Cartoons beat out Mom

Sunday, August 27, 2006 Cartoons beat out Mom Watching TV cartoons works better than Mom's soothing words and caresses to distract kids from pain, according to a small study in the Archives of Disease in Childhood. Researchers randomly assigned 69 children between ages 7 and 12 to three groups; all had blood drawn. In the first group, no distraction was offered; in the second, the child's mother consoled the child; the third group watched cartoons starting two minutes before the procedure. The cartoon-watchers rated the pain of the procedure lowest — about one-third the intensity of the undistracted kids. Time and bother Unwanted facial hair costs women considerable time and high levels of emotional distress, report London researchers in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research. Among 88 women with facial hair who answered a questionnaire on the subject, the mean amount of time they spent per week on hair removal was 104 minutes.