Summary Of Courtney Jung S Lactivism

"Breastfeeding has become a moral imperative in 21st century America. Once upon a time, this moral imperative made sense. Breastfeeding was believed to bring multiple health benefits, including increased resistance to many chronic and even fatal diseases, protection against Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), improved intelligence, and countless immunities. The irony now, however, is that breastfeeding continues to gain moral force just as scientists are showing that its benefits have been greatly exaggerated. In 2012, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention declared the failure to breastfeed "a public health issue, " thus placing bottle-feeding on par with smoking, obesity, and unsafe sex. Recently, politicians too have launched highly visible breastfeeding initiatives, such as former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's well-publicized Latch On campaign. And, meanwhile, women who don't breastfeed their babies have found themselves with a lot of explaining to do. Physicians, public health officials, and other mothers are pressuring them to breastfeed even though the best science shows that the advantages of doing so are minimal at best. What is going on? In Lactivism, Courtney Jung offers the most deeply researched and far-reaching critique of the breastfeeding imperative to date. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, from rigorously peer-reviewed scientific research to interviews with physicians, politicians, business interests, activists, social workers, and mothers from across the social and political spectrum, Jung presents an eye-opening account of how a practice that began as an alternative to Big Business has become Big Business itself"--

Social scientist and mother Courtney Jung explores the ever-expanding world of breastfeeding advocacy, shining a new light on the diverse communities who compose it, the dubious science behind it, and the pernicious public policies to which it has given rise Is breast really best? Breastfeeding is widely assumed to be the healthiest choice, yet growing evidence suggests that its benefits have been greatly exaggerated. New moms are pressured by doctors, health officials, and friends to avoid the bottle at all costs-often at the expense of their jobs, their pocketbooks, and their well-being. In Lactivism, political scientist Courtney Jung offers the most deeply researched and far-reaching critique of breastfeeding advocacy to date. Drawing on her own experience as a devoted mother who breastfed her two children and her expertise as a social scientist, Jung investigates the benefits of breastfeeding and asks why so many people across the political spectrum are passionately invested in promoting it, even as its health benefits have been persuasively challenged. What emerges is an eye-opening story about class and race in America, the big business of breastfeeding, and the fraught politics of contemporary motherhood.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 Until the beginning of the twentieth century, most women breastfed their babies. However, the historical record shows that there have been no shortage of remedies for so-called lactation failure. #2 In the United States, wet nursing was less common than it was in Europe. By the 1860s or so, mothers found a new option for feeding their babies: homemade formula. #3 The wide-scale use of breast milk substitutes in the twentieth century led to a decrease in breastfeeding rates. Formula feeding was part of a broader philosophy called scientific motherhood, which favored formula feeding over breastfeeding. #4 La Leche League’s support for breastfeeding was part of a broader rejection of scientific mothering. The League’s goal was to return mothering to mothers and replace the role of the pediatrician as expert with a supportive community of other mothers.

Discusses the issue of breast feeding and whether it is fair to judge parenting on breast vs. bottle as opposed to making the right choice for a family.

A philosopher makes the case for thinking of works of art as tools for investigating ourselves In his new book, Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature, the philosopher and cognitive scientist Alva Noë raises a number of profound questions: What is art? Why do we value art as we do? What does art reveal about our nature? Drawing on philosophy, art history, and cognitive science, and making provocative use of examples from all three of these fields, Noë offers new answers to such questions. He also shows why recent efforts to frame questions about art in terms of neuroscience and evolutionary biology alone have been and will continue to be unsuccessful.

"Jung examines three important cases of politicized racial and ethnic identity in South Africa: Zulu, Afrikaner, and Coloured. Working from extensive field research and interviews, she develops a model to explain shifts in the political salience, goals, and boundaries of these groups between 1980 and 1995."--BOOK JACKET.

A Harvard-trained obstetrician-gynecologist, prominent blogger, and author of the classic How Your Baby Is Born delivers a timely, important, and sure to be headline-making expose that shines a light on the natural parenting movement and the multimillion-dollar industry behind it. The natural parenting movement praises the virtues of birth without medical interference, staunchly advocates breastfeeding for all mothers, and hails attachment parenting. Once the exclusive province of the alternative lifestyle, natural parenting has gone mainstream, becoming a lucrative big business today. But those who do not subscribe to this method are often made to feel as if they are doing their children harm. Dr. Amy Tuteur understands their apprehensions. “Parenting quickly feels synonymous with guilt. And of late, there is no bigger arena for this pervasive guilt than childbirth.” As a medical professional with a long career in obstetrics and gynecology and as the mother of four children, Tuteur is no stranger to the insurmountable pressures and subsequent feelings of blame and self-condemnation that mothers experience during their children’s early years. The natural parenting movement, she contends, is not helping them raise their children better. Instead, it capitalizes on their uncertainty, manipulating parents when they are most vulnerable. In Push Back, she chronicles the movement’s history from its roots to its modern practices, incorporating her own experiences as a mother and successful OB-GYN with original research on the latest in childbirth science. She also reveals the dangerous and overtly misogynistic motives of some of its proponents—conservative men who sought to limit women’s control and autonomy. As she debunks, one by one, the guilt-inducing myths of natural birth and parenting, Dr. Tuteur empowers women to embrace the method of childbirth that is right for them, while reassuring all parents that the most important thing they can do is love and care for their children.

At STIAS, the ‘Health in Transition’ theme includes a programme to address the epidemic rise in the incidence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, obesity, coronary heart disease and stroke in Africa. The aim is to advance awareness, research capacity and knowledge translation of science related to the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) as a means of preventing NCDs in future generations. Application of DOHaD science is a promising avenue for prevention, as this field is identifying how health and nutrition from conception through the first 1 000 days of life can dramatically impact a developing individual’s future life course, and specifically predicate whether or not they are programmed in infancy to develop NCDs in later life. Prevention of NCDs is an essential strategy as, if unchecked, the burden of caring for a growing and ageing population with these diseases threatens to consume entire health budgets, as well as negatively impact the quality of life of millions. Africa in particular needs specific, focussed endeavors to realize the maximal preventive potential of DOHaD science, and a means of generating governmental and public awareness about the links between health in infancy and disease in adult life. This volume summarizes the expertise and experience of a leading group of international scientists led by Abdallah Daar brought together at STIAS as part of the ‘Health in Transition’ programme.