Diet foods might cause kids to overeat Mon Aug 13, 12:34 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The diet sodas and snacks so popular with weight-conscious adults may backfire in children, if new animal research is correct.
ADVERTISEMENT
In experiments with juvenile rats, researchers at the University of Alberta in Canada found that animals that became used to diet foods tended to overeat during meals of regular-calorie animal chow.
This was true for normal-weight and obese rat pups, the researchers found. However, diet foods did not appear to have an overeating effect in adolescent rats.
This suggests that the foods have some unique effect in young animals, and possibly children, the study authors report in the journal Obesity.
They suspect that diet foods disrupted the young animals' ability to learn how various flavors correlate with calories. When they associate tastes, such as sweet or salty, with few calories, even a rich dessert may fail to fill them up as it otherwise would.
It's possible that children given artificially low-calorie snacks and diet sodas might not learn to properly regulate their food intake, according to lead study author Dr. W. David Pierce.
"One thing is clear at this point," he said in a statement. "Young animals and perhaps children can be made to overeat when calorie-wise foods are offered on a daily basis, subverting the body's energy-balance system."
He and his colleagues recommend that parents give their children a well-balanced diet of foods in their natural form, including naturally low-calorie foods like fruits and vegetables.
The findings are based on a series of experiments with young rats, both normal, lean animals and those genetically prone to obesity. Over 16 days, the animals were regularly given gelatin cubes that contained starch, as well as a starch-free "diet" version of the snack.
For some animals, the starchy cubes were flavored with an artificial sweetener and the diet version was flavored with a salty solution. These flavors were reversed for other animals.
After 16 days of this taste training, the researchers gave all the animals a high-calorie snack dipped in either artificial sweetener or a salty solution. They then gave the rats a meal of their regular chow.
Pierce's team found that the animals tended to overeat during the meal if their pre-meal snack had been dipped in a flavor they'd learn to associate with a low-calorie food -- despite the snack's actual high calorie content.
The phenomenon was seen in both lean and obesity-prone rat pups, but the heavier animals generally ate more than their normal-weight counterparts, the researchers point out.
So it's possible, they say, that diet foods could be especially detrimental in the children already at the greatest risk of long-term weight problems.
SOURCE: Obesity, August 2007.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/diet_foods_dc
Showing posts with label children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label children. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Four-Year-Old Dies of Medicine Overdose, Murder Suspected
Child's overdose death raises questions By DENISE LAVOIE, Associated Press Writer
Fri Mar 23, 2:58 PM ET
HULL, Mass. - In the final months of Rebecca Riley's life, a school nurse said the little girl was so weak she was like a "floppy doll."
ADVERTISEMENT
The preschool principal had to help Rebecca off the bus because the 4-year-old was shaking so badly.
And a pharmacist complained that Rebecca's mother kept coming up with excuses for why her daughter needed more and more medication.
None of their concerns was enough to save Rebecca.
Rebecca — who had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity and bipolar disorder, or what used to be called manic depression — died Dec. 13 of an overdose of prescribed drugs, and her parents have been arrested on murder charges, accused of intentionally overmedicating their daughter to keep her quiet and out of their hair.
Interviews and a review of court documents by The Associated Press make it clear that many of those who were supposed to protect Rebecca — teachers, social workers, other professionals — suspected something was wrong, but never went quite far enough.
But the tragic case is more than a story about one child. It raises troubling, larger questions about the state of child psychiatry, namely: Can children as young as Rebecca be accurately diagnosed with mental illnesses? Are rambunctious youngsters being medicated for their parents' convenience? And should children so young be prescribed powerful psychotropic drugs meant for adults?
Dispensing drugs to children diagnosed with mood or behavior problems is "the easiest thing to do, but it's not always the best thing to do," said Dr. Jon McClellan, medical director of the Child Study and Treatment Center in Lakewood, Wash. "At some level, I would hope that you'd also be teaching kids ways to control their behavior."
According to the medical examiner, Rebecca died of a combination of Clonidine, a blood pressure medication Rebecca had been prescribed for ADHD; Depakote, an antiseizure and mood-stabilizing drug prescribed for the little girl's bipolar disorder; a cough suppressant; and an antihistamine. The amount of Clonidine alone in Rebecca's system was enough to be fatal, the medical examiner said.
The two brand-name prescription drugs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in adults only, though doctors can legally prescribe them to youngsters and do so frequently.
Rebecca's parents, Michael and Carolyn Riley, say they were only following doctor's orders. Rebecca, they told police, had been diagnosed when she was just 2 1/2, and Rebecca's psychiatrist prescribed the same potent drugs that had been prescribed for her older brother and sister when she diagnosed them with the same illnesses several years earlier.
But Rebecca's teachers, the school nurse and her therapist all told police they never saw behavior in Rebecca that fit her diagnoses, such as aggression, sharp mood swings or hyperactivity.
