Pat Hartman | Childhood Obesity News

Coronavirus Chronicles — Are There Grounds for Ignoring COVID-19?

Pat Hartman June 16, 2021 No Comments

Needless to say, we are interested in the coronavirus as both a result of obesity and as a contributing factor to it. Many people want to pretend that COVID never happened, and more importantly, that it is not happening now. Can this point of view be justified?

Have a look at the COVID Data Tracker Weekly Review, provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where the information is conveniently broken down into categories. In the USA, the weekly average number of new cases has definitely been shrinking. Hospitalizations are declining, with only about 2,500 new admissions each week. Deaths have gone way down. An estimated 40% of Americans are fully vaccinated, not nearly enough to achieve the ever-receding mirage of “herd immunity.” How soon might the vaccinated require booster shots? No one knows.

And the bad signs

COVID-19 and its brothers are not good for pregnant women, who risk more severe illness and pre-term births. And their babies can catch it. In the U.S., members of the 12-to-17 year age bracket are not doing well, although almost six million kids in this group have had at least one shot of vaccine. Their hospitalization rate went down in the first two months of 2021, but went back up again in March and April.

Granted, teens who catch it are not hospitalized as often as grownups, so they are not as likely to wind up in the ICU on a ventilator, but many feel that is not a satisfactory standard, because…

Recent increases in COVID-19-associated hospitalization rates and the potential for severe disease in adolescents reinforce the importance of continued prevention strategies, including vaccination and the correct and consistent use of masks in those who are not yet fully vaccinated.

New variants of the virus spread more easily and may elude whatever antibodies we have managed to cultivate, and they find children quite yummy. Infection rates, hospitalization rates, and death rates due to them are going up. Just ask Brazil.

Is the government trying to kill us?

A lot of crazy talk is going around. People complain about being a guinea pig for the vaccine, but don’t seem to mind being a guinea pig for the virus. Many individuals act in ways that display the welcome mat for the virus, and they don’t care who knows it. An elected official makes the dangerous claim that the virus is definitely an engineered biological weapon.

Anti-vaxxers stir up controversy about alternate treatments that supposedly work, and imply that by withholding them, the government is trying to kill us. Information on treatments successful throughout the world is supposedly being kept from Americans. On the other hand, primary care doctor Dave Austin says:

Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine were both drugs that showed promise against SARS in vitro, meaning cultured human cells grown on media in a flask. Both HAD to be given a fair trial…

Hydroxychloroquine is well known. Numerous studies have found it to be ineffective in living people…

Ivermectin has also received numerous trials without showing significant benefit. Ivermectin […] kills parasites, not viruses.

Meanwhile, a seaside hotel that was meant to house the German visitors to the G7 economic summit had to close, because staff members tested positive.

We are told that the current Brazil crisis is “the result of the government’s failure to take adequate public health measures to limit the transmission of the coronavirus, as well as inadequate supplies of vaccines.” In many parts of the world, people make strenuous journeys and wait in long lines for their immunization opportunities.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., people turn up their noses. Or maybe, if offered a lottery ticket or a free beer, they will condescend to be vaccinated.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Covid Tracker Weekly Review,” CDC.gov, 06/04/21
Source: “There was a peer-reviewed paper,” Quora.com, 06/03/21
Source: “UK PM Johnson says G7 summit is a chance to learn COVID lessons,” Reuters.com, 06/11/21
Source: “Why Are So Many Children in Brazil Dying From Covid-19?,” NYTimes.com, 06/04/21
Image by Mike Finn/CC BY 2.0

Coronavirus Chronicles — The Feeling Is Not Mutual

Pat Hartman June 15, 2021 No Comments

Suddenly, a large number of Americans have made up their minds. They have had enough of COVID. But rather than unite for a strong push to eradicate the disease, they seem instead to have decided to not just ignore it, but actively deny its existence and furthermore, to nag and berate their fellow citizens, especially through social media.

They have decided that vaccines are poisonous or just a big scam, and that the government knows better cures and maliciously keeps them from the people. They believe that being asked to cover their noses and mouths is an unconscionable intrusion on freedom. We are in a situation as perilous as that of London when enemy bombers lurked overhead, hoping for some light to show. Decent, patriotic Brits put up their blackout curtains for the greater good, and stumbled around in the dark being hit by cars. But they saved an unimaginable number of lives. Today, Americans think that wearing a mask is too much to expect.

