How to enforce life skills that tech might be eroding
http://ift.tt/2xOG5t1 Everyone's staring, tapping, tracking. While you're grateful for things like Google Maps and Netflix that make your life easier and more fun, something feels off. It's the basics that are missing: courtesy, conversation, being bored, and appreciating simple pleasures. But all hope is not lost. You may have to take another look at how your family is using tech and make adjustments based on your values. But you can do it. Here are five ways tech has nibbled away at valuable life skills and experiences, and what you can do about it. If you are one of the millions of households in the United States with Alexa or Google Home, you may have noticed an unfortunate side effect of using the device: a lack of enforced courtesy. Kids (and adults) shout commands at the device: "Play Beyoncé!" or "What's the weather?!" The devices do not require a "please" or "thank you," and the more lifelike these devices become, the weirder it is to hear your child rudely demanding something from a humanlike voice.
What to do:
Model the behavior you want to see. It might feel strange to say "please" to a machine, but if that's what you expect from your kid, you should do it too. It might help explain to kids that even though you know Alexa doesn't have feelings, using polite voices and wordsmakes it nicer for the real people in the house who do have feelings. You can talk about how it can feel bad to be around someone who's yelling or angry, even if they're not yelling at you. Phones vs. Respect for EldersHow many of us have witnessed a teacher, coach, or grandparent try to make conversation with kids who can't unglue their eyes from a screen? Of course it's only polite to put down your phone when anyone is talking to you, but it can be especially embarrassing for parents who were raised to defer to the older generation.
What to do:
Make your expectations very clear. Talk to your kids about how important it is to use good manners when you're on your phone. Explain that it can be very difficult to put down your phone when you're in the middle of a game or chat, but you believe it's important to pay special respect to people like grandparents and elders. And of course, respect breeds respect, so put your phone down when your kid talks to you (unless it's about how much redstone they need to build a castle in Minecraft, in which case it's totally OK to ignore them!). Internet vs. Value of BoredomWhen a phone full of cute cat videos and funny memes is only a swipe away, it's easy to forget what it was like to be truly bored. But science tells us that boredom is actually useful -- for kids and adults. Not only can boredom lead to deep thinking, it can help kids practice perseverance, or pushing through uncomfortable moments without stimulation or distraction. And without boredom, kids might not take the time to explore their surroundings -- dig in the dirt, wonder how a house is built, bake cookies without a recipe -- and they might not stumble on something they really love to do.
What to do: Create opportunities for boredom
by setting up times and places where devices are off-limits. And make sure kids have unstructured time -- even a little bit -- where they can roam the house or the neighborhood without a schedule. Keep a list of activities that kids say they like to do -- from drawing to hammering to bouncing a ball -- and point them toward it when they complain. Activity Trackers vs. Activity for Its Own SakeIf you've ever taken a walk with someone who's trying to get steps, it can be hard to concentrate on the conversation while they're jogging in place, hopping up and down, and constantly checking their device. Activity trackers -- while useful for many -- tend to distract from the activity itself. And if we want kids to appreciate the beauty of their surroundings, the comfort of a meandering conversation, or even the rush of endorphins that can come with a strenuous walk, we need to emphasize the benefits of the activity, rather than the quantification of the actions. What to do: First, don't buy your kid an activity tracker unless they need it for a specific reason. Second, engage in lots of outdoor activity and fun exercise, and comment on how good it feels. And last, model the behavior and values you want to see in your kid -- even if you're tracking your steps, wait until the walk is over to check your progress, for example. Devices vs. EmpathyThe mere presence of a phone on the table between two people having a discussion has been shown to decrease feelings of empathy. Whether this is because the phone owner is distracted by the possibility of an incoming message or the promise of something more interesting on the device is unclear. But it makes sense that if someone isn't giving you their full attention, they're less likely to understand or empathize with you, and ultimately that can affect the quality of the relationship.
