Why, I ask my children in the gentlest of voices, can’t you just do as I say the first time I say it? 

My six-year-old lifts his shoulders and raises his outstretched palms toward me in a pose of surrender, “I didn’t hear you!”  His clear blue eyes widen pleadingly at me and I feel compelled to believe him. 

Wouldn‚Äôt you?¬† No?¬† Well, shame on you then.¬† Because for one, he is such a sweet looking boy.¬† And two ‚Äì he‚Äôs actually right, well, sort of…¬†

Audiologists have long known that a child‚Äôs auditory system is less mature than that of an adult.¬† As a result, he or she will have a tougher time hearing a signal (such as Mommy‚Äôs voice) amid background noise (like TV, knock-knock joke-a-thons.)¬† The good news for moms and dads is that we know when our child is not tuned in to our voices and are eager to aid them by, um, raising our voices.¬† But move into the classroom environment and that same child may not get a second chance to hear what the teacher¬†says.¬† According to a study by the Canadian Language & Literacy Research Network (CLLRNet), the average grade one student in a typical classroom does not hear one in six words spoken by the teacher.¬†¬† That is a lot of —s to miss. Imagine following a r—-e and not hearing all the ing——ts.¬† While an adult can mentally fill in most of the blanks, a child with much less language experience cannot.¬† And with no remote control to turn up the volume, many kids will become confused or simply lose interest.

The strength with which a teacher’s voice enters a student’s ear is measured by the signal to noise ratio (SNR.)  The signal is, in this case, the teacher’s speech and the noise is the combination of every other sound in the classroom.  So during flu season, for example, the teacher must speak loud enough to outdo the cacophony of coughing, sneezing, and Kleenex pulling by her young learners.  Although such noises don’t seem like they’d be much of an impediment to a child learning about vowels and consonants, they actually are when you consider that the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) recommends that background noise in classrooms should not exceed 35 decibels (dB).  With a whisper measuring a mere 30 dB and a humming refrigerator 40 dB, it’s clear that only in the most sedated moments could a typical grade one classroom be this quiet.  For an average child to hear intelligibly, audiologists recommend the teacher sound at least 15 dB louder than the background noise (the SNR being +15dB.)  Include the myriad hallway interruptions, such as students stomping to the gym, or traffic outside windows, and one can appreciate the challenge schools face in achieving this acoustic standard.

Just how much does sound affect a child’s academic progress?  While this is difficult to measure, one study by Crandell and Smaldino reported that word recognition scores of children seated 6 feet, 12 feet and 24 feet from the teacher were 95%, 71%, and 60% respectively, or put another way – ‘A’ , ‘B’, and ‘C’ on the report card.  You could offset such a hazard by requesting your daughter or son sit front row center (perhaps send the teacher a few shiny red apples to sweeten the deal) but doesn’t every student deserve such VIP treatment? 

There are strategies that parents, teachers, and students can implement to ensure important lessons reach their intended young audience.  A costly, but effective solution is to add soundfield systems to primary grade classrooms.  It allows the teacher to speak into to a small microphone so that the sound is transmitted through a speaker.  However, a more economical way to improve the situation is to reduce background noise.  According to VOICE, an advocacy group for hearing impaired children, this can be done by keeping classes small and avoiding open concept classrooms completely.  Teachers should close the door to the hallway during important lessons.  And placing tennis balls on chair legs is so effective that is now ubiquitous across all schools.  In fact, Canadian company Sound Listening Environments Inc. manufactures environmentally-conscious balls called Hushh-ups specifically for this purpose.

 

Book Review: In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

 

A collective sigh of relief swept across the country this week as parents whisked their kids off to school and replaced careless summer days with new routines that will be rigidly in place before the leaves turn red.  It is an ideal time for new resolutions and specifically, a return to healthy habits that have evaporated in the summer heat (think daily slushies and ice cream cones.)  It won’t be long before the parental cheers give way to grumblings over tedious daily rituals – among the worst of them the packaged lunch preparation.  As a mother, I know the desire to ‘just get’er done’ is strong motivation to fill lunch boxes with single-serving cellophane-wrapped food products.  All the better that so many of them tout nutritional power – “low-fat” “contains vitamin C” “made with real fruit.”  But before stocking up on a year’s supply of RealFruit Minies, consider the arguments set out by Michael Pollan’s book In Defense of Food .  With summer beach paperbacks out of the way, it’s a great time to bite into an engaging read that will benefit the entire family.

 

Eat Food. Not too much.  Mostly plants.  These are the first three sentences in Michael Pollan’s book.  If you grasp the meaning of these words and believe you are able to act on them, then you needn’t read further.  But, you might want to anyways.  Pollan masterfully dissects why and how North Americans have adopted what is described as the “Western Diet” using wit and casual prose that is neither preachy not textbook-like.  The author, a Knight Professor of Journalism at Berkeley, humbly admits that he writes with the “authority of tradition and common sense” – but don’t be fooled, his common sense statements are backed by thorough research (the list of sources is more than 20 pages long.) He contends that what we consume today is not really “food”, nor the way we consume is really “eating” (i.e., alone, in the car, ahem…blogging) and explains how these munching habits have created “a new creature onto the world stage: the human being who manages to be overfed and undernourished.”

