Baby Einstein Hampers Language Development? A new study published in the Journal of Pediatrics finds that for babies aged eight to 15 months, for every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants understood an average of six to eight fewer words than infants who did not watch them. No such association was found for babies viewing other media, such as programming for older children or adult media. One of the authors of the study notes, “In my clinical practice, I am frequently asked by parents what the value of these products is…The evidence is mounting that they are of no value and may in fact be harmful. Given what we now know, I believe the onus is on the manufacturers to prove their claims that watching these programs can positively impact children’s cognitive development.”

Dinner Trends: A researcher out of UCLA looked at dinner preparation in two-income families in Los Angeles and found that fast food made up very few of the family meals, but that convenience foods, such as Hamburger Helper, dominated. Surprisingly, though, the convenience foods did not save a significant amount of time in dinner preparation when compared with meals prepared without prepackaged shortcuts. Yet cooking from scratch, the researcher noted, has become a hobby instead of the norm. Other findings of note: 80% of the meals were prepared by mom, though very often dad was at home, and children participated in dinner preparation very little.