12.10.08
Posted in Anthropology, Cognitive Science, Consumer Culture, Education, Jacob Canon, Kluge, Obesity, The Oscar Show, University of Virginia, biology, physical health at 12:04 pm by Jacob Canon
In today’s show, based on a recent article by Jane Ford, Senior News officer for the Office of Public Affairs, we introduce and speak with UVa Graduate, and the Commonwealth’s first ever Doctor of Nursing Practice Degree recipient, Amy Drake Boitnott.
On November 14, 2008, the UVa Nursing School granted the Commonwealth’s first ever Doctor of Nursing Practice Degree to Amy Drake Boitnott. John Kirchgessner, assistant professor of nursing and chairman of Boitnott’s review committee said, the DNP differs from a Ph.D. mainly in the focus of the research. A Ph.D.’s primary interest is in pure research. A DNP is a clinical scholar who uses evidence-based research to develop interventions that may improve clinical practice.
Boitnott, an instructor at the School of Nursing since 2004, and a practicing nurse since 1991, recently sat down to discuss her main clinical focus, childhood obesity.
Nursing School Grants First Doctor of Nursing Practice Degree in VA [6:15m]:
Play Now |
Play in Popup |
Download
Asked about the focus of her work, Boitnott said, “As part of taking care of children, our patient is not just the child, our patient is the family. And I began to recognize and the see the interactions between parent and child, and responses that the children have to their disease process, based on their parents responses. So, it’s all intertwined, and that was very interesting to me, that my patient was not just this one person and one body, it was this entire dynamic of a family.”
Boitnott said her work was unique, “We’re doing something very different… than is currently being done… in this study …and in my intervention. We’re directly targeting the parent exclusively from their child.”
Concerning childhood obesity and some of the contributing factors, Boitnott said, “childhood obesity has increased by over 30 percent in the past 30 years. So there is a huge issue now. It’s considered a(n) epidemic now in our country and globally.”
“And there are so many factors which are thought to contribute to the increased incidence, anywhere from the comfort foods. Foods are now more easily accessible, they’re pre-packaged… they’re fast foods… fast foods are cheaper. So parents and families who are on the go, more than they are 30 years ago, can quickly go through those kinds of things. So that is one thing… Food availability.”
“Another thing is our children are having more sedentary time than they use to, and because of technology and all of these wonderful things that the internet and the TV provides our children. It is sedentary activity none the less, so that is another issue.”
“Urban Sprawl has a factor in it. Kids use to walk to friend’s houses and walk to school, and walk to the store. It doesn’t happen as much as it used to because our communities are farther from those places.”
Boitnott said, “It’s very devastating to see the children and the families that we see in the clinic. They’ve been afflicted with this horrible thing of Obesity. And, I (just) think that what we can do in the clinic… that hopefully this intervention will go into the primary care arena. I am a primary care nurse practitioner, I see people where they come for that sore throat, and for those kinds of things. And if we can then add in education and knowledge about obesity patterns and trends and what we can do to avoid them, in every interaction we have with patients, I think that it is so very important to make this preventative.”
But added, “There’s not one simple answer, that’s the thing… There’s so many answers and so many things, and it’s going to a problem in our country for some time.”
When asked about the major behaviors that people could adopt to help fight this trend in their own lives Boitnott said, “I think that one major thing is the sedentary lifestyles… Just moving, and moving our bodies, and finding ways to move them with our family members…”
“And the other major thing is making wise decisions at the grocery store in what you’re going to bring into your home. Because a lot of my patients will say, “I got that bag of chips and he just wants a couple of them.” Well it’s really hard for a child when they see something they really want… so the parent controlling the nutrition habits and what is brought into the home… controlling that environment, because children still need help with making those decisions.”
For those families who would like more information, Boitnott referenced America on the Move.org for information on nutrition and activities for the family. For families to participate in the clinic, their child must be in the 85th percentile to be considered for the 6 month intervention. If they are, she directs them to call the Children’s Fitness Clinic at the Kluge Rehabilitation Center for more information. Their phone number is 434-982-1627.