 

Pollan blames much of today’s eating woes on two influences: the rise of nutritionism and the industrialization of food.  Nutritionism, he explains, is an ideology (versus a science) that the key to understanding food is knowing its nutrients.  Therefore, it follows that such nutrients, when isolated from their foods, are as effective as the food itself.  In other words, “foods are the sum of their nutrient parts.”  One early example of nutritionism’s flawed reasoning, he asserts, was the proclaimed link between heart disease and saturated fat that led to the low-fat craze.  Suddenly consumers shunned red meat and did what they were told: eat more carbohydrates.  They continued to eat meat (white only, please), but lowered the proportion of meat by eating more “low-fat” carbohydrates, resulting in – surprise – more obesity.  It didn’t matter that these carbohydrates were made from refined grains and sugars – they just had to be low-fat – just as the nutritionists ordered. 

 

Nutritionism, however, was a boon to the growing industrialization of eating, says Pollan, because the food industry had only to latch onto the latest nutrition craze and re-package a food to make it marketable.  White bread, for instance, was found to cause major deficiency-related diseases in people during its early days because the grain had been robbed of all its nutrients during the refinement process.  The solution was to re-fortify the bread with vitamins and, voila!  No more deficiencies.  Pollan cites different studies that undermine this thinking, including one that determined there are additional benefits to eating whole grains that no nutrients alone or combined could provide.  He then explores the effect of industrialization on the food chain beginning at the most basic level – the soil.  Their fertilizers diminish the diversity of the soil which in turn reduces the nutritional quality of its crops that are then chemically preserved or refined for the final product.  Although some vitamins and minerals are added back, Pollan says, science does not “know enough to compensate for everything that processing does to whole foods.”  This science, however, enables industry to grow high-yielding varieties of crops that are most suitable for mechanical harvesting and processing, pushing aside hundreds, if not thousands of types of produce that once flourished on American farmland.  Today, four crops – soy, wheat, corn, and rice – account for two-thirds of the calories we eat. 

 

Now where does that leave the diner?  Surely, more confused and alone than ever.  Not only has the menu dwindled, so has our pleasure of eating.  But don’t despair.  Pollan offers numerous strategies to improve our dining habits.  Some are easy to follow, like: avoiding food products that make health claims; do all your eating at a table (“No, a desk is not a table.”); and shop along the periphery of the grocery store.  Other options may be more difficult to abide by, such as growing one’s own garden, and eating weeds whenever possible.  Similarly, his advice to pay more and eat less may be impossible for parents raising ravenous teenage boys – but there are at least a few tips that everyone can implement in their homes.

 

In Defense of Food is an enjoyable read that, at the very least, reminds us that food convenience has its costs (despite how cheap it is at the cash register.)  While parents will likely continue to buy granola bars or soda pop for their kids, Pollan’s book will help provide a more balanced approach to their children’s menus and remind them of the need to appreciate the value and flavour of whole, unprocessed food.  And above all, parents will remember that eating is as much for pleasure as it is for nutrition.  After all, at the end of a school day, there’s no better way to connect with your kids than at the kitchen table eating a home-cooked meal.  Even if it means listening to them complain about the smelly steamed broccoli.

 

 

The other day my husband turned to me and said with a sigh, “Life has been too easy for us.  It can’t possibly go on like this forever.”  Pardon?  Certainly, I’d agree that Charles Dickens would have been hard-pressed to find literary inspiration from our lives, but too easy?  Memories of nauseous pregnancies, sleepless nights, colicky babies, and whining toddlers from the past eight years raced across my mind like an episode of Super Nanny.  Those days when a pot of coffee beat back my exhaustion and drops of adult conversation preserved my sanity were not recalled as vividly for my husband who escaped to a muted office cubicle every day as I was P.T. Barnum at home.  Too easy?  I didn’t think so.

 

He was, as it turned out, referring specifically to our family finances after reading an article on the ballooning costs of a university education which we would one day be doling out for our three future surgeons… engineers? … or, um, general arts graduates.  Suspecting that he was trying to get off the hook for starting our next renovation project, I stated he was ridiculous and stomped off in a huff.  But in reality, I knew he was right.  In our twelve years of marriage, we have always been able to fully pay our bills on time and buy whatever we need (or really, really want) without much scrimping and saving.  However, we’ve also abstained from many luxuries that are simply beyond our budgetary grasp such as hiring a much needed housecleaner, going on island vacations, and paying retail at the Gap.  Perhaps it was time to trim our spending to ensure our future savings would cover that most important of goals – one that we both equally endorsed – our children’s post-secondary education.

 

As with most married couples, money has been the cause of many battles, yet it has also been a catalyst for peaceful negotiation and the melding of often divergent goals.  It has, in essence, created a system of checks and balances that ensure our hard-earned dollars don’t easily escape the crease in our family wallet.  Our “I do” to wedded bliss was the first of a string of “I do’s” in the give and take of conjugal mediation – with finance being a particularly popular subject.