What to do:
Prioritize face-to-face conversation over devices by putting phones and tablets out of site during meals. Recognize your thought pattern during conversations, and if you find yourself wondering about a missed call or guessing how many people liked your most recent Instagram post, refocus your concentration on your friend, spouse, or kid. And acknowledge how difficult digital distraction can be to manage yourself so that your kids understand that you think it's an important challenge to wrestle with. Health via CNN.com - RSS Channel - Health http://ift.tt/1rsiniF August 31, 2017 at 05:13AM
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Chain-smoking children: How toddler overcame his addiction
http://ift.tt/2vtOhlK But this boy has a tumultuous past and a reputation that precedes him, having undergone a recovery most children will never face. Six years ago, Aldi Suganda, also known as Aldi Rizal, was a 2-year-old chain smoker addicted to cigarettes, smoking packs each day. "It was hard for me to stop," he said. "If I am not smoking, my mouth taste is sour and my head feel dizzy. "I am happy now. I feel more enthusiastic, and my body is feeling fresh," he said. He became a global sensation as the "chain-smoking toddler," with video clips of him puffing excessively on an endless cigarette supply watched by millions around the world. His mother, Diana, thinks back to that period and recoils at the memory. Her son would get angry, she remembers, and throw tantrums if she withheld cigarettes from him or failed to give him money to obtain them. "He (would) start to smash his head to the wall. He was crazy, hurting himself if he didn't get a cigarette," she said. People would accuse her of being a bad mother and regularly question her parenting skills, she said. "I am a weak mom. He always threaten me if I didn't give him money. ... I (was) afraid he (was) going to die." Aldi is the youngest of three boys born to Diana and her husband, who requested not to be named. But he is far from the only child who picked up the habit across the islands of Indonesia: More than 267,000 children there are estimated to use tobacco products every day. A childhood habitDiana believes Aldi's addiction began with peer pressure and exposure to smokers. He accompanied her each morning to the market where she sells vegetables grown on their land. People there could have taught him to smoke, and he could easily get cigarettes by asking at the market, she said. In many regions of the world, this might seem unrealistic and like an excuse, but in Indonesia, it's highly likely. The country has the highest percentage of male smokers globally and among the highest rate of adolescent and child smokers in the world -- fueled by lack of control over advertising, relaxed sales and low prices. Today, Aldi is a healthy young boy who attends school and gets good grades, but to get here, it took years of rehabilitation with the country's leading child psychologist, Dr. Seto Mulyadi, chairman of the nation's National Commission for Child Protection. His road also didn't end with his tobacco cravings. Soon after his recovery, he replaced tobacco with food and began to overeat as a means of compensation, eventually becoming obese. But a second bout of rehabilitation to tackle this overeating created the healthy, stable young boy sitting beside his mother today. Mulyadi believes the one benefit of working with children who have an addiction is their mental agility. In Aldi's case, his age and intelligence meant he responded quickly to his treatment, in which Mulyadi distracted the 8-year-old with running, climbing and playing while slowly reducing the number of cigarettes he smoked each day. But treatment was intense and required Aldi to go to Jakarta for a few months to be with Mulyadi every day. "He was just 3 years old, and he smoked four packs a day," Mulyadi said. "(But) I was confident because he is still very young. Psychologically, as a child, he is very flexible and easier to be cured." And cured he is -- at least for now. "I don't want to smoke anymore. I don't want to get sick," said Aldi, who now wants to help prevent other children going through a similar ordeal. "Please don't smoke. Don't even try it. It's hard to quit." In 2013, more than 57% of men were reported to be smokers in Indonesia and more than 42% of teens ages 13 to 15, according to the Tobacco Atlas, compared with 17% and 8.2%, respectively, in the United States. It's estimated that more than 217,000 people die from diseases linked to tobacco use each year in Indonesia, including heart disease and respiratory conditions such as emphysema and lung cancer. With smoking so commonplace and numbers remaining steady or even rising among some groups in recent years, Aldi's message could go unheard, believes Dr. Lily Sulistyowati, director of prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases at Indonesia's Ministry