Youngsters were handed Monopoly-style money to mark their school gaining the Healthy Child Quality Mark.

Victoria Road Primary School got the certificate after proving its pupils were keeping fit and healthy.

The quality mark is a Plymouth City Council scheme that assesses behavioural change and how schools help their children have healthy lifestyles. The St Budeaux primary is one of the first in the city to get the gong.

Book our Valentine’s Dinner Menu and we will give you a complimentary glass of Prosecco per person to accompany your meal. Available 14th, 15th 16th Feb, £24.95 per person, 18.30-21.30pm.

Terms:
Valentines Dinner must be booked in advance by 10/02/13. To see our menu take a look at our profile page on “This is Plymouth” CALL 01752 224161 and quote PROSECCO when making your booking.

Valid until: Sunday, February 10 2013

As a dietitian and the mother of three, I know very well the allure of popular snack foods, fast food, and sugary breakfast foods. I’d be wrong to prohibit my children from eating what is such a big part of the world they live in. Rather than play food cop, I’m far more effective coaching my young ones by relating the benefits of eating well to what they care about, like winning at sports, doing well at school, having more energy for play.

I believe that parents have a responsibility to teach healthy habits by example. I’m also a big believer in maintaining routines at home that make healthy eating the norm and this can be done in a variety of ways:

Make breakfast a must

Studies have shown that school-aged children who skip breakfast perform worse on various cognitive tests than children who eat breakfast. Avoid sugary processed foods that digest quickly and leave kids tired. Instead, focus on simple kid-friendly breakfast foods that you easily make with wholesome ingredients that are filling and nutritious. For example, a simple egg and cheese sandwich on a whole grain English muffin is far better than a toaster Danish … and it’s not too difficult to convince kids why.  

Variety is never boring!

Encourage children to try different fruits and vegetables – and the many tasty (and even unexpected) ways to enjoy them, like apple slices dipped in peanut butter or fruit yogurt. Serving a wide variety of whole foods is the best way to boost your child’s intake of vitamins and minerals.

The ‘Clean Plate Club’ is closed

Let your child decide when she is full or still hungry. It’s important for kids to get to know and follow their natural hunger cues.  

Shop Teach

I’m a big proponent of taking children along to do the family grocery shopping.  Make food shopping fun – not preachy. Explain why you choose the products you do, and give your kids the opportunity to help make decisions and even help with meal preparation.  

For more tips, delicious and filling meal plans, recipes, and proven ways to live at a healthy weight, check out my new book The Miracle Carb Diet: Make Calories and Fat Disappear – with Fiber!

Tanya Zuckerbrot MS, RD, is a registered dietitian in New York City and author of the Miracle Carb Diet: Make Calories and Fat Disappear – with fiber as well as the bestselling Follow Tanya on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and visit her website Ffactor.com.

The free social inclusion basketball program will start its 2013 season at Noble Park Community Centre on 30 January following a year at Dandenong South Primary School.

Helping Hoops founder Adam McKay said improved community visibility was among reasons for relocating.

“This year it’s about getting out there and this would really help,” he said.

The program’s mostly aimed at multicultural youth, many from refugee backgrounds.

“But it’s about social inclusion so it’s open to all,” Mr McKay said.

“Come down and meet us, have a bounce.

“It’s not only about basketball, but creating good citizens.”

He said Helping Hoops was designed to encourage leadership, discipline, goal-setting and social inclusion.

“But it’s a lot of fun and helps kids improve their skills on the court,” he said.

Mr McKay started the program “because there was nothing else like it”.

It’s not team-based or competitive. Instead its focus is on building good people.

It’s now in its third year and has six programs across Melbourne.

Mr McKay said it was a safe environment where parents could send their kids, and an activity to keep them out of trouble and promote a healthy, active lifestyle.

“They need to stop playing basketball on the X-Box and bounce a ball around,” he said.

He said parents could also tell those running the program where they thought their child was lacking, and improving these areas would be a focus.

“It can be used as a tool or vehicle to help their kids,” he said.

Coach Omar Coles played college ball in the USA and professional basketball in Canada.

Five years of US Navy experience instilled the value of discipline and hard work, which he emphasises through Helping Hoops.

Helping Hoops will run at Noble Park Community Centre, Memorial Drive, Noble Park, from 5pm to 7pm every Wednesday from 30 January.

The program needs community volunteers and sponsorship.

Visit helpinghoops.com.au for more information or to get involved.

When you call your pediatrician, you’re told to take her to the hospital’s pediatric emergency department for evaluation. The physician there diagnoses her with croup and prescribes a corticosteroid to improve her symptoms by reducing the inflammation in her larynx (voice box).

Do you ever wonder how your physician decides which medicine to give? Does he give a single dose of dexamethasone, or choose prednisolone that is given for several days? Which medicine has been shown to be more effective? The answer lies in evidence–based medicine.

