Posts Tagged ‘children’s health’

Children’s health programs that presents the healthiest diet are a challenge. For this to work the whole family has to change their lifestyle. It is one that consists of the highest quality of food, the optimal activity level, and an optimistic outlook on life. Referring to the consequential damages of a poor lifestyle it is easy to show the link between diet and health. 

What to Eat

Diets rich in Omega-fats are associated with lower rates of cardiovascular disease. When we refine oils from plants, we are consuming a high omega-6 diet. Refined vegetable oils, high in Omega-6 fatty acids changed the way our bodies function. It causes our body to malfunction, and causes inflammation, poor skin quality, such as dry skin, increased oxidation.

Omega-3 fatty acids are an immune-enhancer. Whole foods are the source of Omega-3 fatty acids. It is found in small amounts in plant foods. The most abundant forms come from fish, but also from grass fed beef.

The colorful fruit and vegetables contain for vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and antioxidants. Low glycemic foods are better in controlling sugar levels.

Exclusions

What seems like limitations are what will provide lifelong health. By reducing these substances you avoid most chronic conditions. At the same time you slow down the aging process. This is a bold defense strategy that works. By eliminating most pre-packaged foods you are cutting down on most of the elements that shouldn’t be in our diet.

This includes the artificial colors and flavors, sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup, high percentage of omega-6 fatty acids, and preservatives.

Program

There are very creative and helpful programs that understand that learning, behavior, energy, attitude, health and happiness are tied to food and physical activity.

Once your habits are ingrained it is harder to change. However, it is a responsibility to both yourself and your family.

The L.E.A.N program that Kathy Bee will be talking about is one of the best places to start. It is a program developed by Dr. William Sears America’s pediatrician. This program realizes that a children’s health program begins with the parent. 

“The best gift you can give a child is the gift of health” Dr. Sears

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3pGXBXJsJg

Children’s packed lunches are a disaster. It is a failure to provide not just proper nutrition, but to pack know chemical poisons. The taste that kills is what we feed our children year in year out. 

Research that is going to be in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health reports that only one per cent of primary school children who brought lunches met the nutritional standards set for school meals in England.

What this means is that chips, sweets, and sugary drinks are preferred to vegetables, fruit, and milk based products. It also means children’s lunch disasters are in the lunch box they bring to school.

No Surprise

This is the trend in most industrialized nations. In the United States children are suffering from the same type of carbohydrate overload. Convenience is only one of the factors. The lethal effects of excess calories are known. Couple that with empty calories and we have the ingredients for a generation of obese and sickly children.

Formula for Lifelong Health Problems

A recent report from the American Institute of Cancer Research (AICR) states that excess body fat is now seen as a major cause of some cancers. There are newer studies that seem to find that excess body fat lowers immune function and increases oxidative stress. All this can lead to DNA damage.

All these lunches provide excess calories and turn off the longevity genes. The habits formed in early childhood, are the ones that persist throughout life. The most effective way to prevent disease and extend life is watching what goes in to children’s lunchboxes.

Childhood is when taste preferences are formed. The type lunch that is sent to school with children will either set them up for impaired glucose control or undermine their metabolic functions.

Example

The food in a child’s lunchbox can contain as much sugar as ten doughnuts research shows.

A snapshot survey by a consumer watchdog group found that a packed lunch made up of five seemingly healthy items, including cheese and biscuits and fruit juice, contained 60g of sugar. This may be a complaint in Britain, but it sure is not that different here. The results of our food supply shows health concerns seem to take back seat to the food industries goals.

The Children’s Food Campaign coordinator, Jackie Schneider, commented: “Although these findings are appalling, we are not surprised. A whole industry has grown up around producing foods for lunchboxes, which can contain high levels of salt, fat or sugar. Parents are often misled by marketing for these lunchbox products, which make health claims like ‘high in vitamins’ but also turn out to be high in salt, fat or sugar as well.”

Spoiling

Sometimes parents offer these delights in the lunch box and spoil their children with these so called treats. What they are spoiling is a chance for their children to remain disease free. 

“Junk foods are altering the structure and function of the human brain while increasing and decreasing insulin levels so quickly that junk food leaves students groggy in class. (Simontacchi, 2000) A child’s brain continues to develop through until adulthood; many of the foods that students eat affect the growth of critical areas of their brain. When growth is disrupted, it can cause negative behavior reactions in the classroom. Often times, doctors do not seek the root of the problem (food) but instead they mask the behavioral symptoms with drugs such as Ritalin or Prozac which have their own series of side effects, all while the brain development continues to be damaged. (Simontacchi, 2000)

Simotacchi is the author of the book The Crazy Maker: the Food Industry is Destroying our Brains and Harming our Children.