Prosecutors say the Rileys intentionally tried to quiet their daughter with high doses of Clonidine. Relatives told police the Rileys called Clonidine the "happy medicine" and the "sleep medicine."
Through their attorneys, Michael Riley, 34, and Carolyn Riley, 32, have accused Rebecca's psychiatrist, Dr. Kayoko Kifuji, of over-prescribing medication.
Kifuji did not return calls for comment and declined to be interviewed. But Kifuji has vehemently denied any role in Rebecca's death. She has agreed to a suspension of her license while the state's medical board investigates.
Kifuji told police Rebecca had been her patient since August 2004, when she was 2. She said she based her diagnoses of ADHD and bipolar disorder on the family's mental health history, as described by Carolyn Riley, and Rebecca's behavior, as described by Carolyn and briefly observed by her during office visits.
Kifuji told police she became alarmed in October 2005 when Carolyn Riley told her she had increased Rebecca's nighttime dose of Clonidine from 2 to 2 1/2 tablets, and warned Carolyn the increased dose could kill Rebecca.
But Carolyn told investigators Kifuji told her she could give Rebecca and her sister extra Clonidine at night to help them sleep.
Tufts-New England Medical Center, where Kifuji worked, issued a statement supporting Kifuji, saying her care of Rebecca "was appropriate and within responsible professional standards."
In the months leading up to Rebecca's death, others noticed there was something wrong.
Teachers and staff members at the Johnson Early Childhood Center in Weymouth, about 20 miles south of Boston, say they called Rebecca's mother repeatedly to tell her that Rebecca was "out of it," but her mother said the girl was tired because she wasn't sleeping well.
A neighbor who lived next door to the family in the last month of Rebecca's life said Rebecca and her siblings seemed listless.
"They looked like little robots. They looked very lethargic," Phyllis Lipton said. "I said, `Wow, they don't look right,' but who knew?"
Pharmacists at Walgreens in Weymouth called Kifuji twice to complain that Carolyn Riley was asking for more Clonidine, even though her prescription was not due to be refilled yet, according to state police.
Once, Riley said she had lost a bottle of pills, and another time, she said water had gotten into her prescription bottle and ruined the pills, according to police.
Kifuji authorized refills, but after the second incident, she began prescribing Clonidine in 10-day refills instead of 30-day supplies, investigators said.
On Aug. 16, a prescription for 35 Clonidine tablets — a 10-day supply — was filled at Walgreens, even though the Rileys had obtained a 10-day refill only the day before, investigators said.
Walgreens spokeswoman Tiffani Bruce said: "The scrip was filled as written, as it was prescribed by the doctor, and all the appropriate information on the medications was given to the family."
After Rebecca's death, police found only seven Clonidine tablets in the family's medicine tray; the pharmacist said there should have been 75. All together, prosecutors say, Carolyn Riley got 200 more pills in one year than she should have.
The Rileys' lawyers call them unsophisticated people who did not question their children's doctors.
Both were unemployed; they collected welfare and disabilty benefits and lived in subsidized housing. Michael Riley, who is also awaiting trial on charges of molesting a stepdaughter in 2005, claimed to suffer from bipolar disorder and a rage disorder; his wife told police she suffered from depression and anxiety.
"They are not the sort of people who go on the Internet and look on WebMD. These are the sort of people who, when they go to a doctor, the doctor is God and they do what the doctor says," said John Darrell, Michael's lawyer.
Carolyn's lawyer, Michael Bourbeau, said that because the Rileys' three children were all taking Clonidine, Rebecca's prescription may have come up short at times when her siblings were given some of her pills. And some of the pills may have been lost when they were split in half, he said.
In July, after a therapist filed a complaint with the state Department of Social Services, social workers met with the family's doctors and other medical professionals and were assured that the medications Rebecca was taking were within medical guidelines.
"There were lots of medical eyes on this case and none of them seemed to say there was an issue of over-medication in this case," said Social Services Commissioner Harry Spence, who has come under fire for the agency's handling of the case.
Still, there were lingering concerns. When social workers tried to make a home visit in November, Carolyn "resisted and evaded," Spence said. Weeks later, workers resolved to make a surprise check, but Rebecca died the very next day, before they could visit.
Rebecca was found dead on the floor of her parents' bedroom wearing only a pink pull-up diaper and gold-stud earrings, on top of a pile of clothes, magazines and a stuffed brown bear.
Rebecca's uncle, James McGonnell, and his girlfriend, Kelly Williams, who lived with the Rileys, told police that the Rileys would put their kids to bed as early as 5 p.m. Rebecca, they said, often slept through the day and got up only to eat.
When Michael Riley decided the kids were "acting up," he told Carolyn to give them pills, McGonnell and Williams told police.
According to McGonnell and Williams, Rebecca spent the last days of her life wandering around the house, sick and disoriented. But the Rileys told police they were not alarmed. "It was just a cold," Carolyn repeatedly said during police interviews.
