25 May 2005
Does a family dinner guarantee slimmer kids?

Honestly, the thought that eating dinner as a family would keep my kids skinny never entered my mind, yet I insisted on eating together with them every night. It was a real hassle sometimes, especially when my youngest was at band practice until 9 or 10 pm, but snack a bit and we'd wait on her for dinner when she got home. We even made Hilary bring her dates home for dinner at least once before they could go out alone! The scandal! The shame! To hear my daughter tell it at the time, you'd think she was being raised in a concentration camp!

But just tonight on the phone, she was telling me how she fixed dinner for the grandkids ... the tradition got passed down, and I think she's a better mom for it.

Far be it for me to claim my children as perfect, but I do believe that eating together gave them an open channel to the parents, and over the long run encouraged the kind of character development that I wanted to see.

One trend that has paralleled the rise of obesity in the last two decades has been the decline in frequency of children eating dinner with their families. Elsie Taveras, instructor in the Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, and colleagues surveyed the frequency of family dinner among more than 14,400 9- to 14-year-olds and incidence of overweight.

(link) [EurekAlert! - Breaking News]

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Loud, Proud, Unabridged: It Is Too Reading!

I know Kris and I have certainly enjoyed a great many audio books on long car trips. They make the time go by so much faster. And some writings were meant to be heard rather than read, if that makes any sense. Beowulf is an epic poem, which is of course supposed to be recited.

In a more modern vein, The Silmarillion is a wonderful book, but an even better audio book. This is prose that is often difficult, awkward and seemingly repetitive when read, but suddenly springs to life when listened to as audio. No more struggles with antique spellings and foreign pronunciations - the tale shines so much brighter that it's hard to believe it's the same text.

The popularity of audio books is redefining the notion of reading, which, for centuries, has been centered on the written word.

(link) [NYT > Home Page]

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