Performance analytics show that children who consume low-nutrient content junk food diets perform poorly in academics. Their cognitive skills are impaired and at the same time they become anxious and hyperactive. Concentration is down so they do not have the opportunity or capacity to learn as well.

Success vs. Failure

Most of the calories are not only empty, but are in a large part from sugar. It is a problem because it creates a roller coaster in the body, with highs of hyper energy followed by drowsiness. It takes anywhere from one to three hours to come down from a sugar high. Sugar addiction comes because of the need for the fix again.

This kind of eating is not due to the failure of the food industry. They are succeeding in making a profit at the expense of our children. Dominating the market is their goal and they are succeeding, better than all expectations. Their job from a business standpoint is not in providing health food, but to successfully market their products.

Biology is not the corporate board meetings topic when looking for ingredients, it is global business. Every document, and task is geared for growing a global market.

Convincing adults and children that their food meets their nutritional needs is easy. We are addicted to the taste, and they know that is key to their profit. Their job is to maintain their brand and they have done that brilliantly.

They succeeded at the expense of our children’s health. Our children’s health suffers, while the food industry prospers. This is not a good trade-off.

Over The Top Perhaps

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skUhPVGreXI

Antipsychotic drugs for children will impact future generations. Outlawing illegal drugs is not the issue. It is curtailing the use of legal drugs for children, the frail and the elderly.

Our Problem

We have a problem, the use of the potent antipsychotic drugs has increased more than fivefold from 1993 to 2002 in children and teens. These findings add to earlier studies that showed a sharp rise in the last decade of psychiatric drug prescriptions for children. These include stimulants such as Ritalin and antidepressants.

These findings were published in Archives of General psychiatry, and it is an important debate. Antidepressants have been linked to an increase in suicidal thinking and behavior, and Ritalin may cause or contribute to heart problems. Antipsychotic drugs cause weight gain and blood fat changes that increase the risk of diabetes. Antipsychotics have not been studied extensively for their use in children.

 “We are using these medications and don’t know how they work, if they work, or at what cost.” Said Dr. John March, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at Duke University.” “It amounts to a huge experiment with the lives of American Kids, and what it tells us that we’ve got to do something other than what we’re doing now” to access the drugs’overall impact.

With the limited amount of knowledge on how children systems handle these drugs, Dr. Olfsonsaid said “to me the most striking thing was nearly one in five psychiatric visits for young people included a prescription for antipsychotics.”

Are We Producing More Psychotic Offspring?

These drugs are being used for aggression, mood swings, and other behavior problems. Doctors’ are relying on these drugs as an answer to childhood behavior problems. There may be more disrupted children due to environmental issues. However, there are a few questions about the liberal use of these drugs. Boys are more often than girls to be written a prescription for antipsychotics. This may be a shortcut and band aid for behavior problems.

The newer antisychotics are being heavily promoted by the pharmaceutical companies. “The rapid rise of atypical antipsychotic drugs to blockbuster status is troubling. “ said Stefan Kruszewski, former clinical professor of psychiatry at Penn State medical School.  He said  “The drugs were adopted almost as quickly as they came out.”  Atypical antipsychotic drugs were the only other class of drugs besides HIV medicines to be covered under a special pharmaceutical benefits program that facilitated the rapid and incautious rise in the use of new drugs 

The FDA is still examining whether older antipsychotic agents are also associated with higher mortality. Drug companies pay doctors for lectures and other services. Psychiatrist earn more money from drug companies than any specialty doctors. It has been shown that psychiatrists  have prescribed the new class of powerful antipsychotics to children. It is know that these drugs are the most risky for and not approved for children in some cases. The New York Times June 2007 reported this and the fact that the drug companies on average spend twice as much to market drugs as they do researching them.

Antipsychotic drugs are probably the most brain altering. About 90% of the antipsychotics used are: cozapine, risperidone, olazapine, and quetiapine. These are the most commonly prescribed for children, they are not approved for use in this age group. There was a study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association that showed that youngsters gained from 9.7 to 18.7 pounds after almost 11 weeks of treatment, depending on the type of medication.

“We were able to show all of these agents can cause quite a bit of body weight changes and body composition changes that are not beneficial to health,” said Chistoph Correll, the study’s lead author, in a telephone interview on Oct. 23.

“What we need to figure out is what are the long-term consequences in the lives of children,” Correll, who is a medical director at Zucker Hillside Hospital in New York City’s Queens borough and an associate professor of psychiatry at Yeshiva University’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx.

Our Children’s Future

Antipschotic drugs for children cause Weight gain, obesity and increases in cholesterol in this population. These conditions are linked to their adult risk of cardiovascular problems and cancer. The trade off in profits for both the psychiatrist and pharmaceutical company is the future health of our nation’s children.