Wednesday, December 31, 2008
a link te common baby skin issues.
--
John C Kim MD
www.kiddoc.ORG
www.adoptionchicago.com
http://kiddocmd.blogspot.com/ (BLOG)
847-346-0846 FAX
773-598-5800 (best number)
Monday, December 29, 2008
Pastor's advice, more sex
Pastor’s Advice for Better Marriage: More Sex
Erin Trieb for The New York Times
Madeline and Rob Hulsey on Sunday after the weeklong sex challenge for married couples at Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Tex. The evangelical church has 20,000 members.
By GRETEL C. KOVACH
Published: November 23, 2008
GRAPEVINE, Tex. — And on the seventh day, there was no rest for married couples. A week after the Rev. Ed Young challenged husbands and wives among his flock of 20,000 to strengthen their unions through Seven Days of Sex, his advice was — keep it going.
Readers' Comments
Mr. Young, an author, a television host and the pastor of the evangelical Fellowship Church, issued his call for a week of “congregational copulation” among married couples on Nov. 16, while pacing in front of a large bed. Sometimes he reclined on the paisley coverlet while flipping through a Bible, emphasizing his point that it is time for the church to put God back in the bed.
Readers shared their thoughts on this article.
“Today we’re beginning this sexperiment, seven days of sex,” he said, with his characteristic mix of humor, showmanship and Scripture. “How to move from whining about the economy to whoopee!”
On Sunday parishioners at the Grapevine branch watched a prerecorded sermon from Mr. Young and his wife, Lisa, on jumbo screens over a candlelit stage. “I know there’s been a lot of love going around this week, among the married couples,” one of the church musicians said, strumming on a guitar before a crowd of about 3,000.
Mrs. Young, dressed in knee-high black boots and jeans, said that after a week of having sex every day, or close to it, “some of us are smiling.” For others grappling with infidelities, addictions to pornography or other bitter hurts, “there’s been some pain; hopefully there’s been some forgiveness, too.”
Mr. Young advised the couples to “keep on doing what you’ve been doing this week. We should try to double up the amount of intimacy we have in marriage. And when I say intimacy, I don’t mean holding hands in the park or a back rub.”
Mr. Young, known simply as Ed to his parishioners, and his wife, both 47, have been married for 26 years and have four children, including twins. They have firsthand experience with some of the barriers to an intimate sex life in marriage, including careers, exhaustion, outside commitments, and “kids,” a word that Mr. Young told church members stands for “keeping intimacy at a distance successfully.”
But if you make the time to have sex, it will bring you closer to your spouse and to God, he has said. You will perform better at work, leave a loving legacy for your children to follow and may even prevent an extramarital affair.
“If you’ve said, ‘I do,’ do it,” he said. As for single people, “I don’t know, try eating chocolate cake,” he said.
The sex-starved marriage has been the topic of at least two recent books, “365 Nights” and “Just Do It.” But Mr. Young’s call from the pulpit gave the discussion an added charge.
It should not, in his view. This is not a gimmick or a publicity stunt, Mr. Young says. Just look at the sensuousness of the Song of Solomon, or Genesis: “two shall become one flesh,” or Corinthians: “do not deprive each other of sexual relations.”
“For some reason the church has not talked about it, but we need to,” he said, speaking by telephone Friday night on his way to South Africa for a mission trip. There is no shame in marital sex, he added, “God thought it up, it was his idea.”
Those who attend Fellowship’s location here or one of several satellite churches in the Dallas area and one in Miami are used to Mr. Young’s provocative style. (The real “f word” in the marital boudoir, he says, is “forgiveness.”) But the sex challenge was a bit much for some of his church members, who sat with arms crossed in uncomfortable silence, he recalls, while many in the audience gave him an enthusiastic applause.
One parishioner, Rob Hulsey, 25, said his Baptist relatives raised their eyebrows about it, but he summed up the reaction of many husbands at Fellowship Church when he first heard about the sex challenge — “Yay!”
