A Riddle, Wrapped In A Mystery, Inside A Bun
“Mystery” is such a cool word! I always wanted to be a “man of mystery,” and often I succeed, leaving people around me wondering, “What was he thinking?” “Mystery,” however, loses its allure when paired with the word “meat,” as it often is in school cafeterias. Even there, however, it remains acceptable, at least when ketchup adds to the intrigue.
2012 will be remembered as the year the enigma of mystery meat was revealed to be...pink slime (“lean finely textured beef” to those in the industry). And now, all of a sudden, no one wants their kids to eat pink slime, resulting in bankruptcy for at least one large ground beef processor. It just goes to show we need to consider unintended consequences before we demand schools feed our children natural foods. Think: would you really want to live in a world without ketchup?
This week’s gross headlines are not limited to the business news. Some brave Canadian pediatricians got tired of moms and dads describing the odor of their children’s urine and decided to see if they could ask parents to skip over that part. Their results were not, shall we say, void. The data stream demonstrated that 57% of children ultimately diagnosed with urinary tract infections (UTI’s) had foul-smelling urine. On the other hand, 32% of kids without infections had urine that smelled suspect. The association of urine odor and UTI was weakly positive, with an odds ratio of 2.83, a confidence interval of 1.54–5.20, and a less-than-0.05 pee value.
Statistics made even bigger news as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported an alarming rise in the rates of children being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in the US. At this point, if the statistics are to be believed, one boy in 54 and one girl in 252 have some form of autism.
The data highlight differences in diagnostic efforts from region to region. Either kids in Utah really are four-and-a-half times more likely to develop autism than kids in Alabama, or the folks in Salt Lake are screening a little more aggressively than they are in Tuscaloosa. A third theory holds that hosting the Winter Olympics increases rates of autism.
Some people believe that we’ve now defined autism too broadly, giving the label to any child who covers his ears during a fireworks display. Others wonder how, with all the emphasis on early diagnosis of ASD, we’ve managed to reduce the average age of diagnosis from a tragically late 4.5 years to a merely way-too-late 4 years. Somehow it seems we’ve come up with the worst of both worlds, like if someone invented vegetarian pink slime.
Finally, another report this week makes parents of middle schoolers (ahem) pine for the days when all we worried about were disgusting food additives. The study, from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s “Start Strong: Building Healthy Teen Relationships” initiative, determined that over a third of seventh graders had been subject to psychological dating violence; 15% reported being a victim of physical dating violence.
If you’re like me you’re probably thinking, “Dating? In seventh grade?!” followed closely by, “I wonder if there’s any pistachio ice cream left in the freezer?” But indeed, more than 75% of seventh graders reported they had been in dating relationships. The good news, to the extent you can call it that, is that three-fourths of kids surveyed talked to their parents about these relationships, and that these discussions proved at least somewhat protective against victimization.
When my 12-year-old daughter and I talk about dating in seventh grade, I’ll probably tell her about that one time that girl I liked sort of looked my way for a second until I realized she was just checking the clock on the wall behind me. Then I’ll say something wise. What that will be remains, well, a mystery.