Seeing this picture of these two adorable children completely passive but thoroughly engaged in media made me very sad.    I want to see them running outside, exploring nature, flying kites, looking for bugs, anything but being mesmorized by a tv screen.

Because we did not even have a tv set as I was growing up,  my memories of childhood were all outside, spending time with friends, playing games like “kick the can” and exploring the neighborhood.  Staying in the house was a punishment for us, not an everyday occurance.

A recent study published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine revealed some disturbing facts about toddlers and tv exposure.  “We found every additional hour of TV exposure among toddlers corresponded to a future decrease in classroom engagement and success at math,  increased victimization by classmates,  have a more sedentary lifestyle, higher consumption of junk food and, ultimately, higher body mass index,” says lead author Dr. Linda S. Pagani, a psychosocial professor at the Universite de Montreal and researcher at the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Center.

Another study which followed almost 2000 high school kids and their TV viewing times, found that those students who watched too much TV are much more likely to develop bad eating habits in their future.  Dr Daheia Barr-Anderson worked with a team of researchers from the University of Minnesota to investigate this relationship between television and diet. She said, “To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the association between television viewing and diet over the transition from adolescence into young adulthood. We’ve shown that TV viewing during adolescence predicts poorer dietary intake patterns five years later”.

Unfortunately, statistics now show that one-third of all of the kids in this country are either overweight or obese.   This can have a devasting effect on how kids feel about themselves.    Michelle Obama’s nationwide campaign, Let’s Move, is certainly a good place to start when it stresses finding new ways to help our kids stay physically active in school and at home.

Perhaps, as parents and grandparents, we all need to remove ourselves from in front of the tv set and spend more time  experiencing that outside world because staying fit, even for the very young, apparently can make a big difference in our overall health.

What does your family do for recreation?  Would love to hear your comments about this.

My daughter just recently remarked to me that our teen grandson no longer wanted to eat in the school cafeteria.  Curious, she asked him why.  His answer revealed what is being said throughout the country regarding children and school food.  “It’s making me fat, Mom!”  His decision is not about the food but the calories.  In fact he enjoys the food.

When she told me this, it brought me back to my days as a cafeteria manager, serving chicken nuggets, hot dogs, hamburgers, french fries and horrible canned vegetables that the children always threw away. I knew these foods were high in calories (the average cafeteria meal is said to be 800 calories and 1479 milligrams sodium!)    I would have loved to change the menu but most of the food came to us in USDA  boxes quickly stored away in freezers.  We simply heated them up.  This food leads to the same villains that afflict American adults:  too much fat, cholesterol, sugar, and salt.

Watching Jamie Oliver’s show, The Food Revolution,  a show about making changes in our nation’s school cafeterias, made me realize how, as parents and grandparents, we all need to do our part to make a difference.     It all begins with each family committing to helping our children make healthier choices and recognizing the connection between childhood diet and disease.  Kid’s food habits usually are in place by kindergarten, so education about better food choices definitely begin in the home.  David Levitsky, a Cornell University nutritionist, found that children who had learned about relatively unusal and healthy foods such as bulgur, couscous, greens, etc. ate between two and nine times more than their classmates when offered such food choices in school.

The picture on this post could be me as a child. As I stated in my first post I was very overweight as a child.  And I did not get this way by watching too much TV (we did not even get a TV until I was in the 5th grade!)  or going to McDonalds too many times.  I do not remember any fast food restaurants as a child.  (The first McDonalds opened in 1950).   My parents, both raised during the Depression, insisted on heaping our plates with food, good homemade food, but too much food.  They did not want to deprive us as they were deprived.  As a result, I simply became overweight from overeating.  Exercise literally saved me from becoming an obese teen.

Michelle Obama, featured on the cover of Newsweek this week, has begun a program called Let’s Move. a nationwide campaign with a single goal:  to help children born today reach adulthood at a healthy weight.  Focusing on things that families can do such as providing more nutritious, fresh food, and finding new ways to help  kids be more physically active is part of the campaign.   I am encouraged by so much media about this subject.   I would love to hear what your  family is doing to promote healthy living.

I can still remember receiving the call that our four year old son’s preschool teacher had been rushed to the hospital with a stroke.  All I could think about was her sweet smile and loving, nurturing way she was as Jonathan’s teacher.  He loved her so much and I did not even know what to tell him about what had happened.

When I was finally able to visit her it was shocking. She was unable to speak as the stroke had paralyzed her on one side, including half of her face.  Her sweet smile was now twisted.  I have never been able to forget that image.  It changed her life and the lives of those little ones who were never able to benefit from her wonderful gift as a teacher.  It made me very sad.

According to the American Heart Association, there are approximately 6,500,000 stroke survivors living today in the United States. Further, 795,000 individuals have a stroke that is new or recurring every year.  Stroke is the third most common form of death in the US yet most of these can be prevented simply by our own lifestyle changes.

I just recently learned that people in the Southeastern part of the US are more prone for stroke.  That certainly made me sit up and take notice.  Suddenly that quick sweet tasty muffin for breakfast had a whole new meaning.  Rather than spiking my blood sugar on a daily basis I have chosen now to begin my day with protein.  I particularly enjoy a high protein soy shake with frozen organic fruit.

Another top leading reason for stroke is high blood pressure.  Understanding that my top number should not be greater than 120 and my bottom number  should never be greater than 80 is a tip I need to remember.

