Children’s Health

6 Ways To Raise Kids With Healthy Habits

As much as we might like to, we can’t protect our kids from every bump or scrape or bruised ego. Boo-boos happen. Feelings get hurt. We can’t avoid the crumpled face of a toddler about to cry, or the slammed door of a frustrated teenager. Our kids have to learn some things on their own.

But if we want our kids to have the best chance of living a healthy life, we’ve got to equip them now with the right mindset and habits to take with them into adulthood.

6 Ways To Raise Kids With Healthy Habits

As a health coach and fitness trainer, I’m often asked how I got my three kids (all young adults now) on board with healthy lifestyles. (Believe me, they aren’t perfect … but they make healthy choices most of the time.) My daughter is a vegan, ballerina and into yoga. My two sons love playing hockey and water sports, and sometimes I even catch them looking their food up on Fooducate to see if it’s healthy. That makes me one proud mama.

So I gave it some thought and here are six things you can do to influence your kids to choose a healthy lifestyle.

1. Practice what you preach.

You can’t ask your kids to do things you don’t do. You can’t ask them to eat their veggies if you never do, nor can you preach the health benefits of exercise if you never get out there and sweat. Your kids are watching you. Your actions speak volumes. My kids watched me work out regularly, make healthier desserts, find delicious ways to prepare veggies, make smoothies or healthy snacks and drink lots of water. Our kids pick up our habits.

Pay attention to what you say about yourself, too. Focus on positive self-talk and favorable statements about your body. If you’re obsessed with the scale, you are teaching your kids to be obsessed with the scale. Show them a healthy relationship to your body and to food. Focus on the positive. When my kids got on the school bus I’d always say, “The glass is half empty or half full today; it’s up to you.”

2. Make dinnertime a learning time.

At the dinner table, when my kids were little, I’d ask them: What on your plate is a protein? What’s a carb? We’d talk about how you need carbs for energy and how proteins help your muscles work. We’d chat about some of the health benefits found in veggies, or how fruit is nature’s dessert. They learned that food is fuel for the body.

I’d play a game with my kids called plant, animal or tree that spurred lots of conversation. I’d have them name where their food came from and we’d talk about how things grow. If your food is processed and comes from a box, it makes it a tough game to play.

3. Put yourself first.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a family whiteboard in our mudroom and every Sunday night I write everyone’s schedule on it for the entire week. If my kids see: “Mom is working out from 9am to 10am” they know that’s not a good time to ask me anything. They learned to respect my time. When my kids saw me prioritizing my health, they learned to do the same. Sacrificing ourselves and our needs for the sake of our kids (the whole martyr thing) only teaches our kids that we don’t value ourselves. And don’t forget that when you take care of yourself, you’re better equipped to take care of your kids — mentally and physically.

4. Pick your battles.

I battled with my kids about why we don’t eat white bread and why I wouldn’t buy it. They’d see it at school and want to have it at home for sandwiches. I explained why it isn’t healthy and why I wouldn’t budge. You can’t control what your kids are exposed to at school, but you can control meal options at home. I’d always acknowledge how my kids felt and validate their emotions, but I stayed consistent.

I don’t eat fast food, so we didn’t make regular weekly trips to the golden arches. Sometimes we all opt for what’s easy, especially when a day goes haywire, but as long as your choices are healthy most of the time, your kids get the message. If we were on a road trip, we might pick a quick restaurant that doesn’t have a drive-through (think Chipotle or Subway) as those tend to be a little bit healthier than the fast food options.

5. Be active together as a family and make it fun.

I always say: The most important workout is the one you do. If you despise something, you probably won’t do it, and you definitely won’t stick with it. Find a type of exercise you love to do and encourage your kids to do the same. Get active as a whole family. You don’t have to sign up for a triathlon, just get off the couch. Go to a park. Visit some museums. Go to a fair. Simply have a goal to move more and get every day activity. Go for a hike, swim or bike, or try something new like paddle boarding. If your kids learn that exercise time can be fun time — solo or as a family — what more could you ask for?

