Studies have shown that up to 25% of first time allergic reactions happen in school. Teachers and school nurses are not trained or equipped to treat your child’s symptoms without your help. If your student suffers from major food allergies, create a food allergy action plan. Come back tomorrow for simple steps you can take to protect your student from a bad food reaction in school.
Food Allergies
There is a growing issue affecting many more children than ever before – food allergy reactions. If your child has major food allergies, you will need to prepare ahead of time to make sure that a bad reaction does not take place in school. It is crucial that this planning happens at the beginning of every new school year. Find out tomorrow how often food allergy reactions occur in schools and what to do in case they were to happen to your student.
The Five Worst Children’s Hospitals For Food
Shands Hospital for Children at University of Florida – At least 5 fast food outlets including Wendy’s. Its patient menu includes high fat foods such as meatloaf with gravy.
Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt (Nashville, Tennessee) – Has 4 fast food outlets including Taco Bell and Pizza Hut Express. Its cafeteria features high fat foods such as cheese steak wrap and chicken-fried steak with cream gravy.
St. Louis Children’s Hospital – Washington University (St. Louis, Missouri) – Has 2 fast food outlets including Pizza Hut. Its patient menu has fatty foods including sausage, bacon, ham and roast beef with gravy.
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles – This hospital has a McDonald’s on the first floor. The patient menu features pizza and hot dogs.
Riley Hospital for Children (Indianapolis, Indiana) – This hospital also has a McDonald’s while it’s patient menu features sausage, bacon, and corn dogs.
Children’s Hospital Controversy
Hospitals are supposed to be a place with the purpose of making people healthier. Many children’s hospital cafeterias and patient menus are dominated by foods high in fat, cholesterol, calories, sugar, and sodium. Processed meats such as bacon, sausage, and hot dogs are also common despite their established link with cancer and diabetes. In fact McDonald’s has restaurants in 27 hospitals including a children’s hospital!! How can this be? It makes you wonder if these hospitals are trying to make kids healthy or sick. Stay tuned tomorrow for a list of the top five worst children’s hospital offenders and their unhealthy menu items for sick patients.
Cause of ADHD Found? Mothers Eating Fish While Pregnant
Initial research suggests that pregnant women who eat lots of fish – especially tuna, swordfish and other fish with high mercury levels are more likely to have children with ADHD. Researchers from the Boston University School of Public Health tracked 788 Massachusetts children between 1993 and 1998. Then they had the children’s mothers keep food diaries while they were pregnant so they could see how much fish the women ate. They took hair samples from them after they gave birth so they could test their mercury levels.
Eight years later, they asked the children’s teachers if the kids exhibited ADHD-like symptoms, such as hyperactivity, impulsiveness and inattentiveness. The researchers concluded that the women who had the most mercury in their hair were 60% more likely to have a child who exhibited ADHD-like behavior.
Eating Fish Causes ADHD?
Pregnant women who eat lots of fish are more likely to have children with ADHD a study finds. Check back here tomorrow for a closer look at this shocking study and the surprising results.
How To Prevent The Spread Of Strep Throat
Parents can prevent the spread of strep throat at home if someone in the house has already been diagnosed with a strep infection. Be certain that all your family members thoroughly wash their hands after wiping noses and before eating or preparing food. Make sure you wash all dishes, cups and utensils thoroughly in hot soapy water or in a dishwasher. Also do not allow the sharing of food or eating utensils.
Cancer Prevention & Children
Obesity, sedentary lifestyle and/or exposure to chemicals like BPA in microwave plastics may increase your child’s risk for cancer. 50% of all cancers are preventable but it may take a change in your current lifestyle. If you do not encourage your kids to eat right or exercise, you are putting them at greater risk for cancer. Most parents tend to put sunscreen on their kids and not smoke around them. However most do not demand a form of exercise or reduce chemical exposure because they do not realize that they are equally important.
Preventing Colds and Flu
As you have probably heard, there are a lot of colds and flu around this year. Both respiratory and gastrointestinal illnesses have been especially circulating within the schools. This is due to the fact that children tend to spread germs easily and lack of fresh outdoor air. Remember all of these stay healthy tips:
1. Hand washing is one of the best ways to prevent the spread of illness. Wash your hands often — when they are dirty, before eating, after using the restroom, and after sneezing into a tissue.
2. Cough Etiquette. Avoid coughing or sneezing into your hands – use a tissue or your elbow. After sneezing, try and wash your hands as soon as possible. This will ensure that any bacteria or germs from your sneeze don’t remain on your hands all day, preventing you from spreading any germs.
3. Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth. Germs spread this way. If you do have to touch these areas, try and clean your hands before and after to ensure no germs are being spread around your body.
4. MOST IMPORTANTLY stay away from people who are sick and stay home when you are sick to avoid spreading the flu around.
School Lunch Regulations Silliness
In order to comply with the new forced limits on grains, protein, sodium and fats; schools have begun to act silly. For example Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical High School in Lexington, MA has removed its SALAD BAR!!! One would assume that salad is healthy however not the government. Being afraid that the school could not control the portions of protein or grains the students would take out of the salad bar, they decided to remove it all together. In Shrewsbury, MA they decided croutons on a salad added too much grains to the meal so they banned them. Also on the Shrewsbury hit list and now banned from their salad bar are hard-boiled eggs and turkey slices because the nanny state can not regulate how much protein one will take. Whole-wheat pasta salad is also a no-no because the nanny state says that kids may get too many grains. After all of this Shrewsbury silliness, the school system brought in $10,000 less in September 2012 lunch sales than in the same month 2011.