Evidence-based medicine is the process of systematically reviewing research findings and combining them with clinical expertise to provide the best, most appropriate care to patients. Simply put, evidence-based medicine helps health care providers make medical decisions based on up-to-date research, clinical experience and what’s best for the patient.

Evidence-based medicine is not “cookbook” medicine where a physician simply follows a “recipe” to treat every patient in an identical way to achieve the same results. Instead, your physician uses the best available research along with his or her individual clinical expertise. Neither alone is enough to treat your child effectively. Without both clinical expertise and current research evidence, the patient’s care may not be what it should be.

Here’s a very good example using the croup diagnosis. A single, oral dose of dexamethasone has been demonstrated to be effective in reducing the symptoms of croup. Dexamethasone will last longer in the body than other steroids (36-54 hours), thereby requiring only a single dose during the emergency department visit. Multiple doses of dexamethasone have been studied but were no more effective than a single dose.

The other corticosteroid option is prednisolone. However, studies have shown that children who receive prednisolone have more return visits to the emergency department for continued symptoms than children who received dexamethasone. Thus, if your child receives prednisolone, your child often will need a three to five day course of the medication as opposed to the single dose of dexamethasone.

So, as you drive home from the emergency department at 4 a.m. following the single oral dose of dexamethasone, you’re thankful for the peace of mind that your child is improving, that you won’t have to find a 24-hour pharmacy to fill a prescription and that your emergency physician uses evidence-based medicine.

Dr. Cole Condra is a Mercy Clinic pediatric emergency medicine physician with Mercy Children’s Hospital. For more information, please visit www.mercychildrens.net.

But with everyone’s busy schedules, making healthier choices can often take a backseat to convenience.

Although it can be hard, inspiring kids to be healthy will not only prevent them from getting sick, but will help them do better in school.

Carefully managing a child’s diet seems like a daunting task, but it’s as simple as making a commitment to eating at home more often. Encouraging kids to help with grocery shopping and meal preparation will help teach them about what are healthy options as well as keep everyone on track. The goal is to keep food selections low in fat, sodium and carbohydrates and rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Lean protein should be a staple of every growing child’s diet.

Also eating meals as a family requires some planning of schedules, but it’s well worth the effort. According to a University of Michigan study, high schoolers that ate meals with their families were less likely to use illicit drugs.

Being healthy starts at home with mom and dad leading the way. Here are three ways parents and kids can make 2013 the healthiest year yet.

Here are some more healthy eating tips from Dr. Sejal Shah.

1. It’s very important to set a good example with food in front of your children. Don’t use unhealthy foods as rewards. Share facts about fruits and vegetables, like oranges have vitamin C and that means they help the body fight off colds and sickness. Explain why unhealthy foods are not good for them and encourage moderation. And make eating different colored foods fun like trying to eat the rainbow. Make a game out of healthy foods.

2. Depending on a child’s age they, should get anywhere from 90 to 120 minutes of physical activity every day. Since parents cannot depend of P.E. in school to provide the adequate amount of physical exercise anymore, there are a number of ways families can stay active together. Try incorporating physical activity into the daily routine, like an after-dinner walk, daily family bike ride or an afterschool activity like softball or karate. The first big step to achieving daily exercise is limiting the amount of time doing sedentary activities like watching T.V. or being on the computer.

3. As well as causing less focus in school, lack of sleep can cause weight gain in children, which is why it’s no less important than food or exercise. Just like weightlifting is important for muscle growth, sleeping is important for brain development in children.

If a parent or child is finding it difficult to get to bed at night try implementing a quiet down period where all electronics get turned off, everyone quiets down and begins to get ready for bed. Having a period of time where kids can calm down and relax before bed will help them fall asleep faster once bedtime comes around and allow them to get the right amount of nightly rest.

Remember that being a good role model is the best way to teach kids healthy habits. Although you may find it difficult at times, remember that healthy kids are more likely to become healthy adults.

Sources:
TBParenting.com
www.MediWeightlossclinics.com
ParentingWithAngela.com
KidsHealth.org
WebMD.com
 

Copyright 2013 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

In case a child is suffering from eczema then he/she may have a wide variety of bacteria present in the stomach. These bacteria are commonly found in the gut of an adult than in healthy children.

Eczema or atopic dermatitis is a form of swelling of the skin. The common symptoms include dry skin, frequent rashes, itching, swelling and bleeding as well. Scratching the rashes leads to an increase in the condition.

In their research, the scientists studied children at six and 18 months, not all  of them were suffering from eczema. Their intestinal bacteria were examined. It was found that while the children were six months old, their gut bacteria were similar to those with non-infection. However, by the time the eczema-infected children reached 18 months, their gut bacteria composition resembled mostly that of an adult with common bacteria like Clostridium clusters IV and XIV a. The gut of a healthy 18-month-child, on the other hand, had an abundance of Bacteroidetes.

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This study was led by MSc Lotta Nylund, University of Turku, Finland, and the details were published in the journal BMC Microbiology.