Dr. Fauci, whose titles are Director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical advisor to the president, is vilified for not having had all the answers immediately, and for allegedly misleading the public, either of his own volition or on orders from higher up. Any blame that is to be allotted must surely stretch farther than one individual, but simple-minded public opinion does whatever it wants. Scientists, not only Dr. Fauci in the U.S. but others in such civilized countries as Belgium, are sent death threats by far-right anti-vaxxers.

Trials and tribulations

A California study (conducted by eight authors from three institutions) organized deaths by occupation and found that the job with the highest percentage of coronavirus deaths is cook. In the third rank are agricultural workers (who handle food). The fourth are bakers. The 11th group are chefs and head cooks.

All those professions have lost a greater proportion of their members than licensed practical/vocational nurses have done. Even bartenders are way further down the list than the harvesters, cooks, and bakers who prepare the food that is served in restaurants. And yet, this is the environment to which customers clamor to return.

Trolls are talking about how metal objects cling to a vaccinated person. They report that unvaccinated people feel ill when in an enclosed room with vaccinated people. They say the COVID statistics are exaggerated, and it’s just the common cold, anyway. Masks cause carbon dioxide poisoning. My body, my choice. Some women refuse vaccination because they have heard it will make them infertile.

It’s not over ’til it’s over

In The New York Times, pediatrician Dr. Aaron E. Carroll asked, “When can we declare the pandemic over?” Dr. Carroll wrote,

Cases are stalled or rising in many areas. Virus variants are becoming more prevalent. While many people are vaccinated, many more are not.

In this country, we have never properly engaged in contact tracing. Testing the asymptomatic has not been a priority. But the information that could be gained from putting more emphasis on these tactics might provide valuable clues about how to end the whole disaster. Words are being flung around, prematurely in the opinion of some experts — phrases like re-emergence; post-pandemic; return to normalcy. A hefty segment of the population wants to believe that if we just ignore it, it will go away.

In the 60s, Phil Ochs sang, “I declare the war is over.” John and Yoko sang, “War is over if you want it.” Those were inspiring yet not exactly factual lyrics. And now we’ve got people thinking COVID is over, just because they want it to be. Everyone has simply had enough. We’re done with it, ready to move on. But the coronavirus, in all its multiplicity, is apparently not done with us.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Excess mortality associated with the COVID-19 pandemic among Californians 18–65 years of age, by occupational sector and occupation,” MedRxiv.org, 01/22/21
Source: “When Can We Declare the Pandemic Over?,” NYTimes.com, 04/27/21
Image by Pat Hartman/Public Domain

Coronavirus Chronicles — The Acrylic Sheet SNAFU

Pat Hartman June 14, 2021 No Comments

When the pandemic started, face masks and body bags were not the only commodities the market rushed to invest in. The smart money gravitated toward acrylic sheeting, otherwise known as plexiglass (which is not a trademarked name unless it only has one S). Sales of this useful material went through the metaphorical roof. A year’s supply flew out of the warehouses in two months.

It is, however, fortunate that the material can be recycled. Increasingly, the use of hard plastic barriers is regarded as almost useless. A cashier or bank teller, who must confront masses of people up close, probably gets some benefit from a sheet of acrylic. Everybody else, not so much.

What does WHO say?

According to the World Health Organization,

Evidence shows that #COVID19 does not pose a high risk to children & schools are not drivers of transmission. We know how to reduce risks to children, teachers & families.

Some critics wonder how much the organization actually knows about risk reduction, pointing out that these are the same folks who once assured the world that airborne transmission does not happen with SARS-CoV-2. It does, which is why erecting transparent plastic barriers in indoor spaces is pretty much an exercise in futility. No, the WHO anti-Covid guidance for school operation doesn’t mention them either. It recommends personal hygiene, mask use, physical distance, ventilation, and surface disinfection.

Teachers, by the way, exercise their online comment power to say “Rubbish!” to the claim that schools are not drivers of transmission. Colds, flu, and head lice encompass schools like tsunami waves. A fed-up teacher might compare going to work with, for instance, playing Russian roulette every day.

