Donald Trump And State GOP Voters, Kaspar Spider Collection, Commenting On A Child’s Weight

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• Study: Parents Should Avoid Commenting On Child's Weight

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  Parents who are concerned about their children being overweight should avoid directly commenting on their child’s weight and instead lead by example, according to a new study.

  “Talk less about weight and do more to help your children engage in healthy eating and physical activity,” said Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, an adolescent health expert at the University of Minnesota, after more than a decade’s worth of research.

  Neumark-Sztainer’s research studied a cohort of 2,000 children over 15 years and found that good intentions can backfire on parents.

  “What we found was that parents who recognized that their children were overweight didn’t really do anything healthier at home,” she said. “They didn’t have more family meals, didn’t serve more fruits and vegetables. The only thing that they did differently was encourage their children to diet and lose weight.”

  Children who were encouraged by a parent to diet actually ended up gaining weight over time, according to the study.

  The results don’t mean that parents should never talk about weight, exercise or an active lifestyle, Neumark-Sztainer said. Instead, parents should model and put the focus on healthier behaviors.

• Trump's Uphill Battle In Wisconsin Continues, New Marquette Poll Shows

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  The latest round of presidential race polling among Wisconsin Republicans shows that presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign is still suffering a hangover from the state’s primary election.

  A Marquette University Law School poll released Wednesday found that 59 percent of state Republicans said they want Trump as their party’s nominee, while 39 percent preferred someone else. Among all registered voters, Trump faces a 63-percent unfavorable rating.

  While those numbers are an improvement to the majority of Republicans in the state holding an unfavorable view of Trump during the Wisconsin primary, it’s very unusual for a party’s presumptive nominee at this point in the race, said Craig Gilbert, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Washington bureau chief.

  “It’s looking better than it did in March, which is not saying a whole lot because his numbers were really abysmally bad leading up to and through the Wisconsin primary,” he said.

  A shrinking electoral map only adds to the GOP’s concerns, Gilbert said. The party’s lost ground in Colorado and Virginia, and Republicans will need to look to flip other states. Among the states thought to be in play are Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

  Wisconsin’s demographics reflect a pool of voters who would typically support Trump, Gilbert said. However, Trump suffered arguably his worst loss during the Wisconsin primary, thanks in large part to an impressive anti-Trump campaign mounted by conservative talk radio outlets and Gov. Scott Walker.

  To put a state like Wisconsin in play, at a minimum Trump needs to have a unified party and to mobilize voters in densely Republican parts of the state, like Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington counties, Gilbert said. However, that’s where he appears to be weakest.

  “He’s still got some work to do to get where he needs to be if he wants to put Wisconsin in play in November,” Gilbert said.

  Luckily for Trump, his presumed Democratic challenger isn’t all that popular either. Hillary Clinton’s unfavorable rating sits at 58 percent, according to the Marquette poll. Clinton still leads Trump by a 6-point margin among registered voters and by 4 points among likely voters.

• Major Spider Collection Donated To UW-Green Bay

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  Wisconsin’s largest collection of spiders was donated to the Richter Museum of Natural History at University of Wisconsin-Green Bay earlier this year, opening the door for more research into the arachnids.

  The Kaspar spider collection holds 10,000 specimens from arachnologist John “Jack” Kaspar’s 30-year career at UW-Oshkosh.

  “It’s valuable for several reasons, partly because he identified a huge number of the specimens, so we can use those specimens as a reference to identify other things,” said Michael Draney, a professor of biology and chair of the Department of Natural and Applied Sciences at UW-Green Bay.

  The most important thing about the Kaspar spider collection is the historical value of the spiders, said Draney, one of the only biologists studying spiders in the state.

  “They really represent almost the only spiders that were collected at least in any numbers during the 90s, 80s, 70s and 60s, and so in order to compare what we have today with what used to be in Wisconsin, it’s really the most important resource that we have,” Draney said.

  Draney is currently using the spider collection for research surrounding the cellar spider. In studying this common Wisconsin house spider, biologists realized there are two distinct species: a smaller cellar spider and a larger cellar spider.

  “Looking back into John Kaspar’s collection, we see that the larger spiders have actually been in Wisconsin as long as Kaspar has been collecting, since the 1960s,” Draney said. “It seems to have always been common.”

  However, the first time the smaller cellar spider was collected was in 1989, by one of Kaspar’s students.

  The cellar spider isn’t native to Wisconsin so Draney is working with other biologists to find out how and when they arrived in Wisconsin.

• Donald Trump's Uphill Battle With State GOP Voters

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  The Republican National Convention is fast approaching, but presumptive nominee Donald Trump is still having issues generating excitement among state GOP voters. Our guest talks about what’s holding him back, and how the convention can help his cause.

• Giant Spider Collection Donated To The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

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  Earlier this year a major spider collection with ten thousand specimens was donated to UW-Green Bay. Arachnologist John Kaspar collected the spiders during his 30-year career at UW-Oshkosh. It’s the largest collection of spiders in Wisconsin. We talk to an expert who will work with this collection about how significant it will be to the university and to his research.

• Should Parents Avoid Commenting On Their Kid's Weight?

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  Parents might find themselves in a bind when they notice that their child might be overweight. Telling a child to be more weight-conscious could shame them, but not saying anything might be failing to address what could be a long-term health issue. A new study says that its best not to comment on a child’s weight, and we talk to an adolescent health expert about how to best address a child’s health and nutrition needs.