“The composition of bacteria in a child’s gut depends on its environment and the food it eats. You would expect that as a child’s diet changes so will the bacteria present. The number of bifidobacteria naturally falls with age and in total we found 21 groups of bacteria which changed in this time period. However it is the early change towards adult-type bacteria which seems to be a risk factor for eczema.”Nylund was quoted in the MedicalXpress.

Updated Hot Tagseczema, childhood eczema, gut bacteria, adult bacteria

Modern culture is such that it has been doing no good to society. One of the biggest problems is television eating in which people on having unhealthy food while watching television. This leads to obesity, said Health Minister Anna Soubry.

Soubry said they can easily spot poor people as they are bit overweight. And, the credit for the same goes to unhealthy culture prevailing in the country.

“When I go to my constituency, when I walk around, you can almost now tell somebody’s background by their weight. Obviously not everybody who is overweight comes from deprived backgrounds”, said Soubry.

Soubry was present at an event organized by the Food and Drink Federation. She asked food manufacturers to provide healthy food items to consumers. Moreover, they should voluntarily reduce fat, salt and sugar in their food items.

It is a matter of concern that 33% of children leaving primary schools are either or overweight. Soubry said that there was a time when thinness and obesity were two indications of depicting background of a child. But, now things seem to have turnaround and obesity is counted as poor food provided to children.

It is expected that parents will understand the importance of healthy eating habits and will follow the same.

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The parents of more than 20,000 Ventura County children received notices in the mail last month reminding them that their Healthy Families medical insurance will soon be transitioning into the state’s Medi- Cal program.

Healthy Families—the statesponsored health insurance program for children and teens in low-income families—is being phased out as of Jan. 1, in accordance with Gov. Jerry Brown’s Assembly Bill 1494.

The new budget bill affects roughly 875,000 children across the state.

They will transition to Medi- Cal—California’s version of the federally subsidized Medicaid program—in four phases over the course of 2013.

Curtis Updike, deputy director of the Ventura County Human Services Agency’s transitional assistance department, said local Healthy Families enrollees will switch to Medi-Cal in August 2013, during phase three of the implementation.

“About 90 days prior to August, (families) will receive a letter letting them know the transition is taking place,” Updike said. “They’ll receive another letter 60 days in advance, and another letter 30 days in advance. At some point they will also receive a welcome packet and a new benefits identification card. That’s the way it’s planned right now.”

The elimination of Healthy Families will save California about $13 million this fiscal year and $73 million annually once the transition is complete, according to the state.

The California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) website states that the transition will “simplify eligibility and coverage for children and families” while providing additional benefits and lowering medical costs for eligible children.

“(For example), because of our current eligibility rules, in one family, maybe two children are eligible for Healthy Families and one kid is eligible for Medi- Cal,” said René Mollow, deputy director of healthcare benefits and eligibility for DHCS. “What we’re looking to do now is to merge that into one.”

Mollow said the Healthy Families transition is only the first step in a larger plan for healthcare reform in the state, which includes implementing President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act by 2014.

‘Smooth transition’

While some families are concerned that the transition will affect their current medical coverage, county officials said nobody should lose benefits as a result of the switch.

“(We are) working very closely with the Gold Coast Health Plan (which manages Medi-Cal in the county) to try to make sure the transition is as smooth as possible for the children in Ventura County,” said Debra Creadick, government relations manager for VCHSA. “Perhaps it’s an ad- vantage for us to be transferring later. It gives us the opportunity to put things in place over several months, to make sure those receiving Healthy Families will be better ready to transition.”

As of November 2012, there were 20,242 children in Ventura County receiving Healthy Families medical, dental and vision coverage.

Updike said those kids will be added to the 112,000 other county residents already enrolled in the Medi-Cal system.

“Because we are transitioning later in the process, there will already be 500,000 or so children that have moved over before us,” he said. “Because Ventura County is moving later, my hope is that all those kinks will be worked out.”

In the meantime

According to the state, children already enrolled in Healthy Families will not need to fill out new applications for Medi-Cal.

Families should continue paying their monthly premiums and await further instructions, officials said.

“The program will change a bit,” Updike said. “Under Medi Cal, premiums will be $13 per child for a maximum of three (children)—so a maximum of $39 per family—which is comparable to what they’re paying now.”

Healthy Families premiums are currently between $4 and $42 per child, with a family maximum of $72 per month, depending on income.

Under the new system, Mallow said, families whose income is less than 150 percent of the federal poverty level—which currently stands at $23,050 for a family of four—will be eligible for Medi-Cal without monthly premiums.

Families who make between 150 and 250 percent of the federal poverty level will be subject to paying $13 per child, or a flat rate of $39 for a family with three children or more.

“ We are taking steps to minimize the impacts to the family during the transition,” Mallow said.

“We can’t say with 100 percent assuredness that no one will have to change (health) plans or providers after the transition, but making sure that (change) is minimized significantly is our goal.”

For more information about the transition, visit www.dhcs.ca.gov.