The medical examiner said Rebecca died a slow and painful death. She said the overdose of Clonidine caused her organs to shut down, filling her lungs with fluid and causing congestive heart failure.
Williams told police that the night before she died, Rebecca was pale and seemed "out of it." At one point, the little girl knocked weakly on her parents' bedroom door and softly called for her mommy, but Michael Riley opened the door a crack and yelled at her to go back to her room, Williams said.
Later that night, McGonnell told police, he heard someone struggling to breathe and found Rebecca gurgling as if something was stuck in her throat. McGonnell told police he wiped vomit from his niece's face, then kicked in the door to her parents' room and yelled at the Rileys to take Rebecca to the emergency room.
Instead, Carolyn Riley said, she gave her daughter a half-tablet of Clonidine.
Carolyn's mother, Valerie Berio, said that when she visited the kids the night of Dec. 11, Rebecca seemed congested but not seriously ill. In a photograph Berio said she took that night, Rebecca is smiling slightly as her mother holds a new green velvet dress in front of her.
Berio said that shows that her daughter and son-in-law could not have known how sick Rebecca was.
Rebecca's death has inflamed a long-running debate in psychiatry. Some psychiatrists believe bipolar disorder, which was traditionally diagnosed in adolescence or early adulthood, has become a trendy diagnosis in young children.
"As a clinician, I can tell you it's just very difficult to say whether someone is just throwing tantrums or has bipolar disorder," said Dr. Oscar B. Bukstein, a child psychiatrist and associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh.
A study of mentally ill children discharged from community hospitals, published in January in the Archives of General Psychiatry, found the proportion of children diagnosed with bipolar disorders jumped from 2.9 percent in 1990 to 15.1 percent in 2000.
A report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2002 estimated that about 7 percent of elementary school-age children — or approximately 1.6 million youngsters ages 6 to 11 — have been diagnosed with ADHD.
The annual number of U.S. children prescribed anti-psychotic drugs jumped fivefold between 1995 and 2002, to an estimated 2.5 million, according to a study published last year by researchers at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville, Tenn.
Some child psychiatrists say bipolar disorder may have been under-diagnosed in children for years, partly because several key symptoms are also symptoms of ADHD, including hyperactivity, distractibility and talkativeness.
Dr. Janet Wozniak, director of the Pediatric Bipolar Disorder Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, said early diagnosis and treatment are critical because the illness can cause social and academic problems, and lead to drug abuse, crime and suicide.
"What's commonly overlooked when considering diagnosing and treating children at such an early age is the risk of not treating and not intervening," Wozniak said.
(Corrects by deleting reference to photo being taken 18 hours earlier.)
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070323/ap_on_re_us/drugged_to_death
Fri Mar 23, 2:58 PM ET
HULL, Mass. - In the final months of Rebecca Riley's life, a school nurse said the little girl was so weak she was like a "floppy doll."
ADVERTISEMENT
The preschool principal had to help Rebecca off the bus because the 4-year-old was shaking so badly.
And a pharmacist complained that Rebecca's mother kept coming up with excuses for why her daughter needed more and more medication.
None of their concerns was enough to save Rebecca.
Rebecca — who had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity and bipolar disorder, or what used to be called manic depression — died Dec. 13 of an overdose of prescribed drugs, and her parents have been arrested on murder charges, accused of intentionally overmedicating their daughter to keep her quiet and out of their hair.
Interviews and a review of court documents by The Associated Press make it clear that many of those who were supposed to protect Rebecca — teachers, social workers, other professionals — suspected something was wrong, but never went quite far enough.
But the tragic case is more than a story about one child. It raises troubling, larger questions about the state of child psychiatry, namely: Can children as young as Rebecca be accurately diagnosed with mental illnesses? Are rambunctious youngsters being medicated for their parents' convenience? And should children so young be prescribed powerful psychotropic drugs meant for adults?
Dispensing drugs to children diagnosed with mood or behavior problems is "the easiest thing to do, but it's not always the best thing to do," said Dr. Jon McClellan, medical director of the Child Study and Treatment Center in Lakewood, Wash. "At some level, I would hope that you'd also be teaching kids ways to control their behavior."
According to the medical examiner, Rebecca died of a combination of Clonidine, a blood pressure medication Rebecca had been prescribed for ADHD; Depakote, an antiseizure and mood-stabilizing drug prescribed for the little girl's bipolar disorder; a cough suppressant; and an antihistamine. The amount of Clonidine alone in Rebecca's system was enough to be fatal, the medical examiner said.
The two brand-name prescription drugs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in adults only, though doctors can legally prescribe them to youngsters and do so frequently.
Rebecca's parents, Michael and Carolyn Riley, say they were only following doctor's orders. Rebecca, they told police, had been diagnosed when she was just 2 1/2, and Rebecca's psychiatrist prescribed the same potent drugs that had been prescribed for her older brother and sister when she diagnosed them with the same illnesses several years earlier.
