In 2009, Gabriel Myers, a seven-year-old foster child in Florida, hanged himself in the bathroom of his home due to the side effects of psychiatric drugs. Gabriel was taking multiple psychiatric medications, and his foster father stated that the doctor would spend about five minutes with Gabriel before sending him off to the pharmacy with… Read more →
Category: Features
COVID-19 Vaccines and Children: What Is All the Fuss About?
On October 19, 2021, the FDA authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use in children 5 to 11 years of age. With the COVID-19 vaccine now approved for use in younger children, many parents are asking the question: should my child get the vaccine? As we have already seen, many states are beginning to… Read more →
The Applied Behavior Analysis Controversy: Normalizing or Cruel?
One parent said, “Our involvement with ABA remains one of my biggest parenting regrets.” Another said, “This treatment saved my son from an isolated and non-productive life. ” A third: “The first consultation was trying.” These are just a few testimonials regarding Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), a therapeutic modality for autistic children that involves using… Read more →
Maintenance Phase: A Podcast that Wants You to Talk about Fatness
In an episode about Angela Lansbury’s fitness book-video-combo, Positive Moves, Maintenance Phase co-host Aubrey Gordon observed that “it is really difficult to disentangle our motives for weight loss from our attitudes towards fat people.” This small statement captures a central thesis of the incredibly popular podcast. That is, our cultural imagination of “fatness” – or… Read more →
Bodies of Uncertainty
I hadn’t even entered my brief, early-pandemic bread baking phase when other people’s fears about “pandemic weight gain” became unavoidable. I have been fat for my entire life, and as a fat person who does not diet I have become very skilled at avoiding conversations about other people’s fear of weight gain that might cause… Read more →
Anti-Blackness as Anti-Fatness: An Interview with Da’Shaun L. Harrison
Da’Shaun L. Harrison’s recent book Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness is a call for revolution. “Out there is a reality where fat Black folks are experiencing the harms of anti-Blackness as anti-fatness,” they write; “Black liberation is the end goal, and for it to happen, fat liberation must also be… Read more →
Love on Credit: Meditations on Fatness, Queerness, and Transformation
It is a strange thing, learning to love your body on credit. I grew up in Southern California in the 1990s, in a multiracial, deeply loving, and profoundly Evangelical Christian family. This upbringing came with so many wonderful memories as well as a casual, if not ill-intentioned daily dose of homophobia. One of the more… Read more →
Feeding Our Children Fast-Food Ads
TikTok star Charli D’Amelio collaborated with Dunkin’ Donuts to launch “The Charli” drink in September 2020. Charli, notorious for sipping on Dunkin’ while dancing on TikTok, promoted its release to her 85.8 million followers. Charli’s Gen Z fans were eager to try her favorite drink. Within a month Charli’s promotional videos collectively garnered over 294 million… Read more →
Diversity in Children’s TV for Better Children’s Mental Health
I have a vivid memory of being in kindergarten and being called Dora, the name of the titular character from the children’s show Dora the Explorer. I was a chubby Mexican child, and those comparisons increased when I cut my hair to shoulder length, which only made me look even more like her. I couldn’t tell… Read more →
The Sixteen Year Gap: Women in Medical Trials and the Side Effects Today
Historically, women have been excluded from clinical trials creating a gender gap in pharmacology. This means that medication is geared towards men, benefiting men’s health more than women’s. After the thalidomide crisis, US laws excluded many women from drug trials for medications that were ostensibly for all adults until 1993. Despite legal changes, the issue… Read more →