6. Get your kids involved in sports.

Give your kids a chance to try a sport. Let your kids decide a sport to try and experiment to find the one they like. If team sports aren’t for them, how about individual sports like swimming, golf, tennis, sailing, karate, wrestling, or dance?

Team sports build camaraderie, teach teamwork, and encourage friendships. Sports show kids to believe in their bodies and what their bodies can do, take care of their health, learn leadership skills and work as a team. Kids learn about winning and losing. Many adults recall a favorite coach who became a mentor and was a positive influence. Sports teach skills that can last a lifetime.

When our kids see us blazing a healthy path, they just might follow in our footsteps.

Source; mind body green

What Should Kids Drink???

Most kids drink very little fluids. The body needs a large amount of fluid to be able to function properly. A child of five or six years of age should drink at least a liter of fluid per day. But not artificially sweetened beverages.

What Should Kids Drin

Water is vital.

The human body is composed from 50 to 80% of water depends on the age. The loss of only 2% of water can lead to fatigue and inattention, slowed reactions and lack of strength. Loss of water from 3% can lead to headaches or constipation.

And when this happens, the body signals the reduced amount of water in the form of thirst. But too often we are so busy that we simply overlook that warning. This especially happens to children. It is important to regularly remind them to drink water.

Research Institute for food for children recommends children aged five to six years should drink minimum 800 milliliters of fluid, and school children about 1 liter. The teenager needs at least 1,5 liter. On hot days, if they are are practicing some sports, they need to drink twice as much fluid than usual.

List of drinks.

  • – Perfect drink for quenching thirst is water, whether mineral or plain. Herbal and fruit teas are also recommended.
  • Tasty, but contain a lot of calories: clear fruit juices contain a lot of vitamins, minerals and fruit sugar too who contains calories. For this reason, you should dilute fruit juice with water in 1:1 ratio.
  • – For children its not recommended drinks which are containing artificial sweeteners, ACE juices, coffee, black and green tea, Coca-Cola, ice tea and energy drinks.
  • Fruit juices are manufactured from 100% fruit contain vitamins and minerals that depend on the variety and 10% of fruit sugar.
  • – Fruit nectar has 25 to 50% fruit, less vitamins and minerals and 12% sugar.
  • – Diluted fruit juice contains 30% fruit, sugar and the rest is water. Such juices often contain artificial colors and artificial sweeteners.
  • Packed lemonade contains 15% fruit, 12% sugar, artificial color, artificial flavor and artificial sweetener.

Tip:
Artificial flavor or artificial color are not healthy for children. If you want to avoid them read at the ingredients on the bottle.

Should children drink only water?

Water is the healthiest liquid that can quench the thirst for both children and adults. What is true for eating, same goes for drinking: you should not eat or drink only healthy but tasty too. Adults sometimes allow themselves an occasional glass of wine, cocktail or Coca-Cola, so sometimes children need to drink something sweet.

For example, for the sunday lunch, a birthday or going out in restaurant you should mix half the amount of fruit juice and half water for perfect drink for kids. The drink that makes children especially happy is water with rubber candies. Put a red, green and yellow rubber candy in a glass of water. It is very interesting for them!

Source: secretly healthy

Newborn’s Infection Came from Probiotics, Study Suggests

Probiotics, or “good bacteria,” are generally thought to be safe for most people, but a newborn in Poland appears to have developed an infection after he was given a probiotic product, according to a new report of the case.

The baby was born at full term, but was small — he weighed about 5 lbs. (2.3 kg). The doctors diagnosed him with intrauterine growth restriction, meaning he had grown at a slower rate than normal while in the womb.

Newborn's Infection Came from Probiotics, Study Suggests

When the baby was two days old, tests suggested he had an infection, and although this was not confirmed, he was started on antibiotics as a precaution while further tests were done. Doctors also gave the baby a probiotic product, containing the bacteria Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG, to prevent diarrhea or other complications from the antibiotics. Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG is used in some popular probiotics yogurts and supplements, such as Culturelle.