But Rebecca's teachers, the school nurse and her therapist all told police they never saw behavior in Rebecca that fit her diagnoses, such as aggression, sharp mood swings or hyperactivity.
Prosecutors say the Rileys intentionally tried to quiet their daughter with high doses of Clonidine. Relatives told police the Rileys called Clonidine the "happy medicine" and the "sleep medicine."
Through their attorneys, Michael Riley, 34, and Carolyn Riley, 32, have accused Rebecca's psychiatrist, Dr. Kayoko Kifuji, of over-prescribing medication.
Kifuji did not return calls for comment and declined to be interviewed. But Kifuji has vehemently denied any role in Rebecca's death. She has agreed to a suspension of her license while the state's medical board investigates.
Kifuji told police Rebecca had been her patient since August 2004, when she was 2. She said she based her diagnoses of ADHD and bipolar disorder on the family's mental health history, as described by Carolyn Riley, and Rebecca's behavior, as described by Carolyn and briefly observed by her during office visits.
Kifuji told police she became alarmed in October 2005 when Carolyn Riley told her she had increased Rebecca's nighttime dose of Clonidine from 2 to 2 1/2 tablets, and warned Carolyn the increased dose could kill Rebecca.
But Carolyn told investigators Kifuji told her she could give Rebecca and her sister extra Clonidine at night to help them sleep.
Tufts-New England Medical Center, where Kifuji worked, issued a statement supporting Kifuji, saying her care of Rebecca "was appropriate and within responsible professional standards."
In the months leading up to Rebecca's death, others noticed there was something wrong.
Teachers and staff members at the Johnson Early Childhood Center in Weymouth, about 20 miles south of Boston, say they called Rebecca's mother repeatedly to tell her that Rebecca was "out of it," but her mother said the girl was tired because she wasn't sleeping well.
A neighbor who lived next door to the family in the last month of Rebecca's life said Rebecca and her siblings seemed listless.
"They looked like little robots. They looked very lethargic," Phyllis Lipton said. "I said, `Wow, they don't look right,' but who knew?"
Pharmacists at Walgreens in Weymouth called Kifuji twice to complain that Carolyn Riley was asking for more Clonidine, even though her prescription was not due to be refilled yet, according to state police.
Once, Riley said she had lost a bottle of pills, and another time, she said water had gotten into her prescription bottle and ruined the pills, according to police.
Kifuji authorized refills, but after the second incident, she began prescribing Clonidine in 10-day refills instead of 30-day supplies, investigators said.
On Aug. 16, a prescription for 35 Clonidine tablets — a 10-day supply — was filled at Walgreens, even though the Rileys had obtained a 10-day refill only the day before, investigators said.
Walgreens spokeswoman Tiffani Bruce said: "The scrip was filled as written, as it was prescribed by the doctor, and all the appropriate information on the medications was given to the family."
After Rebecca's death, police found only seven Clonidine tablets in the family's medicine tray; the pharmacist said there should have been 75. All together, prosecutors say, Carolyn Riley got 200 more pills in one year than she should have.
The Rileys' lawyers call them unsophisticated people who did not question their children's doctors.
Both were unemployed; they collected welfare and disabilty benefits and lived in subsidized housing. Michael Riley, who is also awaiting trial on charges of molesting a stepdaughter in 2005, claimed to suffer from bipolar disorder and a rage disorder; his wife told police she suffered from depression and anxiety.
"They are not the sort of people who go on the Internet and look on WebMD. These are the sort of people who, when they go to a doctor, the doctor is God and they do what the doctor says," said John Darrell, Michael's lawyer.
Carolyn's lawyer, Michael Bourbeau, said that because the Rileys' three children were all taking Clonidine, Rebecca's prescription may have come up short at times when her siblings were given some of her pills. And some of the pills may have been lost when they were split in half, he said.
In July, after a therapist filed a complaint with the state Department of Social Services, social workers met with the family's doctors and other medical professionals and were assured that the medications Rebecca was taking were within medical guidelines.
"There were lots of medical eyes on this case and none of them seemed to say there was an issue of over-medication in this case," said Social Services Commissioner Harry Spence, who has come under fire for the agency's handling of the case.
Still, there were lingering concerns. When social workers tried to make a home visit in November, Carolyn "resisted and evaded," Spence said. Weeks later, workers resolved to make a surprise check, but Rebecca died the very next day, before they could visit.
Rebecca was found dead on the floor of her parents' bedroom wearing only a pink pull-up diaper and gold-stud earrings, on top of a pile of clothes, magazines and a stuffed brown bear.
Rebecca's uncle, James McGonnell, and his girlfriend, Kelly Williams, who lived with the Rileys, told police that the Rileys would put their kids to bed as early as 5 p.m. Rebecca, they said, often slept through the day and got up only to eat.
When Michael Riley decided the kids were "acting up," he told Carolyn to give them pills, McGonnell and Williams told police.
