Episode 301 of The Reality Check is the pinnacle of audio media. The show begins with Adam looking into whether parents should tell their kids to “finish their plates”. Next, Elan hosts an exciting rendition of the classic TRC game, Science Fact or Science Fiction, with a theme of fertility. Darren closes things out by discussing whether or not the Turing Test was recently passed.
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SHOW NOTES
Finish Your Plate
Food-Related Parenting Practices and Adolescent Weight Status: A Population-Based Study – Pediatrics
Saying Good Riddance to the Clear-Plate Club – NYTimes.com
CDC – Obesity Facts – Adolescent and School Health
Fertility Game
How Stuff Works – Pregnancy Facts
Wikipedia – Age and Female Fertility
Live Science – Pregnancy Myths
Mayo Clinic – Birth Control Pill
Planned Parenthood – Birth Control Pill
RESOLVE – Fast Facts About Fertility
Turing Test
Hello
In regaurds to Adams segment. I just want to say I been hoping to hear about something like this. I have a 5 year old, and I know this only applied to 12 to 16 year olds, but I am a parent that food regulates. I dont force my daughter to eat, but I do with hold after dinner snacks and deserts if she doesnt eat all her vegetables. I never force her to finish the plate, but I do want her to get some nutrients in her. If I gave her a choice she would only eat the meat option. Now this isnt because she is skinny or fat she is closer to skinny than anything. Its because of social dynamics, and time restraints. We have dinner than an hour and a half later she is in bed. Leaving little time for her to eat more if she gets hungry and me not wanting to put food into her just before sleep. When I was a child I went to bed hungry sometimes, and I believe my mother had it worse than me. Now dont get me wrong this isnt a sob story, but I feel a lot of parents may be encouraging eating at either end of the scale due to kids 30 minutes after dinner saying I am hungry and then you have to (in a subcontious way) feed them. But this is just one mans point of view. Great segment very topical for me.
Hi Justin
I didn’t want to talk too much about restraint because it’s a whole other topic and I didn’t do a lot of research on it. The idea is less intuitive. To me restricting some foods makes sense, but I found a lot of research stating that food restriction was linked to obesity. The idea I guess being that depriving someone of food males them want it more and messes with their own ability ot control. Of course the data may simply show a correlation between obese people and an increased restriction as an attempt to control the weight of the child. Hard to investigate and I would need to research further.
I have listened to every TRC podcast and absolutely love the show. There is, however, once particular thing you guys do that drives me nuts. Virtually without fail you all confuse “less” and “fewer”, favoring “less” when “fewer” would be the correct adjective. “Less” should be used for mass nouns (e.g. water, sand, etc.) while “fewer” should be used for count nouns (e.g. people, grains of sand, turtles, etc.)
In this weeks podcast, “less children” is wrong and “less food” is correct.
Thanks for all the good listening…
marty
Good advice. I will try to make less mistakes in the future.
Is this the first mistake for episode 400?
Intersting episode. You might be interested to know that according to the website linked below that Deepak Chopra has failed the Turing Test has he cannot be distinguished from a bot….
http://www.wisdomofchopra.com/
Hi guys,
I just starting listening to the show and quickly found myself digging through the archives and downloading a ton of old shows.
Quick note about the finish your plate segment. The hosts all seemed baffled about why parents would expect kids to finish their plate when they say they are not hungry. We have two boys, 5 and 7, who are average weight. If we didn’t force them to sit at the table and eat, they wouldn’t. The younger one often says he is not hungry when he sees what is for dinner. I think the finish your plate concept has more do to with teaching kids to focus on sitting and eating when it’s time to eat and eating what their parents have served to them. Otherwise, if we excused our sons everytime they said they were full, they’d come back to us an hour later and ask for a granola bar or something else they want (which we wouldn’t give them).
I spoke to our family doctor about this and she advised that it is the parents’ responsibility to decide what food their children eat and serve it to them, and that it is the child’s responsibility to decide how much he or she will eat. I think this is great advice and supports your findings on the show.
On an interesting side note, I was told that breast feeding helps children develop their ability to regulate their fullness because the baby’s feeding patterns determine milk supply. And that babies who are bottle-fed do not develop this ability because they are given pre-measured bottle feedings. Sounds like another topic for another day, but I can say that both my boys were breast feed for the recommended amount of time, and I have never seen either ever over-eat, even when they’ve been served a large portion of their favorite foods.
Have a good knowledge of the guidelines in place at your favorite outlets, particularly their promotion plan.