Parents Fail to Recognize Obesity

This was all over the news the last few days, but a new study has found that parents fail to recognize obesity in their children. I thought this bit at the end of the summary was the most interesting:

He notes, however, that 84 percent of respondents indicated that it is very important for physicians to address obesity during routine check-ups. This signifies that health care providers could play a pivotal role in helping parents recognize children who have an unhealthy weight status and advising them on appropriate interventions.

While I agree with the idea here, I remain skeptical that these parents really want to hear this from their physicians. There are plenty of articles online with quotes from parents explaining how they don't want to hear from their doctors about their children being overweight. Relatively recently I also was observing a focus group where the participants became a bit agitated when they were shown an intervention that included information about their children being overweight and the role that their own diet habits play in their children's health.

All parents want to make sure their kids grow up healthy, of course, but getting them to listen to that sort of message - without it sounding like you're blaming them or talking down to them - is definitely a trick. That alone, the effective communication of childhood obesity to parents, seems like it could be a really interesting and productive area of research.

Steroids in Sports

With the release of the Mitchell Report today, I thought this article over at WebMD on steroids in sports might be of interest.

The conversations on sports talk radio I've heard about steroids in the past year or two have been pretty painful at times. While there are times that hosts have done a pretty good job with this, generally the science and health issues discussed are (at best) a little fuzzy. I have to wonder what sort of training (if any) ESPN and other sports news agencies have provided to their journalists about this... It would certainly help everyone listening - including parents that could be concerned about their kids using steroids - get a better grasp of what's really going on with better coverage and less misinformation.

McDonald's and Report Cards

This has been all over the news, but probably the first place I saw it was at AdAge - McDonald's is putting advertisements on elementary school report cards. In exchange for picking up the printing costs of the report cards, McDonald's is gets to put a coupon for a Happy Meal on each report card. McDonald's spent $1,600, which works out to $.02/impression.

Not surprisingly, lots of groups are piling onto McDonald's for this decision. (Understandably so, to some degree.) But I have to wonder why McDonald's didn't at least just make this a coupon for a healthy side item, or something else that would be more pro-health for the kids. At least then they could plausibly argue they're supporting education and healthy eating for kids... Right now it just looks like they spent $1,600 for a lot of bad publicity.

Bill Clinton at TED

I'm a big fan of TED, and I recently listened to Bill Clinton's TED talk where he discusses his desire to build sustainable healthcare services in developing countries.

From the TED website: Accepting the 2007 TED Prize, Bill Clinton says he's trying to build a better world to hand his daughter. Unequal, unstable, and unsustainable, our world must correct its course, and private citizens ("like me") can be powerful forces for change. His Clinton Global Initiative, fresh from success negotiating down pharmaceutical prices in the developing world, is now running a pilot health care system in Rwanda, based on the work of Dr. Paul Farmer in Haiti. In 18 months, its shown potential as a model for the entire developing world. Clinton's TED wish: Help him build this system in Rwanda, to bring world-class health care to a people who have overcome deadly hatred to rebuild their nation.

This was an interesting and inspirational talk, one of the best ones I've listened to from TED. (And that's saying something.)

Communication Strategies for Low Health Literate Audiences

On Friday my students made a couple presentations related to addressing low health literacy as an issue in Central Texas. As one team presented ideas for their campaign focusing on pharmacists, they put up an interesting figure (shown at right).

It was a figure they found in a recent article by Schwartberg et al.¹ in the American Journal of Health Behavior. The research was a survey of healthcare providers to determine what strategies they use most frequently to communicate with low health literate patients. My students focused on phone call follow ups and drawing pictures, since those were two strategies that are extremely effective but under-utilized.

It's a good article, with some interesting discussion of differences among healthcare professionals in terms of the strategies they tend to use - doctors draw more pictures, nurses are more likely to use teach-back techniques. Very useful, interesting research.

¹Schwartzberg, J. G., Cowett, A. C., Vangeest, J. B., & Wolf, M. S. (2007). Communication Techniques for Patients with Low Health Literacy: A Survey of Physicians, Nurses, and Pharmacists. American Journal of Health Behaviors, 31(Supplement 1), S96-S104.