With all the fuss over the harshness of Amy Chua’s unrelenting “tiger mother” parenting style — the discussion, which was sparked by a Wall Street Journal excerpt of Chua’s new memoir about motherhood, made its way onto the …
Family
More American Families Rely on Working Wife
In the upcoming movie Made In Dagenham, current Brit eccentric darling Sally Hawkins plays Rita O’Grady, a factory worker and mother of two, who inspires 187 women machinists at Ford’s Dagenham plant in England to go out on …
More Americans Consider Pets Family, But Not Gay Couples
What makes a family? Do pets count? Same sex couples? Unmarried heterosexual couples? Anybody who lives together? According to a new book out Sept. 15, more Americans think pets count as family members (51%) than same-sex couples …
Is Child Abuse On the Decline?
The number of maltreated children in the U.S. has fallen steadily in the last two decades, according to a report this week from the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.
Overall, physical-abuse cases per capita fell 3% between and 2007 and 2008 (the most recent year for which stats are available). …
How couples meet
Nearly 30% of new couples now meet online. Today the Internet is the second-most common way to meet a partner, according to results from the How Couples Meet and Stay Together Survey, with web introductions ranked only behind introduction by mutual friends.
Is childhood obesity a symptom of neglect?
The issue of whether parents whose children are obese should be charged with neglect has fueled debate and generated controversial court cases, but, according to an article published this week in BMJ, so far there is little research analyzing negligence and obesity — and particularly whether obese children who are put into foster care
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Childhood obesity: moms’ work schedule a factor?
New research published in the American Journal of Epidemiology and highlighted by Reuters suggests that the increasing prevalence of moms holding down full-time jobs may be a contributing factor in the childhood obesity epidemic. In an effort to determine what factors may be driving childhood obesity, researchers from University College
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When kids benefit from public smoking bans
A study conducted by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health finds that children and adolescents who don’t live with smokers experience substantial health benefits from no smoking laws. Yet, perhaps unsurprisingly, researchers also found that kids who live in counties with public smoking bans but are exposed to secondhand
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Telecommuting, flex-time decrease work-life conflict
For people whose jobs permit them to at least occasionally work from home, it may come as no surprise that a new study of more than 24,000 IBM employees in 75 different countries finds that workers who telecommute are generally able to strike a better balance between work and family life compared with those who must always schlep to the
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Pediatricians group withdraws statement on female circumcision
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has reversed its controversial decision on female genital cutting (FGC). The ritual of female circumcision — practiced in some African and Asian countries — is illegal in the U.S., but the bioethics committee of the national pediatricians group suggested in April that doctors be allowed to …
More women still prefer the Pill over other contraceptives
Fifty years since the introduction of the oral birth control pill, it is still the preferred method of contraception for American women, used by 10.7 million women between the ages of 15 and 44. The second most popular method of contraception is female sterilization, with 10.3 million users.
More women are also using birth control …
Study: too few places to exercise
A new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may provide some explanation for why the obesity rate among youngsters continues to climb.
According to the report, released by the government agency, most Americans don’t live in communities where they are encouraged — by parks, sidewalks and playgrounds — to become …
Autism research: infertility treatment link, no benefit of special diet
Autism researchers from around the world are meeting this week in Philadelphia at the annual conference of the International Society for Autism Research, and have presented studies investigating everything from the impact of an autistic child on the strength of his or her parents’ marriage, to the merits of popular gluten-free,
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