of Health. "I'm very worried about smoking in Indonesia," she said, especially among teens ages 15 to 19. No sign of declineWhile rates in most countries fell between 2013 and 2016, the rate of smokers under 18 in Indonesia rose from 7.2% to 8.8%. But more worryingly, among 10- to 14-year-olds, more than 3% were smokers in both 2013 and 2016 -- the majority of them boys -- and more than 18% of boys and more than 9% of girls 10 to 14 had tried a cigarette, according to Indonesia Basic Health Research data reported in 2013. The research also found that 1.5% of boys and 1.4% of girls 5 to 9 years old had tried a cigarette. Sulistyowati believes the problem is worse in rural areas and among poorer populations. "Poor people are spending their money on cigarettes," she said. In 2013, the richest fifth of the population used 7.1% of their monthly expenditures on tobacco and betel leaf to wrap tobacco, while the poorest fifth spent 12.5%, according to Indonesia's Central Bureau of Statistics. The poorest fifth spent similar proportions of their wages on grains and tobacco -- 15.5% and 12.5%, respectively -- and spent six times more on tobacco than on dairy and egg products. Rural regions also tend to be populated with people with lower incomes. There, parents' priorities are working and earning money for their families, which can leave children vulnerable to influences such as smoking while parents are distracted. "(These areas) are a different situation. Parents focus on how to work and get money, not on the health of their children," Sulistyowati said. In addition, children begin working young to earn money that they can then spend on cigarettes, said Dr. Aman Pulungan, president of the Indonesian Pediatric Society, who has been monitoring and working on the issue of childhood smoking for decades. "It's country life," he said. Smoking among children and teens is still a problem in the cities, highlights Silistyowati, but there, people know that the habit is bad for their health and children instead hide their addiction from their parents, she said. "They try it with friends," she said. This was the case for Icha, 16, in the capital, Jakarta, who began smoking when she was 13 after a friend offered a cigarette to smoke together. "The first time, I felt dizzy and coughed a lot," she said. "But later on I (felt) the taste is good." Icha now smokes at least one pack of 12 cigarettes each day and says half of her classmates also smoke, some in front of their parents. Her own parents tried to ban her from smoking but after little success now just ask that she try to reduce her habit. "There is no parental control," Pulungan said."They just do it, because no one says no." Pulungan added that many parents don't fully understand the risks associated with smoking and that its prevalence among adults helps that ignorance persist, particularly in rural areas. Part of the problem, Sulistyowati and other experts say, is the ease of access and pervasiveness of smoking in Indonesian culture. Marketing and image invasion"The problem is big," Pulungan said, adding that smoking has been an issue in Indonesia for more than 40 years. "But it's getting worse." He believes that in addition to peer influence, the root causes of the epidemic include advertising, lack of laws -- or enforcement -- in public spaces, sponsorship of venues by big tobacco companies and the way cigarettes are sold. Nonsmoking sections in restaurants are very small, he said. In addition, tobacco companies are still sponsoring sporting and musical events as well as public buildings or clubs. This sponsorship has come down in recent years, he said, but he now believes that hidden advertising is growing -- through TV and culture. "(Kids) think if you want to become a man, you have to smoke," he said. The issues of advertising and masculinity linked to smoking faced many other countries just a decade or two ago, but while rates across the West declined, companies and efforts to boost tobacco interest transferred to countries where bans and laws did not prohibit their existence, such as Indonesia, Pulungan believes. In rural areas, "the small shops, grocery shops, are sponsored by cigarette companies, and they can put adverts anywhere," he said. "No one controls this." He also mentions sports clubs that have tobacco companies as part of their names. "Advertising is of more interest to the youth," Sulistyowati said, adding that companies entice adolescents by associating cigarettes with success and fame. "Schools can get sponsorship" from big companies, she said. Again, while many countries have had bans against this for some time, Indonesia has no national laws in place -- though some municipalities have introduced them, she said, including Western Sumatra. Of the big six global tobacco companies, Phillip Morris International dominates the market in Indonesia, according to 2013 data from the Tobacco Atlas. The company