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It is one of the most pressing health problems of the next generation, yet clinicians have had little success stemming the tide of childhood obesity. Attempt after attempt to prevent excessive weight gain in children has failed, and that excess body fat raises a child’s immediate and long-term risk of debilitating conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and bone and joint problems. Now, an early intervention program focused on teaching new parents to calm infants without using food as a...

The Department of Justice today announced it will phase out its contracts with private prisons, calling the prisons unsafe, expensive, and ineffective in reducing recidivism. About 22,000 of 193,000 federal prisoners are held in such facilities, adding up to 11 percent of the population. Though meaningful as a gesture of the government’s commitment to reducing the number of people in prison, the move will have limited impact on the 2.2 million people in federal and state custody. The...

Negative childhood experiences like abuse or neglect are largely associated with the mental health outcomes of older homeless adults. That’s according to a new report by UC San Francisco released Wednesday that chronicled 350 homeless adults over the age of 50 living in Oakland between July 2013 and June 2014. While it’s difficult to completely attribute homelessness to adverse childhood experiences, the study revealed that the frequency of such experiences as a child directly related to...

Twenty-two mothers who have been interned with their children for up to a year in a for-profit immigration detention facility entered the ninth day of a hunger strike on Wednesday. Neither the mothers nor their children have committed any crimes, nor have they been charged with any. They have no idea when they will be released. Advocates and attorneys representing the women tell The Nation that their children are suffering, they feel that they’ve been lost in the system and their desire for...

The racial segregation and declining enrollment that plagues Indianapolis Public Schools today can be traced back to the decision made 46 years ago to merge Indianapolis with its surrounding suburbs. The celebrated unified government, or “Unigov,” law brought together about a dozen communities in Marion County into a single large city in 1970. The idea was to put a bigger, more powerful Indianapolis onto the national map, simplify city services, and grow the city’s tax base. Indianapolis was...

American public schools have made tremendous progress since the Supreme Court declared school segregation unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education. Schools throughout the nation are more diverse than ever before as a result of desegregation , immigration of people to this country, and emigration of citizens from one region of the nation to another. Sixty years after the Supreme Court’s decision, schools in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and other southern states where segregation was...

At a hearing on trauma among Native Americans on Wednesday, tribal leaders asked North Dakota's senators to consider the potential traumatic consequences of building an oil pipeline. "We can still achieve economic development. We can still achieve national security," Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II said in tearful testimony. "But don't do it off Indians anymore. We pay the cost, and this is the cost: historical trauma." Archambault was speaking to Sens. Heidi Heitkamp,...

Colleges across the U.S. have been trying to do a better job of making students who have traditionally been underrepresented on campus feel welcome and included. But some of their attempts, however well-intentioned, garner as much ire as support. While many see the creation of safe spaces for black students, LGBT students, and other minorities as a positive step toward helping them navigate campus, others see it as resegregation and a step backward. Moraine Valley Community College on the...

You can become a healthy role model for your child—even for your adult child. Obviously, the earlier on you model healthy emotions and behavior for your child, the better. A child who grows up with a parent who is mentally, emotionally, and spiritually healthy will usually have a better chance of developing these qualities him or herself. But sometimes, being a role model is deeper than merely being a responsible, thoughtful adult. Children see everything, and are often able to read what we...

At 10 a.m. on a recent Wednesday, a line of parents pushing strollers filed into a conference room at the Sacramento County Courthouse. They sat at rows of narrow plastic tables, shushing their babies and gazing up at a man in a black robe. Hearing Officer Jim Teal sounded his gavel. “This is the time and place set for Early Intervention Family Drug Court,” he began, gazing sternly at the rapt faces of parents who sit before him. “Graduation from this court is considered a critical factor in...

During my first year as a classroom teacher, one of my supervisors told me that my students should not see me smile until Christmas. This is not new advice: It is an old saw that has been passed on to new teachers for years. The logic is that students will not take a friendly teacher seriously, and thus, in order to start the year off on the right foot, students should know unequivocally who runs the show. Our cultural preoccupation with punishment has had disastrous implications for our...

The power of populist politics in the 2016 election is forcing parties to take economic insecurity seriously, and to think of ways to soothe voter anger. Increasing the minimum wage or lowering taxes feel tired to voters, and thus more radical proposals to make Americans feel economically secure, like free college from Bernie Sanders (and now Hillary Clinton ) and tariffs from Donald Trump, are also now a part of the debate. One of the boldest ideas in policy circles is Basic Income, where...