I began to think more about the healthy foods Dr. Mehmet Oz recommends in his book, You Staying Young.  Foods with heart-healthy nutrients and strong anti-inflammatory effects include  fruits and vegetables, garlic, olive oil, Omega-3 fatty acids, (found in fish – the best being wild, line-caught salmon, mahi-mahi, catfish, flounder, tilapia and whitefish), foods with magnesium  (whole grain breads and cereals, soybeans, lima beans, avocado, beets and raisins), foods with soy protein…even dark chocolate!

I cringed as I thought about our last visit to The Red Robin Restaurant for my birthday and saw the “tower of onion rings”, saturated fat laden fries, thick burgers and textbook-thick (as Dr. Oz describes it) pieces of pie delivered to tables filled with families.  Even our granddaughter, Isabel, licked her lips as she watched the “tower” slip by to another table, wondering of course why we were not getting one!  It is not easy eating healthily at such a place.

Raising your heart rate each day can be a positive move.    I now enjoy walking every day  with Leslie Sansome.  Her 2 mile walk in 30 minutes on Exercise TV is great!

If you suspect someone is having a stroke, call 911 immediately if they have difficulty with or cannot:  (1) smile; (2) raise both arms; (3) speak a simple sentence.  Every minute counts!

Have you,  friends or family been impacted by stroke? How has it affected your own or their lives?

I began my journey to a healthier me via exercise and weight loss about 4 weeks ago.  At first I was feeling frustrated  if I could not get to my goal weight quickly and it  felt almost like I was failing.  But as I got into the rhythm of walking each day and settling into the calories I was allowing for myself, as well as losing my cravings,  I found myself feeling good about the loss of a pound or two each week.

I receive a health newsletter periodically from Dr. Stephen Chaney,  a Doctor of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina here in Chapel Hill,  and was excited to see that he addressed this issue as well.  He gave three reasons to basically stay away from those “fad diets” that promise fast weight loss.

#1: Rapid weight loss causes your “starvation response” to kick in!
With a fast food restaurant on every corner in today’s world it’s hard to imagine that we even have a “starvation response”.  But you have to remember that we evolved in a world in which you had to chase down your dinner, hit it over the head with a club and drag in back to your cave.

In that world you might have to go weeks with just a few berries and roots to eat – especially if you were as handy with a club as I am.  Because of our beginnings, we are all hardwired with a starvation response that dramatically reduces our metabolic rate whenever the calories in our daily diet decrease significantly.

The “starvation response” was a lifesaver when we were cavemen (and cave women), but it just causes frustration when you are trying to lose weight.

#2: Rapid weight loss causes you to lose muscle mass.

That’s because your brain needs glucose to function.  Fat cannot be metabolized to glucose, but muscle protein can.  Because protein burns calories more rapidly than fat the loss of muscle mass decreases your metabolic rate even more.

When you combine the “starvation response” with the loss of muscle mass your metabolic rate decreases to such a great extent that you often encounter the all too familiar weight loss plateau.  Now, as hard as you try, you just can’t seem to lose any more weight.

#3: Rapid weight loss is almost never sustainable in the long run.

You’ve cut calories so dramatically that you feel hungry all of the time (and probably grumpy as well).  You can’t imagine this as a permanent part of your lifestyle – and it almost never is.  That’s why most experts recommend that you aim for a calorie deficit of just 500 calories per day.

Since 2500 calories is approximately equivalent to one pound, that’s just over one pound of weight loss per week.  If you add a 30 minute/day exercise program to burn off~300 calories/day you will approach 2 pounds of weight loss per week.

So if you want to lose that weight and keep it off, learn to get excited about 1 to 2 pounds of weight loss per week ……and avoid all of those fad diets that promise more rapid weight loss!

How about you?  What have your experiences with fast or slow weight loss been?

Does 150 minutes a week of aerobic activity sound daunting? It certainly did for me so I began by breaking  it down into 10 minute intervals twice a day.   This really helped.

Since 1963 the American Heart Association has proclaimed February as American Heart Month.  Cardiovascular diseases, including stroke, are our nation’s number one killer.  Their goal is to raise funds for research and education and pass along information about heart disease and stroke. In a 70 year lifetime an average human heart beats more than 2.5 billion times!  This little fact amazed me, particularly since my husband, Ray, just turned 70.

Although heart disease is often thought of as a problem for men, more women than men die of heart disease each year. Women are six times as likely to die of heart disease as of breast cancer. Heart disease kills more women over 65 than do all cancers combined.

Barbara Schmidt, MS.Rd, lifestyle specialist at Norwalk Hospital in Connecticut states, “Exercise is medicine, and you have to incorporate it into your life.  The number 1 way to raise HDL, the ‘good’ cholesterol, is through exercise….I describe HDL as the Roto-Rooter of the arteries.”

Lowering blood pressure as well as stress levels, both risk factors for heart disease, is another added benefit of exercise.   My own experience with exercise, particularly since I started on my weight loss program, has been challenging as well as uplifting.  I first discovered that in order to keep going I have to stay hydrated. As long as I drink water throughout my workout I have a lot more stamina.

At first I was discouraged because I just could not last.  I started with 1/2 mile on the treadmill and would get so tired.  This went on for about a week until I began to hydrate as I walked.  As I built up my stamina I moved to a mile, then a mile and a half.  Today I was able to go a whole 2 miles!  My goal is walk 3 miles minimum each day to reach 10,000 steps!  Would love to hear your exercise challenges and triumphs.

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