A week later, he and his wife, who are expecting a baby and have two older children, could not stop holding hands during the sermon. His wife, Madeline Hulsey, 32, said she was just as thrilled to spend a week focusing on her husband. Usually, “we start to kiss, and it’s knock knock knock, Mom!” she said.
Others found that, like smiling when you are not particularly happy, having sex when they did not feel like it improved their mood. Just eight months into their marriage, Amy and Cody Waddell had not been very amorous since Cody admitted he had had an affair.
“Intimacy has been a struggle for us, working through all that,” Ms. Waddell said. “This week really brought us back together, physically and emotionally.”
It is not always easy to devote time for your spouse, Pastor Young admitted. Just three days into the sex challenge he said he was so tired after getting up before dawn to talk about the importance of having more sex in marriage that he crashed on the bed around 8 p.m. on Tuesday night.
Mrs. Young tried to shake him awake, telling her husband, “Come on, it’s the sex challenge.” But Mr. Young murmured, “Let’s just double up tomorrow,” and went back to sleep.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
fan in room reduces sids, good data, why? to be elucidated.
Babies who sleep in rooms with a fan have a dramatically lower risk for sudden infant death syndrome, a new study shows.
The finding is the latest evidence to suggest that a baby’s sleep environment is a critical factor in the risk for SIDS, which is diagnosed when the sudden death of an infant can’t be explained by other health concerns.
Since 1992 the rate of SIDS deaths has dropped by 56 percent, from 1.2 deaths per 1,000 live births to about 1 death per 2,000 live births. The decline is linked to a national “Back to Sleep” campaign that promotes putting babies on their backs instead of the stomach, which has been shown to lower risk for sudden death. The American Academy of Pediatrics also recommends that parents avoid soft bedding, allow a baby to use a pacifier if he or she wants, and avoid overheating a baby’s room as ways to lower the risk for SIDS.
Despite the gains, SIDS continues to be the leading cause of death among infants in the first year of life, and researchers are looking for additional measures to lower risk.
The latest study compared the sleeping circumstances of 185 babies who died of SIDS with another 312 randomly selected babies who were matched by race, ethnicity, country of origin and age. The study, published today in The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, found that simply having a fan in the room lowered a baby’s risk of SIDS by 72 percent. The gains were even greater if the baby was wrongly placed on its stomach or was sleeping in a warmer room, both of which are risk factors for SIDS.
“Even though we don’t know why certain babies are more susceptible, sleeping environment matters,’’ said Dr. De-Kun Li, reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist at Kaiser Permanente’s division of research in Oakland, Calif., and a co-author of the study.
While the study wasn’t designed to identify why fans make a difference, the theory is that by circulating the air, fans lower the risk of “rebreathing” by the baby. The rebreathing of exhaled carbon dioxide trapped near an infant’s airway has been suggested as a possible reason SIDS risk is higher when children sleep on their stomachs, in soft beds or without pacifiers.
Parents who worry that their child will be chilled by a fan should know that fans do not cool the air, they simply move air around. A baby will only feel a chill if he or she is perspiring, doctors say.
Parents who use fans in a child’s room should make sure to take normal safety precautions, keeping cords out of the way and making sure the fan can’t be knocked down by a toddler or pet.
Dr. Li said fan use can’t replace the other sleeping strategies for lowering SIDS, such as removing soft bedding and putting a baby on his or her back. He notes that the gains shown in the study were for the whole group, but that the benefit appeared to be smaller when parents followed all of the A.A.P. guidelines. However, even if a baby already is sleeping on the back, SIDS risk was lowered by about 16 percent, he said, although the trend was not statistically significant.
“If parents wanted to do more to reduce the baby’s SIDS risk, they can add a fan,’’ Dr. Li s
house party on health care.