did not respond to a request for comment. The Ministry of Health is now working with the Ministries of Education and Communication to help prohibit sponsorship and advertising, as well as the Ministry of Transport to implement and enforce existing smoking bans on public transport. Almost half of the country's municipalities have regulations in place for smoke-free areas, said Sulistyowati, and universities have committed to having smoke-free campuses through the Ministry of Education. Graphic health warnings were also introduced on cigarette packets in 2014 to put people off the habit. But "it all depends on the commitment of the local head, or mayor, of a district," Sulistyowati said. "Indonesia is a big country," at more than 1.9 million square kilometers (more than 740,000 square miles). Easy access and affordabilityThe final hurdle is the cost and ease with which people can buy cigarettes: They can be bought individually -- which makes them more affordable to people with lower incomes -- and a pack of 12 can cost as little as $1 at most vendors and kiosks, said Sulitsyowati. All 34 provinces have had regulations in place since 2012 to prohibit the sale of individual cigarettes, but enforcement has not been that effective. "They buy one cigarette, not a pack usually ... and everywhere you go, you can buy one cigarette, so it's easy," Pulungan said. "Shops easily sell them." One kiosk vendor in Jakarta, who did not provide his name, said most children buy individual cigarettes from him even though selling them in this form is breaking the law. "Everyone sells cigarettes to them," he said. Globally, experts agree that one of the strongest tobacco-control policies has been taxation. The rising cost of the habit, linked to higher taxes, has meant that many can no longer afford to smoke, and those who can smoke provide revenue for anti-smoking campaigns and quitting support services, to name a few options. "The evidence suggests increasing pricing is the single most effective way to reduce demand," said Vaughan Rees, director of the Center for Global Tobacco Control at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in a previous report by CNN. "In states where we see the highest tax rates, we see the lowest prevalence," he said, highlighting New York City, where former Mayor Michael Bloomberg introduced city taxes on top of state taxes in 2010. In Indonesia, "the price of cigarettes is very cheap," Sulistyowati said. "Everyone can buy them." Pushing for changeNow, the Ministry of Health is working to align with other ministries as well as international organizations, such as the World Health Organization, to tackle the appeal of cigarettes once and for all. This includes aligning with the WHO's Tobacco Free Initiative and its strategy to reverse the global tobacco epidemic, known as MPOWER, which features six policies that have been proved to make an impact, such as protecting people from smoke, enforcing bans on advertising, and raising taxes. The ministry also hopes to provide greater support for people trying to quit smoking and to increase public awareness about tobacco's harms -- as well as push harder for the country to join the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, a global public health treaty formed in 2005 to tackle the global tobacco epidemic. Today, 181 states have signed the convention. Indonesia is not one of them. With all this eventually in place, Aldi's message may finally reach those who need to hear it: young children facing the allure of smoking tobacco. Though cases like Aldi's seem very rare on the surface, there are similar ones in Indonesia that don't get serious attention, said Mulyadi, who treated Aldi. "Aldi was very lucky because in his case, we get a fast response from the government and public. ... Local and international media give him big attention," he said. "Other children are not that lucky." The Indonesian government is not strict enough, he said. "As long as cigarette ads are spread out massively on TV, radio, newspapers, outdoor signage, everywhere, the problem of child smokers will get worse and worse." Health via CNN.com - RSS Channel - Health http://ift.tt/1rsiniF August 31, 2017 at 05:05AM
Harvey's floods close some hospitals, but others hang on
http://ift.tt/2x6W34D Health via CNN.com - RSS Channel - Health http://ift.tt/1rsiniF August 30, 2017 at 06:19PM
Grilled Steak With Tomatoes, Red Onion and Balsamic
http://ift.tt/1Nb6sQF Grilled Steak With Tomatoes, Red Onion and Balsamicposted August 30, 2017by GinaOne of my favorite ways to make grilled steak in the summer is topped with fresh chopped tomatoes, red onion, balsamic and oil. It’s fresh and a great way to enjoy those end-of-summer tomatoes!
This recipe is from the archives, it’s an oldie but I still make this all the time! If you don’t have an outdoor grill, you can use your broiler or even purchase an indoor grill pan, (this is the one I use).
