Educating our Children on Adopting Healthy Habits

Keeping Young School Children Healthy

By Deborah Williams

By now, your children have settled into the new school year’s routines.  Along with these adjustments, parents of young children should prepare for the inevitable: transmission of germs.  No matter how diligent you are with preventative action, young children are going to be exposed to germs in school.  An article on the Science Daily website reports that there are more than 200 cold viruses that children may be exposed to when they are in school.
Dr. Jessica McIntyre, a family physician at Loyola University Health System and assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, explains the reason that young children are likely to get more colds during the school year because of the enclosed environment of a classroom with other children who share common viruses.  McIntyre contends,  “Parents sometimes worry that they have done something wrong to cause frequent colds, or that their child is not healthy. Actually, cold viruses help build a child’s immune system and are an unavoidable part of growing up.”  She assures parents that exposure to these common viruses actually helps young children to build solid immunity so that by the time they become teenagers, they should experience much fewer colds a year.
McIntyre suggests the following to help young children have fewer illnesses:

1. Teach your children the three C’s:
   1. Clean – Wash your hands and make sure your kids wash their hands frequently
   2. Cover – Cover your cough and sneeze, preferably with a tissue, but if one is not available, cough or sneeze into your elbow
   3. Contain – Stay at home if you are sick; germs are one thing that aren’t good to share
2. Family flu vaccines. Everyone who is 6 months or older should be vaccinated.
3. Have your children wash their hands as soon as they get home from school and consider having them change into “home clothes.” This is especially beneficial if you have a young infant at home.
4. There is some evidence that certain complementary products can be effective in cold prevention if taken regularly.
   1. Probiotics: 1 gram mixed with milk twice daily
   2. Vitamin C: 1 gram daily

College in the Future

College Savings for Dual Enrollment Classes

By Deborah Williams

The cost of college continues to rise, and parents are wondering if their children will be able to get a college degree.  If parents had the good fortune and foresight to save for their children’s college educations, they established and contributed to a college savings plan, also called a 529 Plan.  The advantages of preparing for this significant expense are many, such as, little or no college loan debt and tax advantages, for example, but parents may not be aware that they can use some of the money while those children are still in high school.  Education Week blogger, Carolee Adams reports on the College Bound blog that money from a 529 plan can be used for high school students enrolled in college courses.  These dual-enrollment, or concurrent-enrollment, students don’t have to wait until after their high school graduations to offset the expenses for their college courses, which are often called Advanced Placement (AP) courses.
This can be an effective cost- and time-saving measure for families.  First, dual-enrollees pay a fraction of the tuition cost for a college course.   Second, these students reduce the amount of time needed to complete a degree when they successfully

What is your child eating,and is it affecting his grades?

Fatty Acids and School Performance

By Deborah Williams

The results from a recent British study show that low levels of DHA and other omega-3s show are directly related to below average reading ability and behavior concerns.  The summary of this study appears on the National Institutes of Health’s US National Library of Medicine website.  The study, led by P. Montgomery and others at The Centre for Evidence-Based Intervention at the University of Oxford, involved 493 students aged 7 to 9 who read below grade level.
Those students’ fatty acids levels were obtained from fingerstick samples from each child.   In addition to assessing fatty acids levels, each child’s reading and working memory were assessed.  Finally, a behavior rating was done for each child as well.  After controlling for sex and socio-economic status, the researchers found the following:

• Lower DHA concentrations were associated with poorer reading ability and working memory performance
• Lower DHA concentrations were associated with higher levels of parent rated oppositional behavior and emotional lability (likelihood to change)

The implication of the study is for parents to consider supplementing the diets of students with below average reading performance with DHA and other Omega-3 LC-PUFA and/or with Omega-3 LC-PUFA found for ADHD, Dyspraxia, Dyslexia, and related conditions.

Life is Like a Cup of Coffeee

Click on the link below and watch the following movie.


http://www.flickspire.com/m/HealthyRev756/LifeIsLikeCoffee