Lynn McIntyre

Feeling Poor: The Felt Experience Low-Income Lone Mothers

This article describes what it means to feel poor from the perspective of low-income lone mothers. The construct of feeling poor is complex and multifaceted for these mothers, whose common behaviors include self-sacrifice and coping. The authors identify 10 feeling domains for these mothers: feeling deprived, righteous, the need for occupational choice, relatively better positioned than others, the need to manage the appearance of poverty, judged/degraded, guilty, isolated, dependent, and despondent.

Negative Predictive Value of a Population-based Preschool Vision Screening Program

BACKGROUND The Enhanced Vision Screening Program is a population-based vision screening program that has, at present, examined 59,782 children. Its main goal is to detect amblyopia, strabismus, and high refractive errors. An average of 11,910 4 1/2- to 5 1/2-year-old children are screened yearly. The current study determines the negative predictive value of the screening program: For a subject having passed the vision screening test, what is the probability of not having amblyopia, strabismus, or high refractive errors? METHODS Of the 11,734 subjects who passed the vision screening, 200 were randomly chosen to undergo a strictly defined gold standard examination by an orthoptist and an ophthalmologist. RESULTS Of the 200 randomly chosen subjects, 157 underwent the gold standard evaluation. The negative predictive value of the Enhanced Vision Screening Program was 97.6% for any potentially vision-threatening ocular condition. It was 98.7% if we considered only the visually significant ocular problems that the test was designed to detect. CONCLUSION Because the negative predictive value of the Enhanced Vision Screening Program is not 100%, some children with amblyopia, strabismus, or refractive errors are missed. Occasionally, a rare, potentially vision-threatening condition may go undetected. Parents should be made aware of this when they receive the results of the vision screening.

The failure of charitable school- and community-based nutrition programmes to feed hungry children

Growing rates of child poverty in Canada and recognition of relationships among poverty, compromised nutrition, health and educational opportunities have led to a proliferation of child-feeding programmes. The purpose of this paper is to explore the contributions of charitable school- and community-based nutrition programmes toward meeting their goal of feeding hungry children through a critical ethnography of nine diverse programmes in Atlantic Canada. Data were collected through participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Findings revealed that programmes were initiated in response to perceived hunger rather than to documented need, and were characterized by an ideology of service. Although some hungry children were being fed, only a minority of the target population was being reached. Failure to reach poor children could be partly attributed to parental resistance for fear of stigmatization. To a large extent, feeding hungry children became displaced by goals of nutritional improvement for all children, and care-giving. Programmes, therefore, largely failed in their mandate. The programmes believed they provided a solution to child hunger, yet the authors observed cases in which feeding programmes were alienating and stigmatizing, weakening the status of poor children and families. The charitable model keeps hunger out of public debate by drawing attention away from the underlying causes. This depoliticization legitimizes hunger as a matter of charity, not social justice. Alternatively, the social justice model attempts to reduce dependency and programme need through a commitment to addressing poverty and social inequities. If conceived from a social justice rather than a charitable perspective, it is possible that child-feeding programmes may be part of a comprehensive strategy to enhance food security through poverty reduction.

Exploratory analysis of children's nutrition programs in Canada.

This survey examined the processes by which programs feeding hungry children in Canada are initiated, implemented and sustained. The responses of 32 operators of these programs were obtained by semi-structured telephone interviews and were analysed using qualitative research methods. Concerned citizens within the community and teachers were the major proponents for programs; their primary indicators of need were childrens hunger-related behaviours. Programs generally provided the breakfast or lunch meal, were overseen by a board, and were operated by a mix of paid and volunteer staff. A lack of resources, problems with parents and the community, and managerial stresses were the main perceived barriers to program continuance. Programs run by communities generally had more need for resources, expressed lower confidence in their sustainability, and were less likely to cooperate with other groups than school-run programs. While some programs deliberately tried to avoid stigmatization, program operators did hold some prejudicial views about the communities they served and few programs could be considered empowering to users.

The dragnet of children's feeding programs in Atlantic Canada

Ivan Illichs 1976 prediction that medical dragnets will continue was correct. Now quasi-health dragnets are being established ostensibly to feed children perceived to be hungry. Our qualitative, multi-site case study found that programs justify their expansion to non-target group children as a means of reducing stigmatization, while reaching only an estimated one-third of targeted children. The dragnet continues as new services are added and franchising is proposed while the purpose of the program feeding healthy foods to children ultimately succumbs to drives for efficiency and the desire to maintain the program itself. In this field of social power relations, children become commodified through dialectical interplays among fundamental needs, manipulated needs, benevolence, and domination.

Nordic ski jumping injuries A survey of active American jumpers

Little data are available in the medical literature on nordic ski jumping injuries. Injury questionnaires were sent to all active American ski jumpers registered either with the United States Ski Association or with a jumping club registered with the United States Ski Association. One hundred thirty-three of 286 (46.5%) injury ques tionnaires were returned. Eighty-one of the 133 re spondents (60.9%) had been injured sufficiently to re quire examination by a physician at least once during their jumping careers. This report describes the types and frequencies of injuries sustained by this group of nordic ski jumpers as well as provides demographic data about American ski jumpers. The risk of injury per 100 participant years was 9.4, a rate less than that reported for most high school or college intermural sports.