Ingredients:
Directions: Pierce steak all over with a fork. Season generously with salt, pepper and garlic powder and set aside about 10 minutes at room temperature. In a large bowl, combine onions, olive oil, balsamic, salt and pepper. Let onions sit a few minutes with the salt and balsamic to mellow a bit. Combine with tomatoes and fresh herbs and adjust seasoning if needed. Heat grill or broiler on high heat. Cook steak about 7 minutes on each side for medium rare or longer to taste. Remove from grill and let it rest on a plate for about 5 minutes before slicing. Slice steak thin on the diagonal; top with tomatoes and serve. posted August 30, 2017 by Gina Health via Skinnytaste http://ift.tt/13e6yyq August 30, 2017 at 05:51PM
F.D.A. Approves First Gene-Altering Leukemia Treatment, Costing $475,000
http://ift.tt/2xyLlSB Kymriah, which will be given just once to a patient and must be made individually for each patient, will cost $475,000. Novartis said that if the patient does not respond within the first month after treatment, there will be no charge. The company also said it would provide financial help to families who were uninsured or underinsured. Photo Credit Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, via Associated PressDiscussing the high price during a telephone news conference, a Novartis official noted that bone-marrow transplants, which can cure some cases of leukemia, cost even more, from $540,000 to $800,000. About 600 children and young adults a year in the United States would be candidates for the new treatment. The approval was based largely on a trial in 63 severely ill children and young adults, who had a remission rate of 83 percent within three months — a high rate, given that relapsed or treatment-resistant disease is often quickly fatal. The treatment was originally developed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and licensed to Novartis. In previous reports it was identified as CAR-T cell therapy, CTL019 or tisagenlecleucel. The first child ever to receive the therapy was Emily Whitehead, who was near death from leukemia in 2012 when she was treated, at age 6, at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Now 12, she has been free of leukemia for more than five years. To customize Kymriah for individual patients, white blood cells called T-cells will be removed from the patient’s bloodstream at an approved medical center, frozen, shipped to Novartis in Morris Plain, N.J. for genetic engineering and multiplying, frozen again and shipped back to the medical center to be dripped into the patient. That processing is expected to take 22 days. Novartis said the treatment would be available at an initial network of 20 approved medical centers that would be certified within a month, and be expanded to 32 by the end of this year. Five centers will be ready to start extracting T cells from patients within three to five days, the company said. Photo Credit Novartis, via Associated PressCertification is being required because the revved-up T cells can touch off an intense reaction, sometimes called a “cytokine storm,” that can cause high fever, low blood pressure, lung congestion, neurological problems and other life-threatening complications. Medical staff need training to manage these reactions, and hospitals are being told that before giving Kymriah to any patient, they must be sure that they have the drug needed to treat the problems — tocilizumab, also called Actemra. Dr. Kevin J. Curran, a pediatric oncologist at Memorial Sloan Cancer Center in Manhattan, said his hospital was “99 percent” of the way through the certification process, and would soon be offering Kymriah. “This is a big paradigm shift, using this living drug,” Dr. Curran said. “It will provide a lot of hope. This is the beginning.” He said he expected that eventually this type of treatment would work for other, more common types of cancer, not just leukemia. The approval of Kymriah ushers in “a new approach to the treatment of cancer and other serious and life-threatening diseases,” the F.D.A. said in a statement, noting that the new therapy is “the first gene therapy available in the United States.” Dr. Carl June, a leader in developing the treatment at the University of Pennsylvania, recalled that in 2010, when tests showed that the first patient was leukemia-free a month after being treated, he and his colleagues did not believe it. They ordered another biopsy to be sure. “Now, I have to keep pinching myself to see that this happened,” Dr. June said, his voice breaking with emotion. “It was so improbable that this would ever be a commercially approved therapy, and now it’s the first gene therapy approved in the United States. It’s so different from all the pharmaceutical models. I think the cancer world is forever changed.” Continue reading the main storyHealth via NYT > Health http://ift.tt/2koaaw3 August 30, 2017 at 04:03PM
Federal Prisons Must Offer Free Tampons, Pads
http://ift.tt/2xMmdac New policy from the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBP) now requires that all facilities make feminine hygiene products, such as tampons and pads, available for free to prisoners who need them. In an email memo issued earlier in August, FBP spokesman Justin Long said that "wardens have the responsibility to ensure female hygiene products such as tampons or pads are made available for free in sufficient frequency and number. Prior to the (memo), the type of products provided was not consistent, and varied by institution." Andrea James is a former lawyer and founder of the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls. In 2010 and 2011, she served 18 months in a federal prison. Speaking with CNN, James recalled tough choices made by prisoners involving feminine hygiene products, which the prisoners themselves had to pay for. "We were paid 12 cents an hour [for in-prison work]," she said, and that wage could be spent on other things, such as phone calls. "That's the choice. Do I buy the tampons or do I call my children?" According to CNN, the new policy arrives a month after Democratic Senators Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Dick Durbin and Kamala Harris introduced the Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act into Congress. Among other issues, the Act requires that women in prisons have access to multiple sizes of free tampons, pads and liners. Long said the new announcement had nothing to do with the proposed law, however. In a statement, Harris said she applauded the memorandum, adding, "too many women reside in prison and jail facilities that don't support basic hygiene or reproductive health, and that's just not right."
