Letters to the Editor
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Are the Results Out? - Not Clear From Your Article
Guatemala is not some foreign planet. It is just below Mexico, easily accessible to fancy folk from the USA. Guatemala is a very nice place.
So... This study ended in 1977? A million years ago? Why results only now? Is this sort of a Can't-Find-Monkeys-Might-As-Well-Use-Guatemalans thing?
Let's read the results! And let's get every person on the planet drinking Nutra-Shakes, or whatever.
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I don't think it's spooky
I think it's terrific. In order to change the world, you have to know how it works. That means controlled studies. If you just gave a protein shake to everybody in a village, there would be no way of knowing if positive results came from the nutrition, the calories, or even the interaction with the researcher (people in studies behave differently). By creating a "control" group (people who got non-protein fortified shakes), they turned this into a research study that provides insight into how we can better distribute nutritional resources to hungry people. Keep in mind, they didn't starve anybody, or suject anybody to suffering - one group got what they would have otherwise had, but under controlled conditions, the other got more.
The really spooky part is that we haven't done more to act on this research. We know that providing protein supplements during the first 2 years of person's life are critical... so why aren't we doing it?
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Umm...
Tumbucktom, I think the point is that the kids who were under 7 in 1977 (when the free drinks ended) have been studied since and a new paper is coming out (not yet published, but there's some press about it) about these children as adults.
Maybe you should have had some more protein as a child...
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teh internets are dumb
No, there's nothing spooky here. It was a study. The children who didn't get the protein drink weren't fed sawdust; they ate what they normally would have eaten. If all the children had eaten the same diet, it wouldn't have been a study, would it?
Thanks to this study, we know a little bit more about the importance of early nutrition.
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Protein! Protein!
Now I know why I never got rich! Let's get these results!
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Why now?
So... This study ended in 1977? A million years ago? Why results only now? Is this sort of a Can't-Find-Monkeys-Might-As-Well-Use-Guatemalans thing?
Because they were studying pregnant women and small children. Those children born in 1977 would be 30 years old now, so the study tracked their cognitive development, educational progress, and eventual (one would hope) entrance into the job market. With 30 years of mental and social development, the researchers get a bigger picture of the effects of early nutritional intervention.
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Not so surpising
Makes the original invisible hand man sound like kind of a modern liberal, doesn't it?
The more you read about and of Adam Smith, the less surprising this will seem. He was curiously ahead of his time, and it's no accident that the civilization we live in today (and rail so ominously about losing) is known as "liberal democracy" even though economically it's based on Smith's free market. Smith was a pretty bright guy who saw a lot farther than any of his disciplines, who over time have lost their way and twisted his essentially pro-human message into unrecognizable orthodoxies designed to squelch the human spirit.
Come to think of it, kinda like Jesus.
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It could have been spooky
If they had been feeding some of the villagers something that they hypothesized would harm their development. I don't know, trans-fats or something.
But as it was, they were providing some lucky villagers with a leg up, and some just with a free drink. Nobody is worse off than they would have been without the study. Now that the results are known, it might be a little weird to repeat, but for a study to work, you need the control group.
As for why we just get results now when the experiment ended in '77 - they stopped providing shakes in '77, but in order to find out how this early intervention affects develop, you have to wait for the people involved to develop.
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adam smith today would be labeled a progressive....
Adam Smith wasn't as conservative as people make him out to be....
check out PJ O'Rourke's new book on Adam Smith.
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Protein Shakes? Better hand out the Kool Aid instead...
Adam Smith's idea's are not counterpoint to his neoconservative equivalent, they simply underline managements current need to downgrade, or dumb down the labor force. The means for doing this are provided by technology, primarily. Properly designed companies, virtually run themselves. The real creativity is at the macro level, where companies are bought and sold, and CEO's who understand little about the product they make, create business models which succeed. Microsoft is an average technology company, and a hugely successful business. One can argue they are anti-technology, because they buy new technologies simply to keep them off the market.
The point of automation is that business requires fewer workers, and the job requires less physical work, and less education. This means ulitmately that the world is overpopulated, as we thought it was fifty years ago. Now we have to get rid of some of these people, who put an undue strain on resources, and quality of life, and you want to start giving them protein shakes? More likely the powers to be will start handing out Kool Aid, before the current generation has come of age.
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Surprising News
Gee, all the authors have done is strip the charade off the nature of their health research. After all, the primary point of public health in capitalist society is to get everyone to work day after day and thus maximize profits. This was well known and discussed in the 19th century.
Of course, the idea that children's nutrition affects their mental and physical capabilities as adults is suprising news, isn't it?
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Surprising News
Gee, all the authors have done is strip the charade off the nature of their health research. After all, the primary point of public health in capitalist society is to get everyone to work day after day and thus maximize profits. This was well known and discussed in the 19th century.
Of course, the idea that children's nutrition affects their mental and physical capabilities as adults is suprising news, isn't it?
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Hmmm.
Well, I'm not sure if the study was ethical or not. The article doesn't get into the details about it. However, I see nothing wrong with trying to discern how good or bad nutrition plays a role in preparing people to learn and/or make economic contributions to the community.
I also think that human beings are motivated by different things, or not motivated. Nutrition is but one of those variables that go into the mix that determines a person's ability to work, be healthy, etc.