According to McGonnell and Williams, Rebecca spent the last days of her life wandering around the house, sick and disoriented. But the Rileys told police they were not alarmed. "It was just a cold," Carolyn repeatedly said during police interviews.
The medical examiner said Rebecca died a slow and painful death. She said the overdose of Clonidine caused her organs to shut down, filling her lungs with fluid and causing congestive heart failure.
Williams told police that the night before she died, Rebecca was pale and seemed "out of it." At one point, the little girl knocked weakly on her parents' bedroom door and softly called for her mommy, but Michael Riley opened the door a crack and yelled at her to go back to her room, Williams said.
Later that night, McGonnell told police, he heard someone struggling to breathe and found Rebecca gurgling as if something was stuck in her throat. McGonnell told police he wiped vomit from his niece's face, then kicked in the door to her parents' room and yelled at the Rileys to take Rebecca to the emergency room.
Instead, Carolyn Riley said, she gave her daughter a half-tablet of Clonidine.
Carolyn's mother, Valerie Berio, said that when she visited the kids the night of Dec. 11, Rebecca seemed congested but not seriously ill. In a photograph Berio said she took that night, Rebecca is smiling slightly as her mother holds a new green velvet dress in front of her.
Berio said that shows that her daughter and son-in-law could not have known how sick Rebecca was.
Rebecca's death has inflamed a long-running debate in psychiatry. Some psychiatrists believe bipolar disorder, which was traditionally diagnosed in adolescence or early adulthood, has become a trendy diagnosis in young children.
"As a clinician, I can tell you it's just very difficult to say whether someone is just throwing tantrums or has bipolar disorder," said Dr. Oscar B. Bukstein, a child psychiatrist and associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh.
A study of mentally ill children discharged from community hospitals, published in January in the Archives of General Psychiatry, found the proportion of children diagnosed with bipolar disorders jumped from 2.9 percent in 1990 to 15.1 percent in 2000.
A report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2002 estimated that about 7 percent of elementary school-age children — or approximately 1.6 million youngsters ages 6 to 11 — have been diagnosed with ADHD.
The annual number of U.S. children prescribed anti-psychotic drugs jumped fivefold between 1995 and 2002, to an estimated 2.5 million, according to a study published last year by researchers at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville, Tenn.
Some child psychiatrists say bipolar disorder may have been under-diagnosed in children for years, partly because several key symptoms are also symptoms of ADHD, including hyperactivity, distractibility and talkativeness.
Dr. Janet Wozniak, director of the Pediatric Bipolar Disorder Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, said early diagnosis and treatment are critical because the illness can cause social and academic problems, and lead to drug abuse, crime and suicide.
"What's commonly overlooked when considering diagnosing and treating children at such an early age is the risk of not treating and not intervening," Wozniak said.
(Corrects by deleting reference to photo being taken 18 hours earlier.)
Email Story IM Story Printable View (What happened to the "Discuss" option?) RECOMMEND THIS STORY
Recommend It:
Average (675 votes)
» Recommended Stories
Full Coverage: Mental Health
News Stories
Phone-Based Therapy Eases Long-Term Depression HealthDay via Yahoo! News, Mar 23 Internal Body Clock Linked to Mania in Mice LiveScience.com via Yahoo! News, Mar 19 Mental, Physical Torture Inflict Similar Pain HealthDay via Yahoo! News, Mar 17 Tragedy follows landmark court win at The Los Angeles Times (reg. req'd), Mar 16 Feature Articles
The ten top ways to beat stress at The Independent (UK), Feb 20 Not Just Any Old Butterflies at The Washington Post (reg. req'd), Jan 13 Opinion & Editorials
Fairness for Mental Health at The New York Times (reg. req'd), Mar 24 Mental Health Reform, Please at The Washington Post (reg. req'd), Oct 29
U.S. News
Officers blamed for Tillman case errors AP Ga. woman guilty of murdering boyfriend AP New heart stents pass key tests AP N.M. tornadoes destroy homes AP Skeletal remains of 8 people found Fla. AP Most Viewed - U.S.
Harvard club promotes abstinence AP Jeb Bush honored by U. of Florida alumni AP Pet owners double checking cabinets AP Skeletal remains of 8 people found Fla. AP Ga. woman guilty of murdering boyfriend AP
U.S. News Video
High water swamps Indiana county CNN - 1 hour, 21 minutes ago Miami officer in jail, accused of rape AP - 2 hours, 33 minutes ago Quick thinking teens avert bus disaster AP - 2 hours, 49 minutes ago Vet advice for pet owners CNN - Sat Mar 24, 2:36 PM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070323/ap_on_re_us/drugged_to_death
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Book It! Challenged as Exploitation
Critics Target Pizza Hut Reading ProgramBy DAVID CRARY | 02 Mar 2007 | 09:44 PMFont size: NEW YORK - You've read the book, now eat the pizza. Since 1985, that's been the gist of Pizza Hut's Book It, an incentive program used by 50,000 schools nationwide to reward young readers with free pizzas. The program is now under attack by child-development experts who say it promotes bad eating habits and turns teachers into corporate promoters.
