story by KATHERINE KOPP
“The Rabbit Effect: Live Longer, Happier, and Healthier with the Groundbreaking Science of Kindness” by Kelli Harding, M.D., MPH, explores how small daily choices can nurture our emotional well-being, which can help our physical health.
There is a large, homemade sign on a road not far from my home. Written in bright colors and decorated with illustrations of hearts
and honeybees, it says, “If you can be anything, BEE KIND!”
The sign reminds me—and anyone who passes by—that kindness is an action and a choice. We can choose to be kind, we can choose to be indifferent, or we can choose to be unkind in the opportunities we have to interact with others in our daily lives.
As adults, we all remember times we were treated unkindly as children or teens. Perhaps we were slighted by someone we thought was a friend, or left out of an outing, or not invited to a birthday party.
And as parents, we have undoubtedly witnessed our own children being the recipients of unkind actions—or sometimes, we have witnessed or learned that they have been unkind to others.
Empathy and kindness don’t always come naturally to human beings. But being kind is an action that adults can model, helping children to learn by example.
The Rabbit Effect
In her book, “The Rabbit Effect: Live Longer, Happier, and Healthier with the Groundbreaking Science of Kindness,” Kelli Harding, M.D., MPH, says, “Each small daily choice we make nurtures our emotional well-being or aggravates our stress in a way that helps or hinders our physical health.”
The book takes its title from a 1978 study in New Zealand that examined white male rabbits, which develop heart disease when fed a high-fat diet, much like humans do.
Robert Nerem, Ph.D., a pioneering American biomedical engineer, and his team fed a group of rabbits the same high-fat diet over several months. At the end of the study, the rabbits’ cholesterol levels, heart rates and blood pressure were measured. The cholesterol values of all the rabbits were high and were similar to one another.
However, when Nerem examined the rabbits’ blood vessels, he found a huge variation in the fatty deposits within the vessels, with some of the rabbits having 60% fewer fatty deposits than the others.
On further exploration, it turned out that the group of rabbits with fewer fatty deposits had been cared for by a researcher who talked to the rabbits, and cuddled and petted them when she fed them. The other group of rabbits had simply been given their food each day.
Nerem repeated the experiment with tight controls and the study results were the same. As Harding writes, “Take a rabbit with an unhealthy lifestyle. Talk to it. Hold it. Give it affection. And many adverse effects of diet disappear. The relationship made a difference.”
She further explains, “It wasn’t diet or genetics that made a difference in which rabbits got sick and which stayed healthy. It was kindness.”
Just as rabbits and other creatures benefit from kind and loving actions, so do human beings. Studies show that treating people with respect and demonstrating concern and care can contribute not only to the physical, emotional and mental health of the person being cared for but also to the caregiver’s well-being.
Helping Kids Grow With Heart
How can parents, grandparents and other important adults help nurture empathy in children?
Teaching kindness starts early—sometimes it’s as simple as telling a frustrated toddler, ‘Don’t hit! Use your words!’” With elementary school-age children, parents can encourage kids to invite shy classmates to join a game at recess or sit with them at lunch. Parents can help teens sign up for volunteer opportunities that provide a framework of caring, such as assisting at a community kitchen or being a buddy to a child with special needs.
At home, demonstrate caring and kindness by having children take on chores that help others in the family: setting the table before meals, folding laundry for other family members or assisting a younger sibling with homework. Show compassion for others outside of the home by volunteering in your community, at your child’s school or your place of worship to help those less fortunate. Kids can help parents organize food drives for a neighborhood food pantry, pack meals to send to people in need at church or community events, or gather books and puzzles to donate to local shelters or a hospital playroom.
Adults are frequently reluctant to give money to the person holding a cardboard sign at the intersection, fearing that giving money might be used for drugs or alcohol. But we rarely know the story behind the person asking for help. Giving a dollar, a snack or a bottle of water to a person in need can show your children the importance of being kind to strangers.
As Aesop taught, “No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted.” If parents and other adults make it a habit to show kindness to others, children will take note and begin to imitate these actions. And eventually, demonstrating kindness and caring will become second nature.