Jan
05
2012
Here are my top ten ways to stay fit and healthy for 2012:
10. Eat more fruits and veggies for every meal-yes, this is super important. Besides being a recommendation by the USDA and the current Dietary Guidelines for Americans, fruits and veggies have lots of vitamins, antioxidants, nutrients and fiber with very little fat and sugar. Remember to “make half of your plate fruits and veggies.”
9. Exercise for at least 60 minutes a day. Okay, I know you are saying to yourself, “unrealistic,” but this is really important, not only for kids but for adults too. Exercise provides many healthy benefits including weight control and it has been firmly established that those adults that exercise on a regular basis are a healthier group of adults and can maintain their good health as they age. For kids, they too need 60 minutes a day-including recess and other physical activity. For some adults, 90 minutes is needed. Walking is included and remember the 10,000 steps a day theory-that will equal approximately 5 miles-so get yourself a pedometer and get going!
8. Drink lots of water and forget the sugar and salt loaded, supplement loaded energy drinks. Many of the energy drinks that are available today are meant for use by athletes that are involved with vigorous training. If you fit into that category, then maybe you can benefit from a supplement loaded fluid replacement. ...
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Dec
05
2011
WOMEN WHO EAT LOTS OF VEGETABLES HAVE A LOWER RISK OF STROKE
Dr. Susanne Rautiainen and her research group from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, reported in the journal: Stroke, that after collecting data on the dietary habits of women, they found that those women who consumed the highest amount of antioxidant containing foods (foods that have elevated levels of vitamins C, E, carotenoids, flavonoids and phytochemicals-fruits and veggies and grains) had a lower risk of stroke. Lesson-Make half your plate fruits and veggies-especially if you are a woman!!!
VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES AND EFFECT ON BRAIN FUNCTIONING
Researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine presented data recently showing that in a test group of young men, ages 18 to 29, that were told to play a violent video game for ten hours, MRI studies and cognitive testing performed afterwards revealed changes in brain function, and cognitive behavior. These changes did revert back almost to baseline, after a week of not playing the games. Lesson: parents, be careful with what video games your children are playing in your home and at the homes of friends. There is an abundance of violent and incredibly popular video games coming out daily, for all of the techno-game boxes and these games seem to obtain viewing access in many homes with young children. Be aware, stay informed and stay connected !
HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GOES UNTREATED IN MANY ...
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Feb
11
2011
Well, there it is my friends. The reports are finally out-over a half billion of us-that’s right us-the people and residents of planet Earth, are obese. And this represents a doubling since 1980. These studies, led by researcher Majid Ezzati of the Imperial College of London and Harvard University, were published recently in the Lancet journal. And you know what happens with 500 million people with obesity? You are right again-a rise in the secondary medical problems that result from the obesity like heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Can you imagine a rising population of people with heart problems and diabetes? Our medical system will be overloaded with new patients. Not to mention-seeing many young obese individuals that develop secondary problems earlier and prior to adulthood. It’s catastrophic. What can be done? Cutting portion sizes and increasing exercise will help. Our medical treatment for elevated blood pressure and high cholesterol is getting better. But that won’t stop the tidal wave of kids and adults that will develop these problems. Maybe we should all feel better that we can treat these secondary problems effectively. But we really need to focus on primary prevention. We need to start the nutrition and fitness education at an early- preschool age and continue this until adult hood. We need to teach our young generation of kids how to eat, what to eat that ...
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Nov
17
2010
You all know by now the incredible benefits that you can get by exercising and eating healthy. Well now there is additional research which has come to us from the British Journal of Sports Medicine*(1), which demonstrated that individuals who exercised a minimum of five days a week had 43% fewer days with an upper respiratory tract infection. Wow-that’s right, exercise, five days a week helped reduce the number of colds this group of subjects had. And that’s not all. Those subjects that did the most exercise that developed a cold (upper respiratory infection) had a shorter course of infection symptoms and less severity than their shorter exercise time peers. Okay, are you getting up from that chair yet?
As reported in the current meetings of The American Heart Association (AHA)*(2), salt (sodium chloride) may be harming the health of teens now and will affect them in the future. The recommendation: cut down on your salt consumption. What’s the problem associated with eating too much salt? Well for one thing, too much salt can raise your blood pressure (called high blood pressure or hypertension). By raising your blood pressure, you are putting more stress on the heart muscle. This then may cause heart problems like a heart attack or stroke. A big problem is that most high blood pressure is silent-you just don’t feel it. That’s right, you can have a silent killer ...
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Jun
09
2010
Did you know that in the latest guidelines (Dietary Guidelines for Americans), all children (from preschool through age 18) should be physically active and get 60 (sixty) minutes of exercise/physical activity each and every day? Well it’s true. This exercise or activity does not have to be only from sports, but also can come from walking and playing (a.k.a. recess). And the exercise does not have to be done all at once. You can break it up into several periods throughout the day- for example: 6-ten minute episodes or 4- fifteen minute episodes.
Parenting tip#1: according to many studies, kids (and adults too) that are physically active have a lower risk of developing chronic diseases like obesity, type-2 diabetes, elevated BMI, stroke, coronary artery disease, colon cancer, osteoporosis elevated blood fats, elevated blood pressure and elevated insulin levels. On the other end of the spectrum, kids that are not active and are sedentary (e.g. sit in front of the TV or computer) have a much higher risk of developing chronic diseases like overweight, obesity, coronary artery disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, and certain types of cancer.
Parenting tip #2: If you eat 100 more food calories a day than you burn, you'll gain about 1 pound in a month. That's about 12 pounds in a year.
Here is a chart that shows the calories (units of energy) ...
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Apr
27
2010
The headlines hit every newspaper, radio and television news program all across our country: 45% of all Americans have high blood pressure, diabetes or high cholesterol. These are the results of the most recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics. 13% of American adults had at least two of these conditions and 3% had all three! 15% of American adults had one of these problems undiagnosed-yes-they are walking around with diabetes, elevated blood pressure or high cholesterol and they don’t even know it! Non-Hispanic African-Americans were more likely than non-Hispanic white and Mexican-Americans to have at least one of the three conditions. And even more revealing, non-Hispanic African-Americans were more likely to have all three conditions compared with non-Hispanic white Americans. As we all know, all three conditions are associated with heart disease-the leading cause of death in the United States. According to additional data from the Centers For Disease Control And prevention (CDC), African-Americans had a 51% higher prevalence of obesity compared with whites. It’s all starting to make more sense. In fact a recent research projection made by Anirban Basu, PhD of the University of Chicago indicates that “obesity rates across all age categories in the U.S. adult population will remain stable for the next 10 years. However young African American adults ages 18-39, children-mainly boys ages 6-9 and ...
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