Health roundup: Best baby book, Ebola, sugary kid food, the wrong kind of diet

This week’s health roundup starts two food fights, questions the wisdom of most popular baby books and why we manage to be disappointed whether the news is good or bad.

The only baby book you’ll ever need | New York Times

“Professor Lancy, who teaches at Utah State University, has pored over the anthropology literature to collect insights from a range of culture types, along with primate studies, history and his own fieldwork in seven countries. He’s not explicitly writing for parents. Yet through factoids and analysis, he demonstrates something that American parents desperately need to hear: Children are raised in all sorts of ways, and they all turn out just fine.”

The dangers of the appearance-driven diet | The Atlantic

A new study found that when people focus on looks, they’re less tuned in to the body’s signals of hunger and fullness.

As Ebola ebbs in Africa, focus turns from death to life | New York Times

Instead of reaching over 1 million cases this month as had been predicted, the end of Africa’s Ebola epidemic is in sight. Reporting from Liberia, one of the hardest-hit nations, the NYTimes finds that while the U.S. and international organizations deserve credit for marshaling a massive relief effort, doctors say what made the biggest difference are the changes big and small residents made in their daily lives.

Toddler food often has too much salt, sugar | Associated Press

“About 7 in 10 toddler dinners studied contained too much salt, and most cereal bars, breakfast pastries and snacks for infants and toddlers contained extra sugars, according to a new study, which notes that almost one in four U.S. children ages 2 to 5 are overweight or obese.”

There’s no such thing as nacho cheese | Bloomberg

A reporter set out to define what exactly constitutes nacho cheese and returned with an “absurd, long-winded, and utterly unresolved discussion” about a food that the food industry can’t agree on.

Let down by the blizzard that wasn’t | New York Magazine

“Expectations have a funny effect on our happiness, as many psychologists have discovered using a variety of creative experiments over the years.”

Disneyland, measles and madness|New York Times

“You can be so privileged that you’re underprivileged, so blessed with choices that you choose to be a fool, so “informed” that you’re misinformed. Which brings us to Disneyland, measles and the astonishing fact that a scourge once essentially eliminated in this country is back.”