Four days later, the baby’s antibiotic was switched, and a blood sample taken on that same day tested positive for an infection with Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG. A genetic test showed that the strain that caused the boy’s infection was the same strain found in the probiotic product, the researchers said. The infant was “very touch-sensitive” and cried a lot, the researchers said

Studies have suggested that probiotics do not appear to be harmful for healthy children, but whether they have benefits is not clear either, and the American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend probiotics as standard care for babies. In addition, some groups of people are known to be at risk for adverse effects resulting from probiotics — including people with impaired immune systems — but warning labels are rarely seen on probiotics, the researchers said.

The new findings suggest that babies with intrauterine growth restriction “might be a new potential risk group … for which safe use of probiotics needs careful attention,” the researchers, from Poland’s National Institute of Public Health, wrote in the July 17 issue of the journal Beneficial Microbes.

There is an urgent need to develop standard guidelines for exactly how probiotics should be used in patients with health conditions that may put them at risk for complications, the researchers said.

Because the new study involved just one child, the findings do not necessarily apply to all children with intrauterine growth restriction, said Dr. William Muinos, co-director of the gastroenterology department at Miami Children’s Hospital, who was not involved in the study.

But the case could alert doctors to the possibility of a risk for children with this condition, and doctors should consider this risk, and weigh it against the possible benefits of probiotics, before using probiotics in these kids, Muinos said.

Even though this infant was on antibiotics at the time of the infection, probiotic bacteria can be resistant to certain types of antibiotics, Muinos said.

Muinos said he does not routinely recommend probiotics for infants younger than 3 months old. Probiotics may pose risks to infants because the lining of a newborn’s intestinal tract is less mature, and could allow some bacteria to seep into the blood stream, he said.

For most babies, the natural way of acquiring gut bacteria — through breastfeeding and normal interactions with the environment — “is probably the safest way,” Muinos said. Doctors continued to treat the baby in Poland with antibiotics for two weeks, until his infection cleared. He went home from the hospital when he was about 1 month old, according to the report.

The researchers noted that although Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG was detected in the baby’s blood, it’s possible that another, undetected microbe was causing the baby’s symptoms.

Source: yahoo news

 

A little video gaming ‘produces well-adjusted children’

Playing video games for a short period each day could have a small but positive impact on child development, a study by Oxford University suggests.

Scientists found young people who spent less than an hour a day engaged in video games were better adjusted than those who did not play at all. But children who used consoles for more than three hours reported lower satisfaction with their lives overall.

A little video gaming 'produces well-adjusted children'

The research is published in the journal Pediatrics. Experimental psychologist Dr Andrew Przybylski analysed British surveys involving 5,000 young people aged 10 to 15 years old.

Social interactions
Some 75% of those questioned said they played video games daily. Children were asked to quantify how much time they spent gaming on a typical school day – using consoles or computers.

They then rated a number of factors, including:

  • Satisfaction with their lives
  • How well they got on with peers
  • How likely they were to help people in difficulty
  • Levels of hyperactivity and inattention
  • The answers were combined to assess levels of psychological and social adjustment.

When compared with all other groups, including those who played no video games at all, young people reporting under an hour of play each day were most likely to say they were satisfied with their lives and showed the highest levels of positive social interactions.

The group also had fewer problems with emotional issues and lower levels of hyperactivity.

According to the results, people who spent more than three hours playing games were the least well adjusted.

‘Digital world’
Dr Przybylski says there may be numerous reasons behind this. He told “In a research environment that is often polarised between those who believe games have an extremely beneficial role and those who link them to violent acts, this research could provide a new, more nuanced standpoint.

“Being engaged in video games may give children a common language.

“And for someone who is not part of this conversation, this might end up cutting the young person off.”

He argues that policies and guidelines that impose limits on the use of this technology need to take such evidence into account.

Dr Przybylski points out that though the effect of video games on children is statistically significant in this study, factors such as the strength of family relationships play a larger role.

Dr Iroise Dumontheil, of Birkbeck, University of London, who was not involved in the research, said: “Other studies have shown that playing first-person shooter games, but not other types, can lead to increased visuospatial processing and memory abilities.

“Further research would help to determine whether particular types of game help or hinder adolescents as they adjust to the changes they experience during development.”

Source: BBC

Turn off TV when kids aren’t watching, advise researchers

Researchers at the University of Iowa say children’s social and emotional development is enhanced in the absence of a television playing in the background while they’re doing something else, like playing a game or interacting with friends and family.

