Back in the day, as recommended by a bazillion baby rearing books on the planet, most parents chose white rice cereal for their baby’s first solid food. Then the great white out debate began, not to mention arsenic scares in rice, and baby advocates started telling parents to start Baby off with healthier fare, like brown rice cereals, brown rice mash or vegetable purée. Now, it’s a whole new game, as brand new research says you should consider starting your baby off on solids with healthy finger foods. Researchers on the study compared a group of spoon-fed babies to a group of self-led weaning babies. What they found is that babies who are allowed to self-wean and who are then introduced to solids by feeding themselves versus having a parent spoon feed them, were able to better master skills related to self-food regulation. In turn self-food regulation is directly connected to health benefits for life such as a lower BMI and a preference for healthy foods like carbohydrates.

In news that will surprise no one, researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center recently figured out that teaching moms and dads how to be better parents could possibly help combat the alarmingly issue of overweight and obese children in America. So, it’s not shocking to hear that better parenting skills may lead to healthier kids. What was a little more surprising in this study is that even when the parenting skills taught did not include education surrounding exercise and nutrition, kids still benefited. During the study, researchers followed a large group of 4-year-old kids from low-income, minority families in New York City over several years. Some of the kids parents were involved in intervention, or parenting classes. Kids of parents who were taught good parenting skills were more likely to be healthier, while kids of parents who did not take the parenting classes were more likely to become obese by second grade. It’s very interesting that these parenting classes didn’t focus on food, weight, or exercise, but instead the classes taught parents how to be more responsive and nurturing towards their kids.

Motherload posed an interesting question recently, “Should we regulate sugar to protect public health?” The question itself stems from a recent issue of the journal Nature, where public health experts report that plain old sugar is as toxic and just as dangerous for society as substances like alcohol and tobacco. The researchers, working out of University of California at San Francisco, aren’t wrong. Past research has compared junk food addiction to heroin addiction and some research shows that only regulating some sugar won’t work – you need whole community regulation to make a difference. And whole community regulation is exactly what these researchers think should happen. The Wall Street Journal reports that the study authors suggest taxing sugar, limiting sugar in schools, reducing sugary advertising, zoning ordinances for sugar and even placing age limits on the types of sugar-laden products kids can buy. But, is regulation the answer? Can’t parents limit their own child’s sugar intake? It is a very good question. So good in fact, that I asked our readers via the Inhabitots Facebook page, the very same question to see what they’d say.

New research shows that children exposed to air pollution may experience some of the very same physical and genetic changes in their brains that adults who have Alzheimer’s disease experience. It’s not a big shock that more scientists have linked air pollution to health problems. Past research shows that air pollution is linked to asthma, autism, bodily inflammation, poor academic success, brain, respiratory, and digestive problems in early life, low IQ, developmental delays, slower lung growth and other serious issues. In the case of this study, researchers compared the brains of children and young adults living in urban, higher pollution areas with the brains of those living in less polluted, rural areas. While studying the brains, researchers found that the gene expression analysis showed there were major differences in how the genes worked between rural and urban dwellers. In fact, more than 100 genes were changed in the brains of individuals who lived in urban areas.

A new research study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests that perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) may reduce the effectiveness of common childhood vaccines. Researchers working on this study, headed up by Dr. Philippe Grandjean, chair of environmental medicine at the University of Southern Denmark, studied children born in the Faroe Islands due to reports of increasing amounts of PFCs in the drinking water and fish located within close proximity to the Islands. Children in the study received the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTaP) vaccine at 3 months, along with the recommended booster at age five. The researchers tested the immunity of the children, at age five and seven years, and drew some blood to test PFC levels. What they found wasn’t good. Higher levels of PFCs in the blood correlated with much lower immune responses. In fact, by the age of seven years, children with a twofold increase of bodily PFCs were up to fours times as likely to have an immune response that was no longer even clinically active. Basically, children with the highest PFC levels weren’t as protected or weren’t protected at all against disease, even though they’d been vaccinated.
 

We’re not huge fans of the USDA school lunch program. Not only has Congress attempted to keep school lunches unhealthy, to the point of declaring pizza a vegetable, but overall, school lunches contain some horrid stuff. From pesticides to too much fat and sodium to flavored milk, fizzy fruit and fast food, school lunches throughout the last decade have become nightmarish in quality at most schools. Your child, thus far, has been better off with a sustainable healthy packed lunch. Now though, thankfully, there’s hope on the horizon. Thanks to the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act championed by the First Lady and signed by President Obama, the USDA is making the first major changes to all school meals in 15 years. Hopefully these changes will stick and result in a healthier generation of children.
 