You’ve been listening to the Oscar Show, I’m Jacob Canon. Join us next week when we will look at former dean of UVa’s College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Melvyn P. Leffler, who recently was named to receive the American Historical Association’s 2008 George Louis Beer Prize for his book “For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War.”
Permalink
10.22.08
Posted in Anthropology, Consumer Culture, Jacob Canon, Relationships, The Oscar Show, UVa College of Arts & Sciences, University of Virginia, ethics, happiness, philosophy, sociology at 11:04 am by Jacob Canon
In today’s show, adapted from an article written by Anne Broomley, Senior Writer, Editor for UVa’s Office of Public Affairs, we look at the University of Virginia’s Kath Weston and the journey that led to her new book, Traveling Light: On the Road with America’s Poor.
Author Kath Weston, an Anthropology PhD from Stanford University, grew up in a working-class family and attended college with the help of financial aid, took her first bus trip alone when she was 16, and that unforgettable trip showed her that traveling on the bus was much more than just a way to get somewhere.
Before joining the University of Virginia faculty this fall, she spent more than five years crisscrossing the nation on buses, chronicling the lives of Americans who travel via the least expensive mass transportation option. She refers to her new book, Traveling Light: On the Road with America’s Poor, as a journey full of unexpected richness. Her new book describes her fellow passengers’ colorful humanity and tackles issues of class, race and dubious access to America’s opportunities.
On the Road With America's Poor [5:20m]:
Play Now |
Play in Popup |
Download
Weston said she wanted her social commentary to reveal “the artistry of living poor”—the ingenuity of getting by in a system that often fails to reckon with the widening material gap between rich and poor.
The book’s introduction says “By riding the buses, I hoped to get at aspects of living poor that have eluded community studies of poverty… The road trip has become its own American art form, yet few have bothered to chronicle what happens when people without money take to the road.”
Along the way, the riders she traveled with might have been struggling, hungry or penniless, but she found they were also helpful, creative and philosophical.
For example, take T. J… Traveling in Flagstaff, Arizona , he was almost arrested because a white woman, who was probably insane, thought he was a witch and started screaming at him in a bus terminal snack bar, bringing the police. They were about to haul off T.J., who was black, but a white trucker from the bus talked them out of it.
The trucker loved the road, he said, but he had to give up his rig to have surgery—that’s why he was riding the bus.
When everyone got back on the bus, a Hispanic man walked back to T.J., handing him a foil-wrapped package of burritos his wife had made. It turned out T.J. had no money to buy food as he rode to Oklahoma, en route to a new job in a meat-processing plant.
Then there is a story of a divorced middle-aged man, who had custody of his daughter during the summer. So he took her on the bus for the only kind of vacation he could afford, to show her another side of America.
Or, the story of a teenage girl, traveling from one city to another, looking for her younger brother, whose mother had taken off with him and then left him someplace. The sister didn’t know much more than that.
Then, there is the soon-to-be all too familiar story of a once-middle-class woman, who fell onto harder times when her now-deceased husband was laid off. She told Weston, she hated taking the bus, and even though it was obvious why, the woman stood up for a non-English-speaking passenger when the bus driver started yelling at him. She also changed seats so a young woman and her toddler could sit next to each other.
With America’s appetite for travel and adventure alive and well, and the shrinking economy looming as a back drop, Weston’s story of kindness and humanity, in spite of hardship may become a more familiar one for millions in this country. And, a tale of humility and grace that may salvage the American ideal, in the face of the difficult times ahead.
You’ve been listening to the Oscar Show, I’m Jacob Canon. Join us next week when we will preview the upcoming Virginia Film Festival.
Permalink
04.30.08
Posted in Consumer Culture, Jacob Canon, Psychology, Social Psychology, The Oscar Show, UVa College of Arts & Sciences, University of Virginia, happiness, sociology at 12:04 pm by Jacob Canon
In last week’s show we examined the research of we examined the works of Tobias Lear, secretary to George Washington and envoy to North Africa for President Thomas Jefferson.