After looking into the impact of television on young children’s cognitive development, they also suggest that non-educational programming should be avoided.

Turn off TV when kids aren't watching, advise researchers

“Kids are going to learn from whatever you put in front of them,” says Deborah Linebarger, associate professor in education at the UI and the lead author on the study, published online in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics.

“So what kinds of messages, what kinds of things do you want them to learn? That would be the kinds of media you’d purposefully expose them to.”

In the study, researchers employed data from a US survey of 1,150 families with children between two and eight years old.

Taking into account demographics and parenting styles when assessing what affects children’s success, the team found an association between media content and executive function, a term used to describe general cognitive regulation. Specifically, they found that educational television increased executive function.

As for background TV, they found that it can divert a child’s attention from play and learning.

“Children whose parents create a home environment that is loving and nurturing and where rules and expectations are the same from one time to another are better able to control their behavior, display more empathy, and do better academically,” says Linebarger.

Source: ctv

Spanking the gray matter out of our kids

How to discipline the next generation is a hotly debated topic. In 2012, a national survey showed more than half of women and three-quarters of men in the United States believe a child sometimes needs a “good hard spanking.”

Science tells a different story. Researchers say physical punishment actually alters the brain — not only in an “I’m traumatized” kind of way but also in an “I literally have less gray matter in my brain” kind of way.

black_mom_child_laughing

“Exposing children to HCP (harsh corporal punishment) may have detrimental effects on trajectories of brain development,” one 2009 study concluded.

Harsh corporal punishment in the study was defined as at least one spanking a month for more than three years, frequently done with objects such as a belt or paddle. Researchers found children who were regularly spanked had less gray matter in certain areas of the prefrontal cortex that have been linked to depression, addiction and other mental health disorders, the study authors say.

The researchers also found “significant correlations” between the amount of gray matter in these brain regions and the children’s performance on an IQ test

Several other studies support these findings. A 2010 study published in Pediatrics found that frequent — more than twice in the previous month — spanking when a child was 3 was linked to an increased risk for higher levels of child aggression when the child was 5.

Another, from the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma, found that corporal punishment doled out from the mother was independently related to a decrease in cognitive ability relative to other children. Corporal punishment had the largest effect on children 5 to 9.

Behind all this science-speak is the sobering fact that corporal punishment is damaging to children. That gray matter we’ve been spanking out of them? It’s the key to the brain’s ability to learn self-control.

“The more gray matter you have in the decision-making, thought-processing part of your brain (the prefrontal cortex), the better your ability to evaluate rewards and consequences,” write the authors of a 2011 study that appeared in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

The sad irony is that the more you physically punish your kids for their lack of self-control, the less they have. They learn how to be controlled by external forces (parents, teachers, bosses), but when the boss isn’t looking, then what?
Elizabeth Gershoff, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin, has been studying corporal punishment for 15 years, and is known as the leading researcher on spanking in the United States today. Over the years, Gershoff has done a systematic review of the hundreds of studies on the effects of corporal punishment.

“There’s no study that I’ve ever done that’s found a positive consequence of spanking,” Gershoff said. “Most of us will stop what we’re doing if somebody hits us, but that doesn’t mean we’ve learned why somebody hit us, or what we should be doing instead, which is the real motive behind discipline.”
Initially it was believed that spanking, at the very least, was associated with immediate compliance in children, and that parental warmth would buffer any harmful effects.

But the finding that spanking produced compliance “was overly influenced by one study,” Gershoff said; it turns out spanking “doesn’t make your kids better behaved. You think it does. … It doesn’t.”

What is spanking associated with? Aggression. Delinquency. Mental health problems. And something called “hostile attribution bias,” which causes children, essentially, to expect people to be mean to them.

This bias makes the world feel especially hostile. In turn, children are on edge and ready to be hostile back. Over time, across cultures and ethnicities, the findings are consistent: Spanking is doing real, measurable damage to the brains of our children.

And yet in 19 states, Gershoff notes, it is still legal for schools to paddle children.
For those thinking, “I was spanked, and I turned out fine,” or, “I spank my kids and they’re great!” consider that you don’t know who you would be or how your children would behave in a world without spanking.