At House Party on Health Care, the Diagnosis Is It’s Broken
At House Party on Health Care, the Diagnosis Is It's Broken 12/24/2008 1:09 PM from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/health/23health.html | ||||
At House Party on Health Care, the Diagnosis Is It's BrokenBrendan Smialowski for The New York Times Karima Hijane, flanked by her husband, Theodore A. Kolovos, and Li Yang, needed a year to get correct diagnoses of illnesses. "Instead of being able to focus on my health, I focused on insurance to cover the tests and treatments." By ROBERT PEAR Published: December 22, 2008 VIENNA, Va. — When a dozen consumers gathered over the weekend to discuss health care at the behest of President-elect Barack Obama, they quickly agreed on one point: they despise health insurance companies. They also agreed that health care was a right; that insurance should cover "everything," not just some services; and that coverage should be readily available from the government, as well as from employers. Those were the conclusions of a house party held here in Northern Virginia at the home of Karima Hijane and Theodore A. Kolovos, information technology consultants who have been married for seven years. It was one of more than 4,200 such events being held around the country from Dec. 15 to 31, as part of an experiment in grass-roots politics and policy-making, to provide recommendations to the president-elect. "We have to keep the momentum going," said Ms. Hijane, 34, who was a volunteer in the Obama campaign and is active in women's health advocacy. "We are not lobbyists. We are simple citizens. We want to make sure that our voices are heard and that health care is reformed." One of the people seated around Ms. Hijane's dining room table, Bruce D. Chatman, worked for I.B.M. for 29 years. Corporations, he said, have too much influence in the legislative process and the health care system. He wants to counterbalance their power with the energy and passion of citizens lobbying for themselves. Mr. Chatman, a Chicago native who lives in Fort Washington, Md., said he had been inspired by Mr. Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope" and started working for his campaign as a volunteer in April 2007. "I don't believe health care should depend on people making money," Mr. Chatman said. "The profit motive has to be tempered, especially on the administrative side of the health care business." Shiva S. Makki, an economist, complained that in many cases, insurers did not cover the costs of screening procedures and preventive care. Dr. Lawrence M. Nelson, a scientist at the National Institutes of Health who emphasized that he was speaking as a private citizen, said: "The incentives in the current health insurance system are upside down. The less care you provide, the bigger your profits." Dr. Nelson said he liked Mr. Obama's proposal to create a new public plan, similar to Medicare, that would compete with private insurance companies. Alex R. Lawson, a volunteer in the Obama campaign now trying to build public support for Mr. Obama's agenda, said a public plan would give people a choice they do not have. "A public insurance plan would not take anything away," Mr. Lawson said. "It just adds another option." After one speaker expressed a mild concern about too much involvement by the government, Mr. Kolovos said: "Everyone is afraid of government bureaucracy. But what we have now, with the filing and adjudication of insurance claims, is also bureaucratic." Several people at the health care forum said they were frustrated by the current arrangement under which health insurance is tied closely to the workplace. Hamudi Almasri, a 35-year-old information technology consultant at a small company that does work for the Labor Department, said that when he changed jobs, he had to change health plans and doctors. "If I change employers, why should it be such a hassle?" Mr. Almasri asked. His wife, Li Yang, said: "When I move from one doctor to another, my information is lost. In many cases, the doctors don't talk to each other. In a country where information technology is so advanced, there's no system linking all these doctors together. It's a hindrance to treatment." Ms. Li said she and her husband "had a few surprises" when they started shopping for a better health insurance policy on their own. "If we wanted a baby," Ms. Li said, "insurers would not cover the maternity care if conception occurred within six months after