (if you’ve ever tried to ride a bicycle in wooden shoes stoned, you know that only the strongest survive). Besides, what have all those healthy, brilliant Dutch children produced for the world that even comes close to the Big Mac or Ted? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
The social network
You know how some people put a huge amount of resources into the wrong things because they’re missing the bigger picture? Like that guy who buys a Porsche when what he really needs is to not be a jerk? A groundbreaking new study suggests that pediatricians and other vaccine advocates may want to refocus our efforts. We don’t need more data on vaccine safety. We need more friends.
Dr. Emily Brunson at Texas State University, San Marcos, applied the novel approach of social network analysis to determine just who it is that influences parents to delay or forgo vaccines in favor of life-threatening diseases. To find enough such parents, she went to the mother lode of measles, the wealth of whooping cough that is King County, Washington. There, she found 126 parents who vaccinate their children on time (conformers) and 70 who delay or skip vaccines (nonconformers) and asked them to list and rank every person and source that informed their decisions. It turns out that health care providers remain an important influence on parents’ vaccine choices, just less important than spouses, friends, Reiki masters, baristas, parking lot attendants, and dog-eared paperbacks passed on over cups of organic chai latte.
Nonconforming parents, in fact, reported having more friends and seeking more sources on vaccines than did conforming parents. Many of the sources nonconformers turned to actually did support on-time and complete vaccination, but it appears they kept looking until they found a resource that confirmed the biases of their friends and family members. What we need, it appears, is not better websites and handouts for parents. Instead, right now, every pediatrician in America needs to go out and marry at least one vaccine nonconformer, more if local statutes allow. If this seems like too much trouble, then at least have them over for chai and Reiki. And hide your Porsche.
Eine kleine
In what has to be possibly the single most pleasant study ever conducted in a neonatal intensive care unit, music therapists and physicians at Beth Israel Medical Center determined that premature infants respond to live music with improved heart rates and respiratory function and enhanced sucking and caloric intake. Researchers also played a whooshing sound on something called the Remo Ocean Disk and a heartbeat sound on something called a “gato box,” which I must assume does not contain an actual Mexican cat.
The best responses came when a parent sang a culturally relevant lullaby; when they couldn’t think of one, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” was suggested. I just have to wonder, however, what if your mom is, say, Ke$ha? We can only hope she knows “Twinkle, Twinkle.” Or maybe she could ask Justin Bieber to swing by the NICU to sing a few tunes. Could it really happen? Never say never.
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).
Okay, y’all, I know this is ironic coming from me, but it’s time to lay off Justin Bieber. The jejune pop star has endured an onslaught of criticism for visiting the Anne Frank House Museum in Amsterdam and writing in the guest book that he hoped Anne Frank (in some alternate reality) would have been a “Belieber,” which is not as bad a spelling error as it first appears. In fact, it was just a musing on how the trapped 14-year-old amused herself with pictures of contemporary celebrities. Imagine, for example, what a big star Frank Sinatra might have been if only he’d had Bieber’s haircut!
Rankling
The United States is the world’s wealthiest and most powerful country, right? And we love our children, right? So when the United Nations released their ranking of children’s well-being among the world’s 29 richest countries last week, there’s no question where we fall, right? Put your hands in the air and chant it, people: “We’re number 26! We’re number 26! In your face, Lithuania, Latvia, and Romania! And hey, Greece, Slovakia, Estonia, watch your backs, because we’re coming for you! Just as soon as we finish cutting funding even further for education, health care, and environmental safety! Booyah!”
Of course, when you break well-being down into five categories, the U.S. rises much higher in the rankings, all the way to 23rd for both Behaviors & Risks and Housing & Environment. For Education, however, we drop to 27th; if that’s not a reason to fire even more teachers, I don’t know what is! There was one measure on which the U.S. did actually rank at the top: The U.S. and Ireland were the only two countries in which at least 25% of children reported exercising at least an hour each day. It is not clear from the report whether the survey clarified that “exercise” does not technically include playing Call of Duty III.
Who, then, is on top? It’s those stinking Northern Europeans again, particularly the Dutch. I suppose we, too, could have healthier children if we chose to submit to a Communist dictatorship that forces people to ride bicycles, wear wooden shoes, and smoke marijuana (if you’ve ever tried to ride a bicycle in wooden shoes stoned, you know that only the strongest survive). Besides, what have all those healthy, brilliant Dutch children produced for the world that even comes close to the Big Mac or Ted? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
The social network
You know how some people put a huge amount of resources into the wrong things because they’re missing the bigger picture? Like that guy who buys a Porsche when what he really needs is to not be a jerk? A groundbreaking new study suggests that pediatricians and other vaccine advocates may want to refocus our efforts. We don’t need more data on vaccine safety. We need more friends.
Dr. Emily Brunson at Texas State University, San Marcos, applied the novel approach of social network analysis to determine just who it is that influences parents to delay or forgo vaccines in favor of life-threatening diseases. To find enough such parents, she went to the mother lode of measles, the wealth of whooping cough that is King County, Washington. There, she found 126 parents who vaccinate their children on time (conformers) and 70 who delay or skip vaccines (nonconformers) and asked them to list and rank every person and source that informed their decisions. It turns out that health care providers remain an important influence on parents’ vaccine choices, just less important than spouses, friends, Reiki masters, baristas, parking lot attendants, and dog-eared paperbacks passed on over cups of organic chai latte.
Nonconforming parents, in fact, reported having more friends and seeking more sources on vaccines than did conforming parents. Many of the sources nonconformers turned to actually did support on-time and complete vaccination, but it appears they kept looking until they found a resource that confirmed the biases of their friends and family members. What we need, it appears, is not better websites and handouts for parents. Instead, right now, every pediatrician in America needs to go out and marry at least one vaccine nonconformer, more if local statutes allow. If this seems like too much trouble, then at least have them over for chai and Reiki. And hide your Porsche.
Eine kleine
In what has to be possibly the single most pleasant study ever conducted in a neonatal intensive care unit, music therapists and physicians at Beth Israel Medical Center determined that premature infants respond to live music with improved heart rates and respiratory function and enhanced sucking and caloric intake. Researchers also played a whooshing sound on something called the Remo Ocean Disk and a heartbeat sound on something called a “gato box,” which I must assume does not contain an actual Mexican cat.
The best responses came when a parent sang a culturally relevant lullaby; when they couldn’t think of one, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” was suggested. I just have to wonder, however, what if your mom is, say, Ke$ha? We can only hope she knows “Twinkle, Twinkle.” Or maybe she could ask Justin Bieber to swing by the NICU to sing a few tunes. Could it really happen? Never say never.
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).