Book It, which reaches about 22 million children a year, "epitomizes everything that's wrong with corporate-sponsored programs in school," said Susan Linn, a Harvard psychologist and co-founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.
"In the name of education, it promotes junk food consumption to a captive audience ... and undermines parents by positioning family visits to Pizza Hut as an integral component of raising literate children," Linn said.
This week, Linn's organization called on parents to end their schools' participation in the long-standing program.
Though some activists have previously questioned Book It, Linn said Friday that only after the recent upsurge of concern over child obesity and junk food did her group feel it could make headway with a formal protest campaign. She said many schools are trying to reduce students' access to soda, and contended that Book It should face similar scrutiny.
But the program _ which has given away more than 200 million pizzas _ has deep roots and many admirers at the highest levels of politics and education. It won a citation in 1988 from President Reagan, and its advisory board includes representatives of prominent education groups, including teachers unions and the American Library Association.
"We're really proud of the program," said Leslie Tubbs, its director for the past five years. "We get hundreds of e-mails from alumni who praise it and say it helped them get started with reading."
Dallas-based Pizza Hut says Book It is the nation's largest reading motivation program _ conducted annually in about 925,000 elementary school classrooms from Oct. 1 through March 31. A two-month program is offered for preschoolers.
Participating teachers set a monthly reading goal for each student; those who meet the goal get a certificate they can redeem at Pizza Hut for a free Personal Pan Pizza. Families often accompany the winners, turning the event into a celebration that can boost business for the restaurant.
Teachers find the program an enjoyable way to build interest in reading, Tubbs said. "We're helping them to do their jobs," she said.
At Strafford Elementary School in Strafford, Mo., the roughly 500 students collectively read 30,000 books a year with Book It's help, said principal Lucille Cogdill.
"I don't have any negative things at all to say about it," Cogdill said. "I know there's concern about obesity, but Book It is not causing it, and the schools aren't causing it."
Chris Carney, principal at Bennett Elementary School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., also is a Book It fan, saying it encourages family togetherness and provides a tool for persuading children to try books instead of video games.
"I don't want to see kids gorging pizzas," he said. "But the positive effects outweigh other effects."
Among those campaigning against Book It is Alfie Kohn, an author whose 11 books on education and parenting include "Punished By Rewards, which questions the value of incentive programs.
"The more kids see books as a way to get pizza or some other prize, the less interest they'll have in reading itself," Kohn, a former teacher, said in a telephone interview. "They tend to choose easier books to get through faster."
Another critic of Book It and the broader phenomenon of corporate incursions into schools is Alex Molnar, director of the Commercialism in Education Research Unit at Arizona State University.
He described Book It as a "dreadful program" that puts pressure on parents to celebrate with their reward-winning children at Pizza Huts.
"This is corporate America using the schools as a crow bar to get inside the front doors of students' homes," he said. "It's very hard for children whose parents who don't want to engage in this to not feel ostracized."
Molnar acknowledged that Book It is well-regarded by many educators and politicians, but said it might be reevaluated in light of rising concerns about child obesity.
"To the extent that this program is correctly identified as part of the problem, then there's a chance of reducing its scope," he said.
___
Book It: http://www.bookitprogram.com/
Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood: http://www.commercialexploitation.org/
http://www.cnbc.com/id/17422004/for/cnbc/
Book It, which reaches about 22 million children a year, "epitomizes everything that's wrong with corporate-sponsored programs in school," said Susan Linn, a Harvard psychologist and co-founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.
"In the name of education, it promotes junk food consumption to a captive audience ... and undermines parents by positioning family visits to Pizza Hut as an integral component of raising literate children," Linn said.
This week, Linn's organization called on parents to end their schools' participation in the long-standing program.
Though some activists have previously questioned Book It, Linn said Friday that only after the recent upsurge of concern over child obesity and junk food did her group feel it could make headway with a formal protest campaign. She said many schools are trying to reduce students' access to soda, and contended that Book It should face similar scrutiny.
But the program _ which has given away more than 200 million pizzas _ has deep roots and many admirers at the highest levels of politics and education. It won a citation in 1988 from President Reagan, and its advisory board includes representatives of prominent education groups, including teachers unions and the American Library Association.
"We're really proud of the program," said Leslie Tubbs, its director for the past five years. "We get hundreds of e-mails from alumni who praise it and say it helped them get started with reading."
Dallas-based Pizza Hut says Book It is the nation's largest reading motivation program _ conducted annually in about 925,000 elementary school classrooms from Oct. 1 through March 31. A two-month program is offered for preschoolers.
Participating teachers set a monthly reading goal for each student; those who meet the goal get a certificate they can redeem at Pizza Hut for a free Personal Pan Pizza. Families often accompany the winners, turning the event into a celebration that can boost business for the restaurant.