we purchased the insurance. We were shocked." In many cases, the standard individual insurance policy does not cover maternity care, though such coverage can be bought for an additional premium. Even then, some insurers stipulate that maternity benefits will be available only if a woman waits for a certain amount of time before becoming pregnant. The Obama transition team asked for "particularly poignant stories to highlight the need for health care reform," and such stories were abundant at the round table here. Mr. Almasri said that when his infant daughter had severe eczema, she had to wait several months to see a dermatologist in their H.M.O. network. By then, he said, "the symptoms were all cleared up." Ms. Hijane said she had gone from doctor to doctor for more than a year before she got correct diagnoses for premature ovarian failure and celiac disease, a digestive disorder. "Instead of being able to focus on my health," Ms. Hijane said, "I focused on insurance to cover the tests and treatments. Everything we did was designed to find a job with good health insurance." The Obama transition team did not ask people how a new health care system should be financed, but several people here said that individuals and businesses should have to pay a small health care tax — some preferred to call it a "contribution" — so that everyone could be covered. Mr. Chatman said he expected insurance companies and others in the health care industry to resist many of Mr. Obama's proposals. "This is warfare for the health care of our country," Mr. Chatman said. "The question is, Will money win, or will the people win? If we lose, we'll be a second-class country." | ||||
|
Lack of sleep direct paste into blog site
Lack of Sleep Linked to Heart Problems
Lauderdale and her team had reason to be skeptical. While the connection between sleep and heart disease is of growing interest to researchers, earlier studies had been inconclusive, and plagued by biases, including the fact that most of the trials relied on people's self-reported accounts of their sleeping habits. The scientists knew that teasing apart the myriad processes that contribute to sleep, and then drawing scientifically sound connections between them and the host of things that can trigger heart disease, would be difficult at best. So the Chicago team isolated the most common confounding variables that could explain both poor sleep and heart problems, such as smoking, alcohol, and other medical conditions, and also found a way to record, as accurately as possible, the amount of sleep that the subjects got each night. Each volunteer wore a wrist monitor that measured and recorded activity at 30 second intervals; when the monitor was quiet, the subject was asleep.
While Lauderdale acknowledges that her results are far from the last word on sleep and heart disease, the study does suggest that doctors and patients should consider sleep in addition to the more familiar hazards for the heart such as high cholesterol, hypertension and diabetes. In Lauderdale's analysis, one additional hour of sleep was equivalent to lowering systolic blood pressure by 16.5mm Hg. "We have enough evidence from this study and others to show that it is important to include sleep in any discussion of heart disease," says Dr. Tracy Stevens, spokesperson for the American Heart Association and a cardiologist at Saint Luke's Mid-America Heart Institute. "We talk about the traditional risk factors, and now the other important thing we need to include is sleep." (See pictures of how animals sleep.)
Exactly how a lack of sleep is feeding plaque in the heart arteries isn't yet clear, but one explanation may involve inflammation. Too little sleep can raisecortisol levels, which fuels inflammation that can destabilize plaques. Once these deposits rupture, they can block vessels in the heart or brain, causing a heart attack or stroke. While the Chicago team did not track levels of cortisol to test this theory, future studies might.
A simpler explanation might involve blood pressure. In general, blood pressure dips during sleep, and over a 24 hour period, people sleeping less will have shorter periods of lower blood pressure, thus increasing their tendency to dislodge any unstable plaques.
Whatever the reason might be, the results of this study make it clear that sleep isn't just for dreamers. Getting enough sleep might just save your heart.
The Year in Medicine 2008.
See the 50 best inventions of 2008.