Material World [6:21m]:
Play Now |
Play in Popup |
Download
In today’s show, adapted from an article recently published on the Oscar Web site written by Melissa Maki, research communications coordinator for the Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies, we look at the research of Allison Pugh, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, and her study of how families deal with the increasing demands of a consumer culture.
Parents in the U.S. have become all too familiar with the latest fashion trends, toys and electronic gadgets as children regularly plead for the next best thing. But how do parents — especially those with limited incomes — comply with their children’s demands?
Allison Pugh, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, began looking at parents’ buying habits as a doctoral student at the University of California at Berkeley. Based on her findings, and with the help of an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant, Pugh is currently completing a book, Longing and Belonging: Parents, Children and Consumer Culture, scheduled to be published by the University of California Press in the spring of 2009.
Pugh said, “I wanted to look at consumption and how the standards for an adequate childhood are ratcheting up, and how affluent and low-income parents are handling that.” She spent three years conducting ethnographic research: interviewing parents, volunteering and observing in three different California schools, including a private school and two public schools, one low-income and one affluent.
During this time, Pugh found common themes among the study’s economically and racially diverse participants. She said, “In all these schools, children feel the need to have certain things or experience certain things — like going to popular movies or local attractions — to be visible or to belong in their social groups.”
The need to belong transcends class boundaries, as does the parental tendency to comply with children’s desires. Pugh found that even those parents struggling to put food on the table and pay bills at the end of the month find ways to provide their kids with expensive, popular items so that their children achieve a sort of “dignity” among their peers.
Yet, Pugh did find differences in the specific buying habits of poor and wealthy families. She said, “Low-income and affluent families are all buying, and they are all buying in response to this need to belong on the part of their children. And in some cases they are even buying the exact same thing, like Game Boys, but the way they buy is different and the way they talk about buying is different.”
Affluent families engage in what Pugh terms “symbolic deprivation,” deemphasizing their spending, not wanting to appear materialistic, and focusing on specific items they don’t buy for their child, whether it be electronics or Barbie dolls. In contrast, she said, low-income families engage in “symbolic indulgence.” Since poor families can’t provide their child’s every desire, they focus on key items with the highest social value, like Sony PlayStations.
Much of the current literature in this area explains the growing culture of spending around kids in the past few decades as parents acting in a rational way in an increasingly materialistic society. The argument is that people are simply trying to get ahead and have more. Pugh’s research is unique in that it brings the significance of emotions into this equation.
Pugh explained, “The proliferation of commodities in childhood has changed what possessions mean. Now they mean belonging to children and they mean care to parents and to children.” She argues that buying for children has created a new dynamic in parent-child relationships. “It’s about recognition of desire, it’s about empathy, and about the parent realizing how difficult it is to be different in American culture.”
Pugh notes that parents today are confronted with two choices, neither of which is good. They can give in to the consumer culture, even if they can’t really afford to, or they can deprive their children of goods, putting kids at risk of being ostracized by their social groups.
Regulating how companies are allowed to market goods to children may be part of the solution to this dilemma, but Pugh asserts that items achieve social value not immediately after children are exposed to advertisements, but when kids get together in small groups and talk about them.
With this in mind, Pugh concludes her book with suggestions of how parents and schools can collectively organize around consumption issues in order to drain commodities of some of their social power. Some promising examples include a Michigan group that is fighting the escalation of party bags and other birthday phenomena, informal groups of parents agreeing to limit their children’s exposure to popular culture, and schools banning cell phones and iPods on their campuses.
You’ve been listening to the Oscar Show, I’m Jacob Canon. Join us next week when our topic will be the research of Richard Handler, UVa professor of anthropology, and how the popularized story of colonial Williamsburg, upon reexamination reveals different side of tale.
Permalink