Scientists who do studies say the same, in more academic language. Even if schools do not at the moment represent a high risk to children, the new Covid variants could change that overnight. Even now, asymptomatic children can carry the virus home to more vulnerable family members.

Expensive lessons

Horry County, South Carolina, is the scene of a quintessential story of pandemic confusion and the misallocation of funds through ignorance. Like many other authorities, the School District thought it was doing the right thing. Thanks to CARES Act funding, it was able to have plexiglass barriers installed in classrooms. (See photos of elementary schools that look like prisons and may be firetraps.) The five million dollar project was completed just this April, and now the clear partitions and their structural supports are already being removed (cost not known).

Journalist Annette Montgomery captured a quotation from a parent of two students, Lori Ard:

That money could’ve been utilized to place air purification systems in the school and to keep the environment clean and keep the air purified for our students and now we have $5 million worth of plexiglass that’s probably just going to sit in some storage building somewhere.

Sara-Lauren Dozier, with four kids in the system, asked,

If there were teachers who weren’t to come back because of COVID concerns then why weren’t we searching for other people to come in who didn’t have those same concerns instead of putting plexiglass up and wasting money?

Which kind of misses the point, which should be safety; not teachers’ or parents’ willingness to tolerate unsafe conditions. Mechanical engineer Marwa Zaatari remarked via Twitter,

If instead $5M was spent on buying HEPA air cleaners, they could have bought 14,300 air cleaners to be installed in ~7,200 classrooms to get air exchange rate (ACH) > 4.

For a comprehensive look at why plexiglass barriers may harm more than help, see this University of Washington document.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “World Health Organization,” Twitter.com, 06/10/21
Source: “‘It was a waste of $5M:’ Parents react to plexiglass barriers coming down in HC,” WPDE.com, 06/08/21
Source: “@marwa_zaatari,” Twitter.com, 06/08/21
Image by Yellowstone National Park/Public Domain

Helpers Face Roadblocks

Pat Hartman June 11, 2021 No Comments

One last point needs to be made about the life experience of fitness icon John Stone. As we have seen, unhappiness can be fuel for the transformative fire. One day, climbing out of the shower, rather than ignoring the image in the mirror, he decided to apply some careful scrutiny. He hated what he saw, and got mad, and changed his life.

But taking a step backward, what caused him to make the decision to stop and look? Life had been a drag for quite some time, and Stone realized he was miserable. But… an adult. Children and teens are even less equipped than adults to get in touch with their feelings. Often they don’t have the references, the vocabulary, or the emotional freedom to open up.

A while back, Dr. Pretlow wrote in regard to his research while developing the W8Loss2Go program:

In our three real-world studies we observed a marked disconnect between the miserable personal stories/struggles written in the app by the obese participants, versus what they said at the in-person group and phone meetings, where they claimed that everything was fine with no struggles.

It was nearly impossible to get them to talk about their angst or struggles from being obese. Only one child, out of the 123 obese youth in our three studies, expressed the misery and struggles of being obese, and she expressed this in only one phone meeting and never again. Two other teens broke into tears and hung up, when the subject of their struggles was broached in their phone meetings.

It’s also a mystery to me why the kids in our study won’t acknowledge their life difficulties from their obesity. Afraid of losing their drug? Afraid of admitting that they are out of control? We need to figure out how to tap into their angst to motivate them to change (go through withdrawal).

Online, responding to Dr. Pretlow’s poll asking about their satisfaction with life, young people will say things like “i hate my life,” “im going slash my wrists if i dont lose weight,” “i get teased everyday for being so fat,” and “no one wants to be my friends and also my parents hate me too.”

Dr. Pretlow wanted to hear more about the importance of food consumption as a coping mechanism. The unwillingness of kids to describe their struggles in person was strangely at odds with their outpourings to the website message board. In person, it seems as if their relationship with food is “so deep and so critically important that it is very scary for them to talk about it.” They are miserable, but somehow not miserable enough to embrace the alternative, the discomfort of withdrawal. Dr. Pretlow writes,

Why would obese young people so vehemently resist measures to decrease their obesity? The rub of course is that any approach requires decreasing food intake. It would seem that they fear loss of food more than they are bothered by being obese.