Researchers from the Children’s Environmental Health Center at The Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York have recently found a link between exposure to phthalates and childhood obesity in young children. Researchers working on this study measured phthalate concentrations in the urine of 387 children plus recorded body measurements including BMI, height, and waist circumference one year later. Urine tests revealed that shockingly, more than 97% of all the children were, at some point exposed to phthalates and the researchers guess that body care products may be to blame. Children exposed to the highest concentrations of chemicals also had larger BMI results and larger waist circumference results. BMI and waist circumference are both likely to be higher in overweight or obese children. The study’s lead author Susan Teitelbaum, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, notes:

“Research has shown that exposure to these everyday chemicals may impair childhood neurodevelopment, but this is the first evidence demonstrating that they may contribute to childhood obesity. This study also further emphasizes the importance of reducing exposure to these chemicals where possible.”

If the name of the company alone doesn’t make you smile, maybe this will help: Babiators‘ line of baby aviator sunglasses offers 100% protection from the full spectrum of UV rays and are made our of rubber instead of plastic. The sunglasses are also BPA and phthalate-free (so no worries if they end up, like most things, in Baby’s mouth), and they carry a one-year Wear and Tear Guarantee. Buying a pair of these bendable sunglasses does more than protect your little one’s eyes: Babiators donates a portion of their profits to the Children’s Eye Foundation and its work to eliminate preventable blindness in children. Sized for ages 1-3 and 3 and up.

+ BPA-free Baby Aviator Glasses $19.99

+ Babiators

In 1998 a study published in the The Lancet by Andrew Wakefield, MBBS, regarding a link between childhood vaccines and autism, that changed what parents everywhere thought about vaccines. The report, which claimed a possible link between a triple vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) and autism, caused a huge uproar among parents and health care professionals. Various medical experts claimed there was no way Wakefield’s paper could be correct, while some researchers backed him up. Most importantly though, parents backed Wakefield up. Once this report was published, many parents in Britain, and consequently the rest of the world, became alarmed that vaccinating their child might cause autism, and vaccine rates plummeted to new lows. Then in February of 2010, The Lancet fully retracted the 1998 paper from the published record, claiming that they were “Acting in the light of an ethics judgment by Britain’s General Medical Council against Andrew Wakefield.” The Medical Conuncil claimed the report was a fraud, and that Wakefield conducted research sans approval by the ethics committee and worse completed invasion and unnecessary procedures on the children involved. Overall Wakefield’s paper is likely behind one of the biggest debates regarding children’s health that we’ve seen in the last few decades. Now Wakefield is upset that his reputation and work have been attacked so he’s filed a defamation suit against BMJ, its editor, and an investigative journalist regrading a series of anti-Wakefield articles published last January.

 

]]> http://www.inhabitots.com/wakefield-who-claimed-the-vaccine-autism-connection-sues-his-critics/feed/ 0 http://www.inhabitots.com/many-parents-push-academics-over-play-which-may-harm-kids-health/ http://www.inhabitots.com/many-parents-push-academics-over-play-which-may-harm-kids-health/#comments Fri, 06 Jan 2012 14:17:22 +0000 Jennifer Chait http://www.inhabitots.com/?p=58589

Yet another new study shows that parents, not external sources are likely behind a growing lack of childhood free play. The new study, published in the journal Pediatrics, shows that many preschool children are sitting sedentary most of the day, in part due to unrealistic demands on the part of parents. The researchers on this study looked at 34 various child care centers serving 3, 4 and 5 year-old kids, including inner-city, suburban, Head Start, and Montessori and found that children in these centers aren’t meeting recommended levels of physical activity for their age group. Researchers discovered three common barriers to children’s physical activity,  including injury concerns from parents, small budgets that don’t allow for playgrounds and pushing from parents and state to focus on “academics” vs. play. We’ve seen before how playgrounds can become too safe, and yes boring, due to dumbed down designs, and the researchers agree, saying in their report that boring playgrounds don’t entice preschoolers to play or get enough exercise. In this case, newer stricter safety playground licensing codes and low school budgets are to blame. Changing playgrounds for the better will take major nation-wide work. However, the other issues such as fear of safety and pushing for extensive academics are issues that parents are responsible for and should take control of.

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