Comments

Research: Food for Thought: Television Food Advertising to Children in the United States
Subject: Review
Posted on: Tue, 20 May 08 22:11:33 +0000

This is a very well planned and executed piece of research which tackles an issue that highlights the size and scale of the food advertising children in the US are exposed to on a daily basis.

The research has a realistic agenda -- it is not claiming to have the answers to the problem of childhood obesity, but is aiming to measure how exposed children are to food advertising in order to help inform future research and policy making.

Because the research has a very sound methodology, particularly impressive is the way the survey team were briefed and trained as well as how the coding was monitored and specified, the data can be used with confidence to explore the area in more detail. The large sample numbers also add to this importance of this research, however it would be interesting to see if there was any sampling bias in terms of the time of year the data was collected. It is doubtful that the amount of advertising would change, rather the types of products may shift, from ice-cream in the summer to hot fast food in the winter, for example.

Combining the data collected from a previous study was interesting as it freed up time to focus specifically on collecting data on TV adverts, which seemed to work very well and created a powerful set of statistics.

The figures alone are quite shocking in terms of the amount of junk food advertising children are exposed to. As well as bringing in legislation to control the types of adverts children watch, it also seems that strategies to get children to do more with their time also needs to be developed, to physically take them away from the TV.

As the research monitored the volume of adverts children are exposed to it clearly points to the next phase of research which needs to measure how influenced children are by TV advertising, and how they influence the shopping habits of their parents. The worrying thing is that if children aren't influenced by the adverts they see then the food companies would not spend millions of dollars each year making them in the first place ... frighteningly they must be having some effect.

Research: Ending Child Poverty: What is happening in the UK?
Subject: Review
Posted on: Tue, 20 May 08 22:09:23 +0000

This is an interesting paper as it is very much placed in a specific time in UK political history. Since this report was published politics in the UK has changed, not least with the advent of the second Gulf War and a change in leadership of New Labour from Blair to Brown.

From a historical perspective it is interesting to see the optimism of the paper in relation to the desire to eradicate child poverty over the next 20 years. From the evidence presented it looks as though the Blair government were heading in the right direction with their policies by allowing the poorest in society access not only to more financial benefits, but also advice and information.

Comparisons were made with the US in terms of provisions for those who find themselves living in poverty, but no mention was made of the major differences in the healthcare systems between the two countries. The NHS in the UK is funded by the tax payer and as a result most treatments are free, compared to the US where healthcare is privately funded through insurance schemes.

Since Gordon Brown succeeded Tony Blair as the leader of the Labour party in the UK in 2007 the popular opinion of the party has plummeted. The most unpopular and controversial piece of legislation Brown has implemented has been the 10p tax rule, which has hit those on low incomes very hard, undermining the promises made and quoted in this paper in 2000.

It would be interesting to re-review this situation in the light of the new pessimism in the UK today, compared to the high hopes of 10 years ago.

Research: E Is for Everyone: The Case for Inclusive Game Design
Subject: Review
Posted on: Mon, 19 May 08 22:15:19 +0000

This is a passionate and heartfelt piece of research that could potentially have a major impact on the lives of young people with disabilities.

The power of thinking about game design in a way that enables people to access it is shown really well here with the use of case studies of the experiences the children had with the adapted game.

At some points it reads more like a research diary, and could potentially have been shorter and more succinct, however the character and the passion of the researcher is expressed in the writing and changing this may take some of that away.

A concern here is convincing games manufacturers that they will make money from taking into account people with disabilities while making computer games.

They would need to be assured that there is a large enough market and the adaptations would not be so great that it would cost them too much money to do.

This research could lead to further studies -- perhaps of a more quantitative nature -- relating to the size of the market, what adaptations would be needed etc, in order to approach games companies and make them think in a more inclusive way, as the author says in the conclusion, making positive steps towards changing attitudes.

In terms of the games companies attitudes will be potentially only be changed if the financial rewards in doing so are proven.

Research: Domestic Violence and Birth Control Sabotage: A Report From The Teen Parent Project
Subject: Review
Posted on: Tue, 13 May 08 21:32:11 +0000

This is an important piece of research as it is the first time the association between domestic violence and birth control sabotage has been made.

The study is well planned. The use of mixed methods is interesting with the qualitative element supporting and highlighting the quantitative data well, bringing the statistics to life with some shocking examples of how domestic violence is used to influence birth control and access to education.

It is unfortunate that the size of the qualitative sample is not larger (16) as the total number of participants who experience some form of domestic violence is high (261).

If time and finance had been available this would have been an interesting area to develop, not only for this study but to aid future research in this area.

Qualitative work could also have been used to develop the closed questions relating to levels of domestic violence.

By having only a few options this area may be underrepresented in the survey.

Bias may also have been brought into the study during the sampling, and may be reflected in the high average age of the sample and the high level of support they receive from their partners.

By sampling only at busy times the study may have excluded certain groups of women.

There is also a possibility that women who experience more domestic violence do not attend clinics at all, and so these women are not included in the study.

It would also be interesting to know if the Conflict Tactic Scale has been validated, as this is not made clear in the study.

It is also concerning from a reliability and validity perspective that there were two versions of the fieldwork used, although this is acknowledged as a concern by the authors.

There is also some confusion when looking at the level of domestic violence and the age of the partner.

It appears that there is no difference between the age difference of the partner and participant and the level of domestic violence, however there is a higher level of domestic violence when participants have older boyfriends.

These two findings don't fit together in a cohesive manner and would need further explanation.

Even though a control sample has been included in the study this has not been referred to in the results.

It is not made clear whether the questions asked if the partner influenced the participants in taking birth control, it only says whether they told them to stop.

We can not infer from this that they did.

This is, however, a good piece of research well backed by statistical significance.

It is a good platform to build further research.

It also highlights an area that education planners and policy makers need to address.

An interesting area for the future would be WHY male partners feel they should prevent women from taking birth control or limiting their access to education.