Withdrawal symptoms (grouchiness, depression), tolerance (needing to eat more and more for the same effect), loss of a stress coping mechanism, and giving up food’s pleasure as their main relief from life’s pain are likely factors. Moreover, as with other addictions, obese youth may be compelled to overeat just to feel normal.

For professionals who deal with patients who are not free agents, such as children, another layer of complexity is involved. A doctor or therapist who sets out to modify a child’s physical state is interfering in the most fraught relationship ever invented: the one between parents and children.

When a child is admittedly miserable and/or angry, there are bound to be thoughts and feelings, no matter how inaccurate they may be, about who is responsible for what. A therapist is not in the business of being judgmental, no matter how bad the parents may look. Parental feelings of guilt may flourish nonetheless, and with one thing and another, the whole process can get awkward.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Obese Youth and Motivation,” ChildhoodObesityNews.com, 01/02/14
Image by Keith Rowley/CC BY-SA 2.0

Parents As Supportive Helpers

Pat Hartman June 10, 2021 No Comments

Harking back for a moment to the experiences of fitness mentor John Stone, we promised a special bit for parents, and here it is. The author’s thoughts were not even expressed with parents in mind. He was thinking about adult-to-adult relationships. But everything he said applies to parents too, and more so:

Hopefully everyone has some people around them who are supportive of their fitness goals. I was very lucky in that regard. Still, there are always people in your life who want to see you fail. Misery loves company.

Let’s not be mothers and fathers who transplant our own unhappiness into our children. Every person has a dark side, and being aware of that is healthier than trying to deny it. A parent who wants a child to fail, at anything, is much better off realizing such an aberrant thought because awareness is the first step in dealing with it.

Self-awareness is catching ourselves doing unworthy things, in time to do a course correction. Stone writes,

Maybe some of them are your friends, and perhaps some of them are people you have to put up with at your office or in your neighborhood.

And some of them are parents.

Schadenfreude patrol

It hurts to realize that one might, oneself, be that kind of parent. There is a subcategory of people who like to see others fail, and who sometimes take active measures to assure that failure. Among grownups, the maladjusted person might tempt someone who is trying not to drink. “Aw come on, just one won’t hurt.” Stone says,

They try to convince you to eat junk food with them.

Do we bring home high-calorie, low-nutrition garbage food? That thoughtless habit can hurt a child who is trying to be conscious and careful. Letting them eat it, and not letting them eat it, are equally counterproductive. The best idea is to just keep the stuff out of the house.

While outspoken critics are unpleasant, subtle undermining is even worse to cope with, because there is no clearly aggressive act that the victim can point to. Stone wrote,

The people I’m talking about are the ones who make light of what you are doing. They roll their eyes when you talk about your fitness program. Some of these kinds of people are more subtle than that, and some are more outspoken, but you always know exactly who they are.

Do we make light of our children’s ambitions for self-betterment? Do we tease them, or undermine their spirits by asserting that they will never succeed? Do we roll our eyes, or say things like, “I know you. You won’t stick with it.”

A tremendous amount of emotional abuse is inflicted on children in the name of humor. To disparage someone’s hopes and undermine their good intentions under cover of “just having fun” is a species of cruelty. If they accept it, they are knuckling under, and lose self-respect.

If they resist, they make themselves targets for progressively more hostile words. “What’s the matter, you don’t have a sense of humor? Awww, poor baby.” Some parents have trouble believing that other parents talk to their kids that way. But they do.

Kids are not grownups

Children are not equipped to deal with multi-layered emotional situations. What they need from their parents is the same humane consideration that those adults would probably extend to a valued colleague or a visiting clergyperson.

To adults, Stone says this about the obstructive others: “What I suggest you do is use their negative energy to your advantage.” It worked for him. But it doesn’t work for kids. They don’t have the skillset. They need parents to act like mature sane adults, so they can get on with the business of being kids.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Mental tricks to help you stay motivated,” JohnstoneFitness.com, 08/03/06
Image by Zaid Alasad/Public Domain

Use Mind Power for Good

Pat Hartman June 9, 2021 No Comments

In telling the story of body transformer John Stone, we paused at the idea that, in a project of this magnitude, a person can be their own worst enemy. The mind is powerful enough to destroy us, and also powerful enough to give us a second chance to build our best selves. Since the mind can do so many amazing things, we might as well put it to good use. Mental games can go either way, and Stone suggests playing the healthy, productive kind:

