Researchers Cure Picky Eating

While listening to a lecture called "On the Origins of a Cultural Species" (click to listen) from Emory University's Center for Mind, Brain & Culture, the speaker (Joe Henrich from the University of British Columbia) revealed the secret for fixing picky eating habits.

In the lecture, Joe Henrich talked about how kids choose to model their learning and behavior after slightly older, happy, confident-looking kids who are getting positive attention from parents and other important social figures.

If you have a picky eater, he offered some helpful advice based off of scientific research:

"If you want to convince a kid to change [picky eating habits], the best thing you can do is not give him incentives, not teach him about the health quality of the food, but to sit him down at a table with kids slightly older who really like the food.  They'll eat the food, he'll see them move it, and then next you'll find that that kid will request that food next time he comes.  He'll eat more of it, select it on his own."

This is a critical example of "show don't tell."  When you're fixing picky eating habits, don't insist that the kid eat such-and-such--that will only lead to resistance.  Instead, let them just observe and make their own choice.  Find slightly older kids as models who are (or can act) happy, very confident, and who love eating the food that the picky eater won't eat.

Have the picky eater sit at the table with the model kids and have the models eat the food enthusiastically and maybe even tell them in private ahead of time to exaggerate how much they love the food.  Kids are natural hams and having a silly role to play like this will be fun for them.

Don't tell the picky eater, "Notice how Ben and Amy love spinach!"  Just let the picky eater make their own observations and decisions.  Choices we make on our own give us the most long-lasting change.

Austen's Emma in Down-to-Earth English Class

I never took more than the bare requirements in English class in school.  I was always a science & math kind of girl and never even thought to give literature or language much thought.  But now it'd be useful for me to know the basic structure of a story, how to plan plots and develop characters that a reader will care about.

Again, iTunes U didn't let me down!  My favorite English class I've found was ENGL 202 for English majors at Harrisburg Area Community College.

In this course, we will read British literature from about 1790 to 1945, examining literary works from the Romantic, Victorian, and twentieth-century periods in an historical and cultural context, and delving into some of the significant issues and debates that characterize and inform the literature and art of these periods.

My last week of Lunchtime Lectures, I've listened to the prof's detailed commentary on Jane Austen's Emma.

Did you know that the popular Alicia Silverstone movie Clueless is a modern Beverly Hills remake of the Jane Austen version of the story?  I really enjoyed finding out how the characters and scenes in Emma were translated into the Clueless blockbuster version.  I was surprised how faithful of a translation Clueless was!

The professor goes through the book in about 5 minutes/chapter with plot summary and commentary.  Squeezes in sidebars about social class in early 19th century England or about wages or gender roles.

Best of all, the prof is down-to-Earth, completely practical and understandable and totally unpretentious.  Really clear & simple explanation, it's the English Literature class I never had.

For all the courses I'm listening to right now, click here.

Mortgaging My Morning Walk Talk

If I'm going to have a good day, it's got to start with a morning walk.  And with this brutally hot weather hitting near triple digits, my walks have to be in the morning so it's only 100% humidity and 80 degrees.  Bleh, my brain stops functioning above that temperature and I turn into a summer vegetable.  Luckily, once my morning walk is done for the day, I can tuck safely into my air conditioned apartment and stay functional.

Financial Theory

I usually listen to an audio lecture on my walks.  The last two Morning Walk Talks have been from a Yale University Financial Theory course by Professor John Geanakoplos, specifically about the mortgage market and the subprime mortgage crisis.  I learned...

1. the mortgage market was about as big as the stock market, in $
2. until it collapsed in Oct 2007, it wasn't given much attention by economists compared with the stock market
3. trying to make subprime (risky) loans into AAA (safe) bonds involved a lot of Titanic-esque reasoning ("Oh, the absolute worst case iceberg crash imaginable we might gash open two of the ship's compartments, but we can afford to rip open up to four compartments.  And it's totally unrealistic that would ever happen...")
4. the economy is super cyclic as we over and underestimate the value of goods and services
5. humans don't learn their lessons very well and each time we get to a new cycle, we relax, forget everything we've learned, and act like the next blowup is a big surprise.