Kids who watch a lot of TV tend to eat a lot of junk food

As reported by Genevra Pittman of Reuters, May 10, 2012:

Children and teens who watch a lot of television are less likely to get their fruits and vegetables and more likely to snack on candy or drink soda every day, according to a survey of close to 13,000 U.S. students.

The link to poor eating habits remained even after the researchers, whose findings appeared in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, took into account how much exercise kids typically got as well as how often they snacked while in front of the television.

Though the findings weren't particularly surprising, researchers couldn't tell which came first, the extra TV or poor eating habits. Thus, the study alone can't prove that watching too much TV causes children to make poor diet choices.

But it does jibe with past research showing that when children have their TV time cut back, they tend to eat less and may lose weight, the researchers aid.

"It certainly is consistent with the idea that TV is maybe adversely affecting dietary intake and food choices," said Leah Lipsky, who worked on the new study at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver national Institute of Child Health and Human Development, along with colleague Ronald Iannotti.

Previous studies have also suggested that young people who spend more time in front of the television are more likely to be overweight or obese. One explanation is that advertisements promoting fast food and sweets during kids' programming may be driving youth towards unhealthy foods, experts have said.

The survey looked at a nationally-representative group of 12,642 private and public school students who watched an average of two and a half hours of TV each day.

The researchers found that for every extra hour of daily TV watching reported by children from roughly age 10 to 16, they were five percent less likely to eat vegetables every day and eight percent less likely to get daily fruit.

Each extra average hour of TV also meant kids were 18 percent more likely to say they ate candy each day, 24 percent more likely to drink soda at least daily and 14 percent more likely to go to fast food restaurants once a week or more.

That was after taking into account survey participants' age, gender, race and how well-off their families were.

"The effect of television is extending beyond just when they're snacking and watching television," Iannotti told Reuters health. That means it's important both for parents to limit TV time - and thus exposure to food-related commercials - and to make sure healthy snacks are available when children are watching TV or otherwise engaged in "screen time" in front of a computer, he added.

University students are surprised to discover that tourists buy souvenirs to remind them of places they've been

The word "souvenir" is a French word, a reflexive verb (se souvenir de) meaning "to remember." Apparently, University of Alberta human ecology students were unaware of this. As reported by Marta Gold in the Edmonton Journal, April 8, 2012:

EDMONTON - Nothing says “souvenir” like an I-‘heart’-NY T-shirt or a tiny replica of the Eiffel Tower.

Whether you think of them as tacky trinkets or treasured mementos, they indisputably make us think of faraway places and vacation experiences.

A new exhibit at the University of Alberta explores these ideas and the holiday souvenirs that inspire them in a show called “Greetings From ….”

Compiled by fourth-year human ecology students, the keepsakes were gathered from the department’s clothing-and-textiles collection as well as from students and staff.

The items range from the simple and iconic — tourist T-shirts and models of international landmarks — to the handmade and intricate, such as a mask from Venice and a wall hanging from Egypt.

Some are created from indigenous materials by local craftspeople, such as the African coasters carved out of tree bark, while others are cheap imports hawked to tourists, such as the dashboard hula girl from Hawaii.

But interestingly, the cost or quality of the memento has little bearing on its value to the owner, says Megan Strickfaden, the U of A professor who taught the students in a class on material culture in the home and the community.

“It’s really more about the connection they make with those objects.”

That was among the discoveries students made through the project, which required each of them to write a proposal and then vote on a favourite for the class project.

The theme they chose was submitted by student Holly Postma-Strand, who suggested focusing on travel souvenirs – “the kinds of objects people collect, why they collect those objects and how they are important to individuals,” Strickfaden says.

Souvenirs are particularly interesting because of the “dual conversation” they create, she says.

They’re made or imported to represent a particular city or country, but they have a whole other meaning and significance to the visitors who then buy them — usually, as a reminder of their holiday.

Even though the small Eiffel Tower was likely produced in China and has little connection to anything truly Parisien, to the person who buys it, it represents their actual experience, Strickfaden says.

“No matter what the artifact is, whether it’s inexpensive or expensive, whether it’s handmade or mass produced, it’s still an authentic representation for the person who purchased it, because it represents that moment in time, that experience that that individual had, visiting that culture.”

That came as a surprise to some of the 23 students in the class, she adds.

“I think for the students, they went in being biased, thinking that if something’s made in China it can’t actually represent (another) culture. But, in fact, it can for the individual who’s purchased it.”

The items in the exhibit include 10 from the U of A collection and another 20 or so from students and staff. They include musical instruments from China, a boomerang and didgeridoo from Australia, a doll from Mexico and a kimono from Japan.

Each is accompanied by the story of its origin from the student or staff member who bought it.

“The personal stories are often very quirky, because people acquire things for interesting reasons,” Strickfaden says. “They make connections with those objects after they return home, as well.”

She submitted several of her own souvenirs, including a cookbook she received in Belgium, where she used to live. When she left, friends gave it to her, explaining cookbooks are usually given to teens when they leave home. “They wanted to give it to me because they wanted me to remember Belgium as a home for years to come.”

The kimono was given to her in Japan by the mother of a student she had helped take care of by teaching her in Canada, Strickfaden explains.

Robyn Stobbs, one of the students who helped choose the items from the university’s collection, says working on a project with the entire class and putting an exhibition together was a great experience.

Her own contribution, a small clay flute she picked up in China, was clearly made for tourists — it even came with English and Chinese instructions. “Yet it still has a great deal of meaning to me,” she says.

One of her favourite pieces in the exhibit is a set of beautiful nesting dolls from Russia, she says.

The exhibit runs until May 21 in the main lobby of the U of A’s Human Ecology Building at the corner of 116th Street and 90th Avenue.

It’s open from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays, Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. Admission is free.

May 17, 2012 update: I just visited this exhibit, and there's really not much to it. Some of the items are more interesting than others; many of the items are the sort that might strike tourists as exotic, while the natives probably regard them as trinkets of the sort that you can find in any souvenir shop.