WebMD News from HealthDay Copyright © 2013-2017 HealthDay. All rights reserved.Health via WebMD Health http://www.webmd.com/ August 30, 2017 at 08:24AM
Why it's risky to find a plastic surgeon on Instagram
http://ift.tt/2vE8Nfy Yet picking your next plastic surgeon on Instagram can bring some serious health risks if that surgeon is not board-certified, according to a pilot study published Wednesday in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal. Only 17.8% of plastic surgery-related Instagram posts in the United States and Canada might come from board-certified plastic surgeons, according to the study, which analyzed posts uploaded on a single day in January. The majority of the posts were from physicians not trained in plastic surgery or professionals who were not even licensed physicians, such as dermatologists, dentists or spa aestheticians, said senior study author Dr. Clark Schierle, a board-certified Northwestern Medicine plastic surgeon and faculty member at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "Finding your surgeon on Instagram isn't necessarily a problem," Schierle said, adding that his own practice has accounts on Instagram and other social media sites. Rather, a public health problem can arise when non-certified professionals market invasive procedures on the social media app and prospective patients may not ensure that the person behind the marketing is board-certified for that surgery, he said. To be certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, a physician must have at least five years of approved surgical training, including a residency in plastic surgery, and must pass comprehensive written and oral exams in plastic surgery, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. Certification is a voluntary credential, but by choosing a board-certified plastic surgeon, patients can be assured that the surgeon completed at least five years of additional training as a resident surgeon and graduated from an accredited medical school, according to the board. The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada also follows a similar process for certification. "We've all heard these headlines in recent years of some terrible things that have happened in association with surgery that was not being done in the safest possible manner," Schierle said. As for those on Instagram, "some of these are doctors practicing outside of their scope of practice. Some of these are non-physicians just doing crazy stuff, like injecting siliconebuilding material from Home Depot into people's bodies without a medical license," Schierle said. "These days, with the Internet and social media, these people have more of a voice and more opportunity for horizontal information transmission than ever before." 'Social media takes it to yet another level'The new study involved more than 1 million Instagram posts that were uploaded January 9. Each included at least one of 21 plastic surgery-related hashtags such as #plasticsurgery, #plasticsurgeon, #breastlift or #nosejob. On Instagram, hashtags help aggregate and categorizeuploaded photos or videos that fall within similar categories of content. Additionally, a consumer might search for a hashtag -- such as #facelift -- to find a surgeon. Among the hashtags in the study, "the use of colloquial or layperson terminology for cosmetic surgical procedures seems to be much more popular than the use of technical terminology," Schierle said, such as #tummytuck over #abdominoplasty. The researchers analyzed the Instagram posts to find the top nine associated with each of the 21 hashtags, and they recorded data on who did the posting, referring to the Instagram profile associated with each post. "The Instagram app itself automatically categorizes the top nine posts. Whenever you do a given search, the first nine results that show up are identified as top posts," Schierle said. "The top nine are based on how many followers the person has and how many likes the particular post has." The researchers found that, in the United States and Canada, just a few of the top posts came from a plastic surgeon board-certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgeryor The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. The researchers wrote that the online presence of surgeons who are not board-certified in plastic and reconstructive surgery in the US and Canada often comes at the expense of patient safety and dangerous outcomes. Globally, the majority of the top posts for each hashtag came from surgeons outside the United States, including Turkey, Russia, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic and the United Arab Emirates, the researchers found. However, those posts were not analyzed to determine the poster's board certification status. Plastic surgeons have long warned against traveling internationally for unsafe plastic surgeries, and Schierle said he has corrected some botched procedures from overseas among his own patients. Now, however, consumers should be warned of unsafe procedures being promoted on social media, he said. "Social media