Methodologically this book is a disaster area. At times, the author refers to other research studies to support her hypothesis and other times on her hunches. (This book does not put forward any original research.) This back and forth becomes confusing at times and the reader loses track of what is empirically proven and what the author is assuming.
I do think that it is okay, especially in books aimed at a mainstream audience, to make broad and unproven claims. This then provides fodder for later academic research. It's good to have books that attempt to make grand theory and allow others, who have more resources and less imagination, prove or disprove those claims. However, unproven statements should be clearly identified and qualified. Good qualifying phrases are “this observation may suggest” or “it worth further study” or “it could possibly indicate.”
Eberstadt also confuses the reader by switching her unit of analysis around. Sometime she discusses children at daycare v. children at home. Other times she looks at impact of working mothers on all children and society in general. Sometimes she looks at children over time.
The largest problem with this book is proving causality. Let’s look more closely at Chapter Three: Why Dick and Jane Are Fat.
Eberstadt claims that children are fatter than they used to be because more women are working. She points to real studies that show that kids are bulking up. A 2002 study in the AMA found that overweight children had tripled between 1960s and the late 1900s.
Eberstadt writes, Between 1980 and 1985 the percentage of mothers with children under six who were in the labor force first “crossed” the magic line into being the majority. By 1990 that percentage had become higher still – 58.2. By 2000 it had climbed further, to 64.6 percent. In other words, the years in which the obesity epidemic appears to have accelerated are the same years that the number of mothers of small children entering the labor force became the statistical normal. (p.40)
No. No. No. No.
Just because the two factors of weight gain and mother employment increased at the same time, does not prove causality. You have no way of knowing that employment caused obesity without ruling out other variables. (Hell, maybe disgust at their fat kids, drove women into the workforce.)
There were many other changes in society and popular culture that happened during that time. Increased number of fast food restaurants, increased mobility of families, the decline of the use of mass transportation and reliance on walking, video games and cable TV (1980 was the first year of MTV), the continued decline of kids working on farms or summer jobs, increased time doing homework. In order to prove causality between mother employment and child obesity, she would have to rule out all those other factors. An impossibility.
Of course, mother employment could be a contributing factor towards obesity, but she doesn't get that subtle.
How would employment affect weight gain? 1. She says that children of absent parents watch more TV and play more video games. 2. Kids who don’t get breast milk are fatter. (But is that in the long term? And how much does SES intervene here?) 3. Both latchkey kids (her term) and kids in daycare are less likely to get exercise than kids with at home parents. For daycare kids, there is no one pushing them to try new sports. Instead they are given snacks to keep them quiet. Latchkey kids are forbidden to leave the house for safety reasons. 4. Guilty parents give more treats.
Then she makes an interesting point. It's not just daycare kids who are disadvantaged by daycare. Even kids who are at home with their parents are disadvantaged. “The more parents are out of the house, the more reluctant they are to have their kids outside – because with so many other adults also out of the house, there is no informal network of like-minded adults to be alert to them. The fewer children who are allowed out to play, the less likely that other children will be allowed out.”
This claim saves her butt. Because there is no evidence that kids with at home parents are thinner than kids of working parents. It also makes a lot of sense. I buy it. But I would add several other factors. Kids play outside less because of increased media stories on abductions and child abuse, the decrease in neighborhood playgrounds within walking distance, and increased number of sprawling suburban developments where neighbors are unknown. All this reduces after-school playtime.
(to be continued....)