“Do you mind if I buy another pair of stiletto boots?”  “I do.”

“Do you think I’m crazy to ask if I can go golfing with the guys next weekend?”  “I do.”

“Do you think we should replace our old barbecue?”  “I do.”

“With a $4000 Weber?”  “I don’t.”

 

Perhaps the ease in our lives (remember, we’re just talking money here) has less to do with luck and more to do with the need for consensus in all our financial decisions.  Indeed, a study on how marriage impacts wealth, by Jay Zagorsky of Ohio State University, indicates that couples who marry and – this is important – stay married, tend to accumulate more wealth than their single or divorced counterparts.  Married individuals experienced a 16% annual increase in wealth compared to the average single or divorced individual who scraped out an annual increase of 8% and 14%, respectively.  So, clearly my husband can expect this “easy” life to continue “till death do us part.”  However, if we should part before that, all bets are off.  According to the same survey, divorce can cripple a person’s wealth – reducing it by 77% when compared to a single person (while staying married almost doubles one’s wealth.) 

 

It’s a good thing I love roller coaster rides, because when I look back at the past twelve years I can‚Äôt believe all the dips, lifts, and surprise turns we‚Äôve experienced together ‚Äì some fantastic, others not so great.¬† And I can only imagine what amazing twists we will face over the next decade, but it‚Äôs good to know one thing is for certain ‚Äì our wealth will very likely keep going up.

Too many Canadian kids are fat.  This is a fact.  Over the past few years, newspapers and health advocates have decried the rising obesity rates, but it’s not headline news today.  As Canadians have come to accept this weighty truth and various organizations and governments scramble to find solutions, it’s hardly surprising that finger pointing has begun.  Who is to blame for this epidemic of chunkiness?  The list of culprits is exhausting and their culpability impossible to define – from the nutritionists in Michael Pollan’s bestseller In Defense of Food (Fat bad!  Carbohydrates good!) to parenting experts that bemoan Mommy’s use of the word “no” – the blame game will very likely find few winners.  A recent report by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, however, shows both the food and media industries are strong contenders.

 

According to the report, $1.6 billion was spent in 2006 by 44 major food and beverage marketers to promote their goodies to kids aged 2 to 17 years old.  For children aged 2 to 11 years, a total of $229 million was invested in breakfast cereals alone – while the amount spent on fruits and vegetables was $8.4 million.  Is it any wonder then, that kids are especially vocal about their preferences in the cereal aisle of the grocery store?  Take a teen to the local Loblaws, and it’s more likely to be the soda shelves that invigorate his taste buds.  That’s because the marketing strategy shifts toward carbonated beverages for 12 to 17 year olds where $472.2 million was invested in making sure your kid begs for Red Bull rather than V-8.  In that same age category, fruits and vegetables received a measly $6.2 million to promote their not so hip qualities.

 

The report also chastises the media for bombarding children and teens with messages and images that promote unhealthy eating habits through television advertising, the internet, and movie tie-ins.  In the reported year, food and beverage products were tied to about 80 movies, television shows, and animated characters that appeal to children.  It specifically cites the use of characters from Superman Returns and Pirates of the Caribbean to sell fatty food products.  According to a National Post article by John Hiscock, Dr. Martin Schiff, weight-loss expert and best-selling author of The Thin Connection, goes a step further in blaming Hollywood for North America’s gluttonous habits.  He is now part of a health campaign that urges the movie industry to add a new rating – “O” for Obesity.  According to Schiff, shows such as Sex in the City where skinny, beautiful women constantly eat yet never gain weight are setting an unhealthy example for thousands of children (as opposed to the promiscuous sex and shallow lifestyles?)  While this proposal is a noble effort to curb the overeating that has gripped our youngest generation, it’s not likely that an industry that profits from gratuitous violence and lurid sex scenes is going to omit all-you-can-eat buffet scenes from their movies.  Furthermore, parents busy censoring their children from lewd language, nudity and blood spilling are not about to whisper “cover your eyes” when some chubby kid eats a twinkie on the silver screen. 

 

A battle against America’s corporations to focus their energies less on junk food and more on healthy eating is, quite frankly, fruitless.  Although the report concedes that some of the largest food and beverage companies have taken “important steps to encourage better nutrition and fitness among the nation’s children” by limiting their advertising to foods that meet certain nutritional standards, if the “standards” are met by injecting a few vitamins into a sugar-laden gummy, children and parents are not much better off.   Maybe advertisers will bear some of the responsibility for North America’s unhealthy eating habits, and maybe they won’t.  Only time will tell.  But one thing is certain, all this finger wagging and strongly worded criticisms will do little to shrink the enlarged girth of a ten-year-old.  Regular trips to the farmer’s market, less time in front of the television, and a firm and well-practiced “No” will shed pounds and transform bad eating habits long before anyone sees an ad touting the funky pink treat that dances in your mouth and spreads cool antioxidants to your finger tips called … Watermelon!