I would picture myself outside mowing the lawn and washing the car with a 6-pack, and the look on my neighbors’ faces. I would keep this image in my head at all times. Nothing was going to keep me from reaching this goal. I know this all sounds fairly shallow…

Obviously, this is an intelligent person, but to reach his goal he gave himself permission to draw on any psychological advantage he could muster. He realized that the desire to show off an enviable abdomen was a banal and immature motive for change — and gave himself permission to use that fantasy as an incentive that was effective, and did no harm to anyone else. Stone writes,

Each time you’re faced with a workout or a food temptation you’ll either do the right thing or you’ll allow your mind to convince you that you have a good reason not to. Ultimately excuses don’t matter one bit — excuses never get you any closer to your goals, so always remember that.

In another post about motivation, Stone wrote:

Start with diet and exercise. Those two things completely changed my life. Eating right and exercising will help you begin to feel positive and healthy again. Slowly you’ll find yourself eliminating negativity from your life. These changes take time, but if you take it one step at a time you’ll change your whole life.

From the photos on his site, it appears that Stone was able to afford a pretty sweet home gym setup. But a lot of people manage to stay in good shape with just body-weight workouts, or yoga, or isometric exercises. The basic principles of dedication and momentum remain the same. For the truly determined person, even equipment is optional.

Stone talked constantly about momentum being the most powerful force in the drive to lose fat. For some people, baby steps are the way to go. For others, the ability to take that all-or-nothing plunge is paramount. He called momentum his real secret — “not some silly notion that I was blessed with some rare form of superhuman willpower.”

Dr. Pretlow has emphasized that willpower alone is not enough. But it is one tool in the toolbox, and if a person can cultivate and grow it, so much the better. However, children should not be expected to have that willpower skill operational yet. They need all the help they can get, and of course, around here, we recommend that parents look into W8Loss2Go.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “My Transformation,” Web.archive.org, 11/01/20
Source: “Fat loss 101: Dedication and momentum,” Web.archive.org, 01/16/12
Source: “Mental tricks to help you stay motivated,” Web.archive.org, 08/03/06
Image by Lars Plougmann/CC BY-SA 2.0

There Is No “Muse” in Motivation

Pat Hartman June 8, 2021 No Comments

Here is more of the story of John Stone, which is found mainly in archived pages. He had spent a decade making war on his body in every possible way. Among other abuses, he described a typical lunch and dinner, which we will spare the reader on the grounds of grossness. He drank a lot and didn’t bother with haircuts, shaving, or other niceties. Even though life was no fun, he deprived himself of sleep, as if merely staying awake longer would somehow fix things.

As previously mentioned, one day Stone got out of the shower and took a good look at his bloated flabby shapeless self. He writes,

It was then that something very surprising occurred. This event happened so abruptly that it was as if someone flipped a switch in my head.

His misery and depression turned to anger, which for many people fuels motivation. The shower and mirror incident was a lucky break, a freebie, a sign of grace from the Universe. But motivation is no muse, no magical spirit that floats down from the sky to impart inspiration. A person has to make the first move, and put out some muse-bait, as a token of earnest intention.

Stone did this by quitting cigarettes cold turkey. He set a date, and stopped:

I liken it to taking a band-aid off: I’d rather rip it off rather than remove it slowly… I used all that repressed anger and frustration as fuel for a major lifestyle change. One by one I began to change my bad habits, and I never looked back.

Finding that he was able to quit nicotine was very empowering and confidence-building, and Stone went on to lose a bunch of weight. He wrote about his fitness procedures and mental states for a progressively broader audience and became a mentor for many other desperate people. He taught the supreme importance of momentum, and how momentum is best gathered by the application of extreme dedication:

What keeps your motivation the highest when you’re losing fat? Progress, that’s what. The answer is obvious: refuse to eat, drink or do anything that doesn’t bring you closer to your goals.

If your diet and training are dialed in and you’re working as hard as you possibly can, each week when you take your measurements tangible progress will be there waiting for you like a little present. You start to look forward to those weekly gifts more than any food you might be craving.

To keep a record of his progress, Stone snapped and published an extensive series of selfies every day. People would contact the website with questions, like how to maintain dedication and discipline.