Lack of Sleep Linked to Heart Problems
Lack of Sleep Linked to Heart Problems 12/24/2008 1:02 PM from http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1868406,00.html?imw=Y | ||||
Lack of Sleep Linked to Heart ProblemsBy Alice Park Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2008 Ray Kachatorian / Getty No one likes to walk into work after just a few fitful hours of sleep. But now there's evidence that not getting enough sleep may have more serious consequences than dark circles under your eyes the next morning. Researchers at the University of Chicago report in the Journal of the American Medical Association that too little sleep can promote calcium buildup in the heart arteries, leading to the plaques that can then break apart and cause heart attacks and strokes. RelatedStories
The University of Chicago team documented for the first time exactly how much of a risk shortened shut-eye can be — one hour less on average each night can increase coronary calcium by 16%. Among a group of 495 men and women aged 35 to 47, 27% of those getting less than five hours of sleep each night showed plaque in their heart vessels, while 11% of those sleeping the recommended five to seven hours did, and only 6% of subjects sleeping more than seven hours each night showed such atherosclerosis. "We were surprised by the findings," says Diane Lauderdale, a professor of health studies at the University of Chicago and lead author of the study. "We really were not expecting to find an association at all, and certainly not one that was this strong." (See the Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs of 2008.) Lauderdale and her team had reason to be skeptical. While the connection between sleep and heart disease is of growing interest to researchers, earlier studies had been inconclusive, and plagued by biases, including the fact that most of the trials relied on people's self-reported accounts of their sleeping habits. The scientists knew that teasing apart the myriad processes that contribute to sleep, and then drawing scientifically sound connections between them and the host of things that can trigger heart disease, would be difficult at best. So the Chicago team isolated the most common confounding variables that could explain both poor sleep and heart problems, such as smoking, alcohol, and other medical conditions, and also found a way to record, as accurately as possible, the amount of sleep that the subjects got each night. Each volunteer wore a wrist monitor that measured and recorded activity at 30 second intervals; when the monitor was quiet, the subject was asleep. While Lauderdale acknowledges that her results are far from the last word on sleep and heart disease, the study does suggest that doctors and patients should consider sleep in addition to the more familiar hazards for the heart such as high cholesterol, hypertension and diabetes. In Lauderdale's analysis, one additional hour of sleep was equivalent to lowering systolic blood pressure by 16.5mm Hg. "We have enough evidence from this study and others to show that it is important to include sleep in any discussion of heart disease," says Dr. Tracy Stevens, spokesperson for the American Heart Association and a cardiologist at Saint Luke's Mid-America Heart Institute. "We talk about the traditional risk factors, and now the other important thing we need to include is sleep." (See pictures of how animals sleep.) Exactly how a lack of sleep is feeding plaque in the heart arteries isn't yet clear, but one explanation may involve inflammation. Too little sleep can raise cortisol levels, which fuels inflammation that can destabilize plaques. Once these deposits rupture, they can block vessels in the heart or brain, causing a heart attack or stroke. While the Chicago team did not track levels of cortisol to test this theory, future studies might. A simpler explanation might involve blood pressure. In general, blood pressure dips during sleep, and over a 24 hour period, people sleeping less will have shorter periods of lower blood pressure, thus increasing their tendency to dislodge any unstable plaques. Whatever the reason might be, the results of this study make it clear that sleep isn't just for dreamers. Getting enough sleep might just save your heart. | ||||
|
re sleep and heart health
No one likes to walk into work after just a few fitful hours of sleep. But now there's evidence that not getting enough sleep may have more serious consequences than dark circles under your eyes the next morning. Researchers at the University of Chicago report in the Journal of the American Medical Association that too little sleep can promote calcium buildup in the heart arteries, leading to the plaques that can then break apart and cause heart attacks and strokes.
Related
Stories
- 5 Simple Ways to Cut Your Breast Cancer Risk
- Laugh and the World Laughs Too: Happiness is Contagious
- How Depression Harms Your Heart
- America's Health Checkup
The University of Chicago team documented for the first time exactly how much of a risk shortened shut-eye can be — one hour less on average each night can increase coronary calcium by 16%. Among a group of 495 men and women aged 35 to 47, 27% of those getting less than five hours of sleep each night showed plaque in their heart vessels, while 11% of those sleeping the recommended five to seven hours did, and only 6% of subjects sleeping more than seven hours each night showed such atherosclerosis. "We were surprised by the findings," says Diane Lauderdale, a professor of health studies at the University of Chicago and lead author of the study. "We really were not expecting to find an association at all, and certainly not one that was this strong." (See the Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs of 2008.)
