From today’s Wall Street Journal:
Overweight Kids Learn Willpower With a Sniff and a Nibble
How researchers are helping overweight kids train their brains to resist temptationThoughts occur:
#1. Hasn’t this been tried before?
#2. Other than sounding scientifical, how does “train their brains” do any work that “exercise self-restraint” does not? For a take-down of vacuous claims made in the name of neuroscience, see Brainwashed by Sally Satel and Scott Lilienfeld.
#3. “Behavioral Director of the Weight and Wellness Clinic” is academese for “fitness consigliere.”
#4. Sometimes I’m ashamed to be a psychologist.
#5. Kerri Boutelle, the clinical psychologist running this study, is addicted to cute acronyms: there’s HOME (Healthy Home Offerings via the Mealtime Environment), and HOPE (Health and Obesity: Prevention and Education) and FRESH (Family, Responsibility, Education, Support, and Health) and CHEAR (Center for Healthy Eating and Activity Research)
#5. Whoa, for a minute there I thought I was gonna PUKE (Parody Unfortunate Kerri’s Education).
EXIT QUESTIONS: Suppose obese New Jersey governor Chris Christie was presented a bill “outlawing therapy that aims to convert obese children to normal size.” Would he sign it? On what basis would he veto it?
Astonishing, who would have believed that children can learn self control when their every whim is not immediately indulged ?!
ReplyDeleteI am tempted to...NO you are not!...I am almost tempted again...CONTROLLLL YOURSELF YOUNG LADY!!!!....but I am tempted to....YOU CAN"T YOU ARE IN CONTROL OF YOUR MIND!!!... but...oh WTF!
ReplyDeleteRemember everybody, the point is that to raise kids It Takes a Village plus scads of clinical psychologists, social workers, school counselors, Ed-school professors, and meddlesome billionaire nanny-mayors.
ReplyDelete