The main thing, apparently, is to be aware that your worst enemy is your own mind. If you don’t know that a battle is going on, you certainly cannot win it. One part of the mind wants to lose accumulated fat and gain fitness. The other part wants to make excuses for why eating an entire large pizza is a good idea.

(To be continued, including special words for parents…)

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Where Does Motivation Come From?

Pat Hartman June 7, 2021 No Comments

Once upon a time, a fellow named John Stone spent years making a wreck of himself. The decade of decadence encompassed bad habits of every description, all practiced in warmup pants and humungous t-shirts. He suffered a dozen simultaneous medical problems ranging from shortness of breath to low-back pain. The several doctors he saw had never suggested an improved diet or an exercise regime.

Mired in misery and self-disgust, Stone finally experienced the unmistakable “enough is enough” moment. What brought about his decision to, in his phrase, make a body transformation? One day he got out of the shower and, rather than repeat the customary avoidance, actually took a look in the mirror and contemplated the fat stranger who looked back.

He felt shocked and depressed, and then mad, and decided to use the anger as fuel to supply the energy that would be needed to make a change:

A healthy dose of properly channeled anger can actually provide an incredible amount of motivation. So my very first suggestion is to do what I did: get mad — fighting mad — about your weight problem!

One by one I began to change my bad habits, and I never looked back…

Five short months of hard work was all it took to completely change my life! I transformed from a fat, alcoholic, drug addicted, negative, lazy and out of shape shell of a man into the happy, healthy, strong and fit person I so desperately wanted to become.

Never one to shy away from extremes, Stone rode his bike an average of 31 miles per day for an unbroken streak of more than 1,000 consecutive days — and that was just one of the new habits he instituted. He lost over 50 pounds and 12 inches of waistline. He writes,

My idea was to take front facing and profile progress pictures every single day until I reached my goal. When dieting it’s all but impossible to see the very small changes that take place from one day to the next, and I figured if I had photographs to compare side by side it would make those very small changes more apparent — thus providing me with constant, positive feedback. Also, I thought it would be really interesting to take all those photographs (once I reached my goal) and then create an animation of my weight loss.

The video, which sadly is no longer available, packed a whole year into 60 seconds. Starting at 215 lbs. and 30% body fat, it showed Stone melting away to 160 pounds and 8% body fat. For the curious, many still photos are available on the cached version of the fitness website he created to share his tips with a community of like-minded strivers.

An unexpected bonus was that family members and friends were inspired to follow his example, and then, a much larger group coalesced around his teachings. Because he left such detailed notes on both his fitness procedures and his mental state, more about this determined “loser” will appear in the following post.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “About Me (Historical),” Web.archive.org, 04/16/03
Source: “About Me,” Web.archive.org, 02/01/20
Image by Dawn/CC BY 2.0

Pro Tips on Screen Time

Pat Hartman June 4, 2021 No Comments

This will wrap up the current discussion of light as an obesity villain by looking at an NPR article by Anya Kamanetz, who questioned a large number of parents for a book called The Art of Screen Time. Included are highlights from four professionals in related fields: a research pediatrician, a sleep researcher, an anti-obesity doctor, and a media and violence researcher. What do they do at home?

For many metabolism-related reasons, humans are better off shielding themselves from light during the hours of sleep. In many cases, among the young, that artificial light pours out of some kind of electronic device that people stare into for hours, and then leave activated even when they are not paying attention to it.

Childhood Obesity News has been looking at the notion that sleeping with artificial light is associated with and/or causative of weight gain. It appears that, as Dr. Yong-Moon Park put it,

[R]educing exposure to artificial light at night while sleeping adds an important tool for preventing weight gain.

Dr. Jenny Radesky is a research pediatrician and the lead author of the guidelines issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics regarding children and media. During the school year, her two sons eschew screens on weekdays. There are none at dinner, or after bedtime. On Friday evening, under the “joint media engagement” policy, the parents and children share a movie. On weekends, there can be cartoons and games and, Dr. Radesky specifies, she takes the trouble to point out to her children how the games have a manipulative aspect, trying to make kids buy things during the experience.

Based on a decade of study, sleep researcher Lauren Hale applies strict rules to her two youngsters: “No screens in the hour before bed, no screens in the bedroom and no screens as part of the bedtime routine.” At the tender age of four, one of the children warned his grandmother not to look at TV before bed “because it tells your brain to stay awake.”