Source: CNN

Accidental Overdose: Metric System Can Help Children’s Medicine

Accidental Overdose Metric System Can Help Children's Medicine

Parents aren’t doing a great job measuring out medications for their little ones — and the problem may be that we’re still using the so-called English system rather than switching to the metric system, a new study shows.

Busy multitasking parents make all kinds of medication errors, such as reading tablespoons for teaspoons, which results in three times the dose, or substituting a kitchen spoon for an actual teaspoon. That may at least partially explain the more than 10,000 annual calls to poison centers, researchers suggested in the study which published in Pediatrics.

The researchers found that when parents were given a prescription in teaspoons or tablespoons nearly 40 percent measured wrong, while more than 40 percent read the dosage off the prescription wrong. When prescriptions were written in metric units parents were half as likely to make mistakes. The findings suggest that medicines should switch to a milliliter-only standard, the researchers say.

Source: NBC news

Tooth decay is the biggest cause of primary school children

tooth decay

Rotting teeth is the most common cause of primary school aged children being admitted to hospital, new figures show

Almost 26,000 primary school children were treated for tooth decay in the past year, making it the most common reason youngsters are admitted to hospital, research shows.

Nearly 500 children aged five to nine were hospitalized due to rotten teeth each week in 2013-14. In some cases dentists are forced to remove all 20 baby teeth from their young patients.

The figures sparked further calls for a crackdown on sugary drinks and fruit juice. The number of hospital admissions for five to nine-year-olds with dental problems increased by more than 3000 in the just three years, from 22,574 in 2010-11 to 25,812 in 2013-14, according to the Health and Social Care Information Centre.

Graham Barnby, honorary vice-president of the British Dental Health Foundation, said: “It all relates to the consumption of sugary, fizzy drinks.” Kathryn Harley, a consultant in paediatric dentistry, said: “We have children who require all 20 of their baby teeth to be extracted. It beggars belief that their diets could produce such a drastic effect.”

She added: “They are going into hospital because they are either presenting with acute problems with pain or because the stage of dental disease, the number of teeth with decay, is such that they need a general anaesthetic.”
Ms Harley said most children need four to eight teeth removed but that having ten to 14 extracted is not uncommon.

She claimed fruit juice should be banned in schools to prevent the problem worsening and pointed the finger at parents who were “inadvertently responsible”.

NHS England also urged parents to take action to protect their childrens’ dental health. “We have some of the lowest rates of tooth decay in the world but these statistics are of course worrying,” the health body said in a statement.

“Parents of young children should discourage them from drinking fizzy drinks as this can lead to tooth decay.” The rising number of young tooth decay patients has also raised questions about whether dentists should carry out more childhood fillings.

Professor Jimmy Steele, head of the dentistry school at Newcastle University, said some dentists are unwilling to carry out filling due to uncertainty about their effectiveness.

They prefer to monitor decay in the baby teeth, he claimed. “Dentists are much less likely nowadays than they used to be to try to fill teeth using conventional measures,” he said.

Tonsillitis is the second most common reason for children of 5 to 9 being admitted to hospital, with 11,522 cases in 2012-13.

Source: The telegraph

Seven ways to keep kids hydrated

Seven ways to keep kids hydrated

Don’t wait for your kids to tell you they’re thirsty before offering them water, experts say. Instead, offer them water and other hydrating foods and beverages throughout the day, particularly in the summer when more liquids are needed to stay healthy.

By the time children are thirsty, they’re already at least 3 percent dehydrated, according to Dr. Holly Benjamin, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Orthopedic Surgery at University of Chicago.

And water does far more than slake thirst, said Marina Chaparro, spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. “Water is a cooling mechanism, it transports fluids and nutrients, helps with digestion, helps with cognitive function and maintains a healthy weight,” she told Reuters Health by email.

The amount of water a child needs to stay hydrated and healthy may surprise you: teenagers need as much as adults (eight to 11 cups), while even toddlers aged 1 to 3 should have four cups of fluids a day.