Lauderdale and her team had reason to be skeptical. While the connection between sleep and heart disease is of growing interest to researchers, earlier studies had been inconclusive, and plagued by biases, including the fact that most of the trials relied on people's self-reported accounts of their sleeping habits. The scientists knew that teasing apart the myriad processes that contribute to sleep, and then drawing scientifically sound connections between them and the host of things that can trigger heart disease, would be difficult at best. So the Chicago team isolated the most common confounding variables that could explain both poor sleep and heart problems, such as smoking, alcohol, and other medical conditions, and also found a way to record, as accurately as possible, the amount of sleep that the subjects got each night. Each volunteer wore a wrist monitor that measured and recorded activity at 30 second intervals; when the monitor was quiet, the subject was asleep.
While Lauderdale acknowledges that her results are far from the last word on sleep and heart disease, the study does suggest that doctors and patients should consider sleep in addition to the more familiar hazards for the heart such as high cholesterol, hypertension and diabetes. In Lauderdale's analysis, one additional hour of sleep was equivalent to lowering systolic blood pressure by 16.5mm Hg. "We have enough evidence from this study and others to show that it is important to include sleep in any discussion of heart disease," says Dr. Tracy Stevens, spokesperson for the American Heart Association and a cardiologist at Saint Luke's Mid-America Heart Institute. "We talk about the traditional risk factors, and now the other important thing we need to include is sleep." (See pictures of how animals sleep.)
Exactly how a lack of sleep is feeding plaque in the heart arteries isn't yet clear, but one explanation may involve inflammation. Too little sleep can raise cortisol levels, which fuels inflammation that can destabilize plaques. Once these deposits rupture, they can block vessels in the heart or brain, causing a heart attack or stroke. While the Chicago team did not track levels of cortisol to test this theory, future studies might.
A simpler explanation might involve blood pressure. In general, blood pressure dips during sleep, and over a 24 hour period, people sleeping less will have shorter periods of lower blood pressure, thus increasing their tendency to dislodge any unstable plaques.
Whatever the reason might be, the results of this study make it clear that sleep isn't just for dreamers. Getting enough sleep might just save your heart.
--
John C Kim MD
www.kiddoc.ORG
www.adoptionchicago.com
http://kiddocmd.blogspot.com/ (BLOG)
847-346-0846 FAX
773-598-5800 (best number)
Fwd: [kiddoc] Childhood Sleep Time
| ||||
Childhood Sleep Time 12/8/2008 10:31 PM from http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/122/5/955?rss=1 | ||||
Childhood Sleep Time PEDIATRICS Vol. 122 No. 5 November 2008, pp. 955-960 (doi:10.1542/peds.2007-3521)
Childhood Sleep Time and Long-Term Risk for Obesity: A 32-Year Prospective Birth Cohort StudyCarl Erik Landhuis, BA, Richie Poulton, PhD, David Welch, PhD and Robert John Hancox, MD Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit, Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand OBJECTIVE. Associations between short sleep duration and increased BMI have been found in children and adults. However, it is not known whether short sleep time during childhood has long-term consequences. We assessed the association between sleep time in childhood and adult BMI in a birth cohort. METHODS. Study members were a general-population birth cohort of 1037 participants (502 female) who were born in Dunedin, New Zealand, between April 1972 and March 1973. Parental reports of bedtimes and rising times collected at ages 5, 7, 9, and 11 years were used to estimate childhood sleep time. Linear regression analysis was used to analyze the association between childhood sleep time and BMI measured at 32 years of age. RESULTS. Shorter childhood sleep times were significantly associated with higher adult BMI values. This association remained after adjustment for adult sleep time and the potential confounding effects of early childhood BMI, childhood socioeconomic status, parental BMIs, child and adult television viewing, adult physical activity, and adult smoking. In logistic regression analyses, more sleep time during childhood was associated with lower odds of obesity at 32 years of age. This association was significant after adjustment for multiple potential confounding factors. CONCLUSIONS. These findings suggest that sleep restriction in childhood increases the long-term risk for obesity. Ensuring that children get adequate sleep may be a useful strategy for stemming the current obesity epidemic. Key Words: BMI • child development • cohort studies • long-term outcome • sleep Accepted Feb 6, 2008. | ||||