Canadian pediatrician Tom Warshawski founded the Childhood Obesity Foundation in his country and is active in the effort to encourage parents to limit screen time for kids. His family household adheres to the Let’s Go! 5-2-1-0 plan, which means “five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, no more than two hours of screens, one hour of physical activity, and no sugary beverages.” Also, no TV until after homework, and zero video games. At the time, the children were not always happy about the rules. Dr. Warshawski told Kamanetz that, when older and wiser, they thanked him and their mother for holding the line.

Prof. Douglas Gentile, the media and violence expert, was always more concerned about content than time — and time was very limited: one TV hour per day in grade school; two hours per day when older. As for content, he watched any movie first, before the kids could.

About the professionals she interviewed, Anna Kamanetz said,

[I]t was interesting to see how the priorities they focused on in their own research corresponded with the priorities they set at home.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “What The Screen Time Experts Do With Their Own Kids,” NPR.org, 02/06/17
Source: “Sleeping with lights or TV on tied to obesity,” Reuters.com, 06/10/19
Image by Jon/CC BY-SA 2.0

Light — Not Always Enlightening

Pat Hartman June 3, 2021 No Comments

The best scientists make connections between work and life. Rebecca Boyle wrote,

Randy Nelson, a circadian biologist at Ohio State University, has been studying light’s effects on depression and obesity since 2004, when one of his graduate students was hospitalized for a staph infection. The student complained bitterly about the bright lights in his room and in the hospital hallway, which robbed him of sleep and stressed him out.

Back at the lab, Nelson and grad student Laura Fonken brought in special rodents, and kept the lighting in their quarters relentlessly bright, like a maximum-security prison. The subjects became listless and depressed, with glitches in their learning abilities and memory, and they even lost their taste for sugar-water treats.

Then the researchers tried providing only a little bit of night illumination in the rat barracks — what in human terms would be the equivalent of leaving a computer or TV screen on in the bedroom. They got the same result — mopey rodents who were definitely not at the top of their game. Apparently, low-quality sleep affects organisms like low-quality food. It can keep a creature alive and functioning, but it is not capital-L Life.

And now the bad news

Also, the experimental animals got fat, and here is the scary part: “They were eating the same number of calories as their dark-sequestered mates.” What was going on? The answer Nelson and Fonken came up with was that light-activated messenger RNA molecules go around switching genes off and on, and this regulates circadian rhythms.

Messing with the process comes with a price tag. Without knowing every last detail, they concluded that the link could not be doubted. Just like malnourishment, sleep interference can, and will, find a way to forge an inevitable path toward obesity.

Melatonin

Epidemiologist Richard Stevens of the University of Connecticut explained to journalist Boyle the actions of the hormone melatonin, which lowers the body’s core temperature and induces drowsiness. In animals with backbones, from fish to humans, melatonin regulates the sleep-wake cycle and calibrates the metabolism. Stevens explained,

Production of melatonin should begin at dusk, when we are supposed to sleep. Light — not wakefulness itself, but light — shuts it off.

Over the next few years, some research here and there continued to link nocturnal artificial light with an increased risk of weight gain. It was hard to prove the particulars of causation. In 2019 a study showed that, for women middle-aged and above, illumination in the hours of darkness was paired with a higher likelihood of obesity. As it turns out, the light does not even need to be as bright or concentrated as a device’s screen. Apparently, damage can be done by seepage through and around curtains, and by clocks that glow in the dark.

A study led by Dr. Yong-Moon Park involved “almost 44,000 generally healthy women, ages 35 to 74.” What happened?

Many — about 17,000 — slept with a nightlight in the room, while more than 13,000 left a light on outside the bedroom and about 5,000 slept with a television or light on in the bedroom.

After almost six years of follow-up, women who slept with a television or light on in the room were 22 percent more likely to be overweight and 33 percent more likely to be obese than women who slept in total darkness without even a nightlight or the glow from an alarm clock.

Whether or not the subjects had “enough” hours of sleep, what made the difference was the artificial light during sleep time.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “The End of Night,” Aeon.co, 04/01/14
Source: “Sleeping with lights or TV on tied to obesity,” Reuters.com, 06/10/19
Image by Evan/CC BY-ND 2.0

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