A new book, The New Atkins for a New You, aims to pick up where the old Atkins diet left off. Gary Foster, director of Temple's Center for Obesity Research and Education, offered his review. "Like every diet book, this one suffers from hyperbole about quick and long-term weight loss," he said. "It overstates the virtue of fat and the evil of carbohydrate. Nonetheless there are nearly a dozen randomized controlled trials of obese people trying to lose weight that show those on a low-carb diet do as well or better in the short and long term as people on conventional low-fat, low-calorie diets."

March 3, 2010 | Allentown Morning Call

A new campaign by the Special Olympics aims to get people to think about how the word ''retard'' can hurt people living with mental retardation and those who care for them. Temple sociologist Matt Wray has researched such terms. ''Words like idiot and imbecile and moron, these words were coined at the beginning of the 20th century not as insults but as scientific categories,'' he said. Wray said those old designations have metastasized over the decades. ''What starts out as an attempt to be objective and scientific in labeling gets caught up with popular ideas of stigma and shame."

March 3, 2010 | phillyburbs.com

Temple Ambler's exhibit "METROmorphosis: Transforming the Urban World" has won the Academic Educational category at the 2010 Philadelphia International Flower Show. The exhibit represented months of design, planting, nurturing, construction, ingenuity, creativity and collaboration by dozens of students and faculty in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture. "'METROmorphosis' demonstrates ways to increase biodiversity, conserve natural resources and promote local food production, thus transforming the urban landscape," said Associate Professor Baldev Lamba.

March 3, 2010 | WOSU-AM (Columbus, Ohio)
Robert Whitaker of Temple's Center for Obesity Research and Education joined "All Sides" to discuss his recent study on how household routines can help cut the risk of childhood obesity. Whitaker's study found that children who got a reasonable amount of sleep, watched less television and often had dinner with their families were less at risk of developing obesity later in life. "Nearly every aspect of a child's life, when taken together, could be a contributing factor for obesity," he said. "Our findings can help start the family dialogue for implementing changes for a more healthy lifestyle."


March 2, 2010 | Slate
Proponents of integrating schools socioeconomically argue that middle class families benefit the public schools they join. That's because going to school with many children from middle-class families boosts their lower-income peers' academic achievement. Then there are the parents. In a recent study, Erin Horvat and Maia Cucchiara of Temple University’s College of Education found that not all parental involvement by wealthier parents in urban public schools is created equal. At one of the two urban schools they studied, Horvat and Cucchiara found that parents strove to improve the school as a whole. At the other, they focused more narrowly on improving their own children's experience.