Teachers find the program an enjoyable way to build interest in reading, Tubbs said. "We're helping them to do their jobs," she said.
At Strafford Elementary School in Strafford, Mo., the roughly 500 students collectively read 30,000 books a year with Book It's help, said principal Lucille Cogdill.
"I don't have any negative things at all to say about it," Cogdill said. "I know there's concern about obesity, but Book It is not causing it, and the schools aren't causing it."
Chris Carney, principal at Bennett Elementary School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., also is a Book It fan, saying it encourages family togetherness and provides a tool for persuading children to try books instead of video games.
"I don't want to see kids gorging pizzas," he said. "But the positive effects outweigh other effects."
Among those campaigning against Book It is Alfie Kohn, an author whose 11 books on education and parenting include "Punished By Rewards, which questions the value of incentive programs.
"The more kids see books as a way to get pizza or some other prize, the less interest they'll have in reading itself," Kohn, a former teacher, said in a telephone interview. "They tend to choose easier books to get through faster."
Another critic of Book It and the broader phenomenon of corporate incursions into schools is Alex Molnar, director of the Commercialism in Education Research Unit at Arizona State University.
He described Book It as a "dreadful program" that puts pressure on parents to celebrate with their reward-winning children at Pizza Huts.
"This is corporate America using the schools as a crow bar to get inside the front doors of students' homes," he said. "It's very hard for children whose parents who don't want to engage in this to not feel ostracized."
Molnar acknowledged that Book It is well-regarded by many educators and politicians, but said it might be reevaluated in light of rising concerns about child obesity.
"To the extent that this program is correctly identified as part of the problem, then there's a chance of reducing its scope," he said.
___
Book It: http://www.bookitprogram.com/
Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood: http://www.commercialexploitation.org/
http://www.cnbc.com/id/17422004/for/cnbc/
Pizza Hut Book It!
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Search for participating BOOK IT! schools and BOOK IT! Beginners facilities.
Celebrate, appreciate, and motivate your readers with these affordable incentives like t-shirts, key chains, pencils, and more!
Looking for the nearest Pizza Hut? Find it here.
Calling all BOOK IT! alumni! Visit the old school site to share your memories and see what others are saying!
2007 Newbery Medal Winner:
The Power of Lucky
by Susan Patron
Illustrated by Matt Phelan
2007 Caldecott Medal Winner:
Flotsom
by David Wiesner
Click here for more great titles!
03/05/07
BOOK IT! Beginners Kickoff
04/13/07
All-Star Reader Sweepstakes Entry Deadline... BOOK IT! teachers pack your bags! Find out how you can win a trip!
©2007 Pizza Hut, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Pizza Hut Store Locator
http://www.bookitprogram.com/
Search for participating BOOK IT! schools and BOOK IT! Beginners facilities.
Celebrate, appreciate, and motivate your readers with these affordable incentives like t-shirts, key chains, pencils, and more!
Looking for the nearest Pizza Hut? Find it here.
Calling all BOOK IT! alumni! Visit the old school site to share your memories and see what others are saying!
2007 Newbery Medal Winner:
The Power of Lucky
by Susan Patron
Illustrated by Matt Phelan
2007 Caldecott Medal Winner:
Flotsom
by David Wiesner
Click here for more great titles!
03/05/07
BOOK IT! Beginners Kickoff
04/13/07
All-Star Reader Sweepstakes Entry Deadline... BOOK IT! teachers pack your bags! Find out how you can win a trip!
©2007 Pizza Hut, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Pizza Hut Store Locator
http://www.bookitprogram.com/
Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood
Campaign For A Commercial-Free Childhood
Campaign For A Commercial-Free Childhood (formerly Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children) is a national coalition of health care professionals, educators, advocacy groups and concerned parents who counter the harmful effects of marketing to children through action, advocacy, education, research, and collaboration. We support the rights of children to grow up – and the rights of parents to raise them – without being undermined by rampant consumerism. CCFC is headquartered at the Judge Baker Children's Center in Boston.
Be Informed
CCFC TAKES A SLICE OUT OF
PIZZA HUT'S BOOK IT! PROGRAM
Urges schools and preschools to stop promoting
fast food in the name of literacy
Tell Scholastic: No Bratz in Schools!
Highly Sexualized Dolls Promoted Through Book Fairs and Book Clubs
CCFC to President Bush:
Luring Babies to Screens is Not Heroic
President Uses SOTU to Provide Free Infomercial for Baby Einstein
A Guide to Commercial-Free Book Fairs
How and Why to Do Hold a Book Fair At Your School
Without Corporate Marketing or Media Tie-Ins!
Raffi Cavoukian, winner of the 2006 Fred Rogers Integrity Award,
at CCFC's protest against BusRadio.