“I use a rule of thumb of 2 to 3 ounces per day per pound of body weight, to a maximum of 8 to 10 cups per day,” said Dr. Karl W. Holtzer, a pediatrician with the Pediatric Alliance Fox Chapel Division in Pittsburgh. In email to Reuters Health, he noted that water is not needed for infants under 6 months of age, and babies under 1 year can stay hydrated with breast milk or formula.

It’s particularly important to make sure active kids are getting their fill of water.

“Make sure they drink 30 minutes or so before an activity, and then every 20 minutes during the activity, especially during the summer months,” Holtzer said. While doctors advise against sugary drinks, they do say that a sports beverage containing electrolytes is okay during prolonged, vigorous exercise.

Aside from complaints of thirst, it can be hard to tell when a child is dehydrated. Some signs could be decreased or dark urine, dizziness and lethargy,

Parents can ensure that their kids get their recommended intake of fluids with these seven tips:

1. It doesn’t have to be water – many fruits and vegetables have a very high water content. Offer watermelon, strawberries, broccoli, celery, cucumbers and other watery fruits and veggies for snacks. Chaparro recommends five servings of fruits and vegetables each day.

2. Make sipping fun. Let your kids pick out their own drinking cups or travel bottles in their favorite colors or decorated with their favorite characters. Buy a set of crazy straws. Invest in ice cube trays that make ice in fun shapes.

3. If kids balk at drinking “boring” water, give it some flavor and color. Freeze berries or cranberries into ice cubes, or infuse water with fresh fruit, herbs or vegetables such as lemon, mint, watermelon or orange. Even adding unflavored soda to water makes it more of a treat – “bubbles without the calories,” says Chaparro. She also suggests using sugar-free drink mixes.

4. Make your own popsicles for a fluid-rich treat. Puree fruit or use no-sugar-added fruit juice and pour into freezer molds.

5. Make sure water is easily accessible for little ones. If they can’t reach the sink or the water tap in your refrigerator, set up an easy-to-use water dispenser and a few cups in a place where they can reach it.

6. Be prepared. Invest in an assortment of reusable travel bottles and keep them filled and in the fridge so you can grab them any time you head out for a walk, bike ride or car trip.

7. Create a reminder system for drinking water. This could be a chart on the refrigerator that kids can mark each time they have a serving of water, or, if you’re out and about, a timer set on your phone to remind the family that it’s time to take a drink.

Source: reuters

Cesarean section may cause epigenetic changes

Cesarean section may cause epigenetic changes

Researchers have found that the mode of delivery could make an imprint in the stem cells of the newborn infant. The finding may help explain why individuals born by cesarean section statistically have an increased risk of immunological diseases, researchers said.

“The biological mechanisms predisposing a foetus or a newborn infant to get a certain disease later in life are complex and depend on both genetic and environmental factors during formative years,” said Tomas Ekstrom, Professor of Molecular Cell Biology at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

“In this study, our focus has been whether the way a baby is born can have an impact on a cellular level in the form of epigenetic alterations in DNA,” Ekstrom said.

Epigenetic changes in the DNA of the cell nucleus occur when environmental factors affects the way the genes are encoded without altering the actual genetic code.

Thus, genes can be switched on and off to adapt body functions following the necessities of the surrounding environment.

In the current study, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, researchers investigated epigenetic alterations in stem cells from sorted cord blood.

Global epigenetic analysis was then done from 43 infants, of whom 18 were delivered by cesarean section. Finally, DNA from 12 infants (6 cesarean sections) was analysed for genome-wide locus-specific epigenetic states. The result showed specific epigenetic differences between the groups in almost 350 DNA regions, including genes known to be involved in processes controlling metabolism and immune defense.

“During a vaginal delivery, the foetus is exposed to an increased level of stress, which in a positive way will prepare the unborn baby for life outside the uterus,” said Mikael Norman, Professor of Neonatology.

“This activation of the foetus’ defense systems doesn’t occur when a cesarean section is performed before labour begins, which in turn could be a possible cause for the noticed differences between the groups,” Norman said.

Researchers cautioned that it is still unknown whether the differences that were found in the studied babies remains over a longer period of time, and thus actually have an impact on future disease risk.

Source: IBN live