The Dish

Jessica Grose flags a new study questioning the long-term benefits of breastfeeding:

[Ohio State University professor Cynthia Colen] looked at more than 8,000 children total, about 25 percent of whom were in “discordant sibling pairs,” which means one was bottle-fed and the other was breast-fed. The study then measured those siblings for 11 outcomes, including BMI, obesity, asthma, different measures of intelligence, hyperactivity, and parental attachment.

When children from different families were compared, the kids who were breast-fed did better on those 11 measures than kids who were not breast-fed. But, as Colen points out, mothers who breast-feed their kids are disproportionately advantaged—they tend to be wealthier and better educated. When children fed differently within the same family were compared—those discordant sibling pairs—there was no statistically significant difference in any of the measures, except for asthma. Children who were breast-fed were at a higher risk for asthma than children who drank formula.

But the study does not dispute the other benefits of breastfeeding:

Colen and [co-author David] Ramey did not examine the short-term protection against chest and gut infections, because these have been most clearly demonstrated by previous research. Breast is still best, says Colen, but the findings suggest that health systems should put less effort into promoting breastfeeding and more into other ways to help poorer households, she says.

Another recent study attributes the higher IQs commonly associated with breastfeeding to other factors:

[A] new study by sociologists at Brigham Young University pinpoints two parenting skills as the real source of this cognitive boost: Responding to children’s emotional cues and reading to children starting at 9 months of age. Breastfeeding mothers tend to do both of those things, said lead study author Ben Gibbs. “It’s really the parenting that makes the difference,” said Gibbs. “Breastfeeding matters in others ways, but this actually gives us a better mechanism and can shape our confidence about interventions that promote school readiness.”

A former Columbia Pictures producer, Michael Cieply, recently waxed nostalgic (NYT) for a time when “studios routinely made movies with overtly religious themes for the mainstream audience.” He’s not sure films like the soon-to-be released Noah (trailer above) can undo the “years of neglect or occasional hostility” that made believers wary of Hollywood:

For months, Hollywood has been buzzing about the film’s postproduction woes. Under the guidance of Paramount’s vice chairman, Rob Moore, who says he is a devout Christian but has also been eager for a mainstream hit, “Noah” has been screened for test audiences, who have been lukewarm, regardless of their beliefs.

As described recently in The Hollywood Reporter, various editing teams tried to make the film more appealing to Christian audiences without much improving the results, eventually leaving creative control with [director Darren] Aronofsky. One complaint, according to the publication, was a sense among religious viewers that the movie, at its core, was appropriating the biblical account of the flood to preach about current concerns like overpopulation and environmental abuse. That churchgoers should be leery of a progressive agenda wrapped in Scripture is perhaps understandable, given Hollywood’s recent treatment of religious characters, who are often hypocrites and villains, driving plot lines that make, at best, a token bow toward the virtues of a faith-based life.

In response, Linker argues that religious people should be happy that Hollywood doesn’t offer them more:

Cieply’s article will no doubt provide aid and comfort to the religious right by confirming its suspicions about Hollywood’s barely concealed contempt for faith. But those who care more about artistic quality than quantitative point-scoring will have a hard time getting worked up about Cieply’s lament.

Yes, Hollywood produces relatively few films about religious subjects and themes. But that might not be a bad thing for religion. Religion is a serious subject, and Hollywood doesn’t do well with serious subjects — because Hollywood’s goal is to make money, not art. If the major studios started producing more big-budget movies on religious topics, all we’d end up with are more dumbed-down portrayals of religion.

Millman contends that economics, more than animus toward religion, drives Hollywood:

Cieply’s complaint seems to be about marketing rather than about substance – he’s interested in films that “appeal to a Christian audience.” As Cieply knows, there is a whole industry of Christian filmmaking out there providing that kind of product. Hollywood is perfectly good at flattering its audience – that’s its standard modus operandi, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Hollywood tried to break into a lucrative niche market. And if it doesn’t, then Christian filmmakers will fill the void – they are already doing so, much as Tyler Perry has done with a different lucrative niche market that Hollywood has had trouble cracking.

But what Cieply seems to want is a variety of mass-market films with a sensibility that flatters a specifically religious audience. The barriers to that, though, aren’t some kind of anti-religious bias in Hollywood, which was likely as secular in the 1950s as it now, and just as focused on the bottom line. It’s changes in film economics – and cultural changes in the larger society.