|
--
Posted By John C Kim to kiddoc at 12/28/2008 07:59:00 PM
--
John C Kim MD
www.kiddoc.ORG
www.adoptionchicago.com
http://kiddocmd.blogspot.com/ (BLOG)
847-346-0846 FAX
773-598-5800 (best number)
Report Ties Children’s Use of Media to Their Health
Report Ties Children's Use of Media to Their Health 12/3/2008 1:24 PM from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/arts/02stud.html?ref=health | ||||
Report Ties Children's Use of Media to Their HealthPublished: December 1, 2008 The National Institutes of Health and a nonprofit advocacy group, Common Sense Media, have another reason for President-elect Barack Obama to keep urging parents to "turn off the TV." In what researchers call the first report of its kind, a review of 173 studies about the effects of media consumption on children asserts that a strong correlation exists between greater exposure and adverse health outcomes. "Coach potato does, unfortunately, sum it up pretty well," said Ezekiel J. Emanuel, chairman of the bioethics department at the institutes' clinical center, one of the study's five reviewers. The report should compel lawmakers to underwrite media education efforts and public service advertising campaigns and should motivate the entertainment industry to be more "responsible and responsive," said Jim Steyer, the chief executive of Common Sense Media, which helped to finance the study. "The research is clear that exposure to media has a variety of negative health impacts on children and teens," he said. Dr. Emanuel, Mr. Steyer and others plan to brief Washington policy makers on the study on Tuesday. Joined by researchers at Yale University and California Pacific Medical Center, Dr. Emanuel's team analyzed almost 1,800 studies conducted since 1980 and identified 173 that met the criteria the researchers set. In a clear majority of those studies more time with television, films, video games, magazines, music and the Internet was linked to rises in childhood obesity, tobacco useand sexual behavior. A majority also showed strong correlations — what the researchers deemed "statistically significant associations" — with drug and alcohol use and low academic achievement. The evidence was somewhat less indicative of a relationship between media exposure and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, the seventh health outcome that was studied. Dr. Emanuel, whose brother, Rahm, is the president-elect's chief of staff, said he was surprised by how lopsided the findings were. "We found very few studies that had any positive association" for children's health, he said. Researchers sought to look at the health effects of a wide array of media and distill 30 years of research into a simple message. "The average parent doesn't understand that if you plop your kids down in front of the TV or the computer for five hours a day, it can change their brain development, it can make them fat, and it can lead them to get involved in risky sexual activity at a young age," Mr. Steyer said. Acknowledging that socioeconomic status and other factors can affect children's health, Dr. Emanuel said the researchers chose studies that controlled for outside variables and ranked the strength of evidence accordingly. Mr. Steyer said he was surprised to find an absence of research into the impact of new technologies. "Media has evolved at a dizzying pace, but there's almost no research aboutFacebook, MySpace, cellphones, et cetera," he said. His organization, which was founded in 2003 and provides family-oriented reviews and ratings of Web sites, television shows and video games, intends to push for more research into the media's effects on children and the setting of limits on advertising to children. Mr. Obama has shown interest in the subject, telling parents to "turn off the television set and put the video games away" in speeches and running a commercial during the campaign, "Turn It Off," that focused on education. While Dr. Emanuel wouldn't say if the study was a subject at Thanksgiving dinner with his brother, he said that more research into media's effects on children's health was necessary. "We have to be concerned about what's on TV, but we also have to be concerned about how much of the day kids are actually interacting with TV and other media," he said. | ||||
|