Click here to learn what you can do to stop BusRadio
Violent Video Game Ads in Public Space
CCFC & PTC to Denver RTD
Stop Advertising Violent Video Games
Broad Coalition asks RTD to Change Advertising Policy
MBTA Changes Policy: No More Violent
Videogame Ads on Boston Mass Transit
Decision follows CCFC letter signed by Mayor Menino,
Legislators, Community Leaders and Public Health Advocates
In the News
Parents push to boot Bratz books from Scholastic fairs
Message and the Media: Our girls deserve better
Diaper Demographic: TV, Video Programming for the Under-2 Market Grows Despite Lack of Clear Educational Benefit
As Pop Culture Targets Ever Younger Girls, Psychologists Worry About a Premature Focus on Sex and Appearance
Attorneys General of 21 States Lash Out at Bud.tv Age Checks
Cell Phone Makers Accused of Tween Targeting
Toy companies are playing Internet game for all it's worth
Holiday of Love an Opportunity to Teach Charity
Toy Fair Resembles CES for Kids
Snack-Ad Attack
A Shopping-Cart-Ad Plan That Might Actually Work
M&M's maker to stop marketing to kids
Envy, Anxiety, Secrecy, Taboos: The Subject Must Be Money
Are Canadian babies ready for their own TV channel?
Shrek Flip-flops in Obesity Fight
Fruit shown on label often not in the box, kids' food study says
Baby Einstein and the Bush Administration: There's More than Meets the Eye
'More News . . .
Info Box
Stay informed. Join our mailing list. Subscribers receive no more than 1-2 emails per week.
Email
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Books by CCFC Steering Committee Members
The Body Myth by Psychology and Consumer Consuming Kids by The War Play Dilemma
CCFC's Joe Kelly Culture. CCFC's Allen CCFC's Susan Linn by CCFC's Diane Levin
and Margo Maine Kanner & Tim Kasser, Eds. Now in Paperback! & Nancy Carlsson Paige
http://www.commercialexploitation.org/
Campaign For A Commercial-Free Childhood (formerly Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children) is a national coalition of health care professionals, educators, advocacy groups and concerned parents who counter the harmful effects of marketing to children through action, advocacy, education, research, and collaboration. We support the rights of children to grow up – and the rights of parents to raise them – without being undermined by rampant consumerism. CCFC is headquartered at the Judge Baker Children's Center in Boston.
Be Informed
CCFC TAKES A SLICE OUT OF
PIZZA HUT'S BOOK IT! PROGRAM
Urges schools and preschools to stop promoting
fast food in the name of literacy
Tell Scholastic: No Bratz in Schools!
Highly Sexualized Dolls Promoted Through Book Fairs and Book Clubs
CCFC to President Bush:
Luring Babies to Screens is Not Heroic
President Uses SOTU to Provide Free Infomercial for Baby Einstein
A Guide to Commercial-Free Book Fairs
How and Why to Do Hold a Book Fair At Your School
Without Corporate Marketing or Media Tie-Ins!
Raffi Cavoukian, winner of the 2006 Fred Rogers Integrity Award,
at CCFC's protest against BusRadio.
Click here to learn what you can do to stop BusRadio
Violent Video Game Ads in Public Space
CCFC & PTC to Denver RTD
Stop Advertising Violent Video Games
Broad Coalition asks RTD to Change Advertising Policy
MBTA Changes Policy: No More Violent
Videogame Ads on Boston Mass Transit
Decision follows CCFC letter signed by Mayor Menino,
Legislators, Community Leaders and Public Health Advocates
In the News
Parents push to boot Bratz books from Scholastic fairs
Message and the Media: Our girls deserve better
Diaper Demographic: TV, Video Programming for the Under-2 Market Grows Despite Lack of Clear Educational Benefit
As Pop Culture Targets Ever Younger Girls, Psychologists Worry About a Premature Focus on Sex and Appearance
Attorneys General of 21 States Lash Out at Bud.tv Age Checks
Cell Phone Makers Accused of Tween Targeting
Toy companies are playing Internet game for all it's worth
Holiday of Love an Opportunity to Teach Charity
Toy Fair Resembles CES for Kids
Snack-Ad Attack
A Shopping-Cart-Ad Plan That Might Actually Work
M&M's maker to stop marketing to kids
Envy, Anxiety, Secrecy, Taboos: The Subject Must Be Money
Are Canadian babies ready for their own TV channel?
Shrek Flip-flops in Obesity Fight
Fruit shown on label often not in the box, kids' food study says
Baby Einstein and the Bush Administration: There's More than Meets the Eye
'More News . . .
Info Box
Stay informed. Join our mailing list. Subscribers receive no more than 1-2 emails per week.
State Select One... Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware D.C. Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Other
Books by CCFC Steering Committee Members
The Body Myth by Psychology and Consumer Consuming Kids by The War Play Dilemma
CCFC's Joe Kelly Culture. CCFC's Allen CCFC's Susan Linn by CCFC's Diane Levin
and Margo Maine Kanner & Tim Kasser, Eds. Now in Paperback! & Nancy Carlsson Paige
http://www.commercialexploitation.org/
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