takes it to yet another level in terms of the impact that people can have and how rapidly they're able to kind of establish themselves as something that they may or may not actually be," Schierle said. Still, the new study comes with limitations, including that it involved only one day's worth of Instagram data -- all the posts were from January 9 -- and that the data were pulled from a single social media platform. "The study was well-designed but serves only as a snapshot of an ever-expanding problem in the field," said Dr. Wright Jones, a board-certified surgeon in Atlantaand founder of Muse Plastic Surgery, who was not involved in the study. The researchers plan to conduct followup studies over a longer time period and across an array of social media platforms, including Snapchat, Schierle said. "More data need to be collected in terms of seasonality, how cyclical the data are, as well as the overall trend," he said. All in all, the study reveals that the underrepresentation of board-certified plastic surgeons among the top posts on Instagram should be something for potential patients to be aware of, he said. Tips for finding a plastic surgeon, and questions to ask"Instagram has become a convenient way for patients to see a surgeon's work and get a sense of the types of procedures being performed," Jones said. "It is quickly becoming a go-to source for millennials," he added. "In today's society, patients want to get to know the surgeon before ever stepping foot into the office." Dr. Matthew Schulman, a board-certified plastic surgeon based in New York, has integrated social media into his practice for many years and said the new study results support his personal impression that the majority of the most active plastic surgeons on social media are not board-certified. For consumers, it's not always easy to determine whether a plastic surgeon on Instagram is board-certified, said Schulman, who was not involved in the study. He added that he routinely lectures plastic surgeons at national and regional meetings about the usefulness and advantages of social media. "Some physicians have specific information in his or her bio. However, many non-board-certified plastic surgeons are not forthcoming about specific training," Schulman said. "Some may be outright deceitful, but most deceive by omission. Being a board-certified plastic surgeon takes many years of training, examinations, certifications, and is something to be proud of," he said. "I can assure you that if a physician is a board-certified plastic surgeon, this will be prominently featured on his or her bio." Jones said patients can verify a plastic surgeon's credentials using the American Board of Plastic Surgery's website. Also, the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery offers an online, searchable database of board-certified plastic surgeonsby location in the United States. For surgeons outside the US, the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery offers a databaseof board-certified or equivalent plastic surgeonsby country. Along with ensuring that your plastic surgeon is board-certified, the American Society of Plastic Surgeonsrecommends asking the following questions before going under the knife:
Health via CNN.com - RSS Channel - Health http://ift.tt/1rsiniF August 30, 2017 at 06:11AM
11 tips to get kids to eat healthy
http://ift.tt/2goPJPX It's a problem throughout the year, but at back-to-school time, it gets maybe a tad more stressful, as parents are looking to start over or at least give their kids lunches that pack a healthy punch and won't get traded away for Oreos or some other sugary snack. So what's a parent to do? First, don't stress -- we reached out to parents across the country, including a few experts on healthy eating for kids, and they had a ton of great advice. We've boiled down their insights into 11 great tips that are sure to make healthy eating in your household a little less complicated, beginning with what not to do: Don't let your kids get hooked on sugar, says Agatha Achindu, a mother of three who founded Yummy Spoonfuls Organic Baby Foodin 2006. "Sugar is in just about all packaged food these days, in one form or another," said Achindu, who grew up on a farm in Cameroon, West Africa. Banish soda and other sugary drinks from the household, read the labels and don't buy anything with added sugar, she says. You might not be able to control everything your child eats, especially when your kids are not at home, but you can give them a good healthy foundation. She suggests not bringing junk food into the house: "If it's not there, they won't eat it." Don't plead or threaten or bribe your child to eat healthy food, she says, because those tactics are not effective. And don't judge your child's tastes by your own. "You may not like broccoli, but your child is not you. He/she may love foods that you don't care for," Achindu said. 2. Make food interesting Lori Day, an educational psychologist and consultant,says her mom always told her that she was a terrible eater and that it would be karma if her daughter also didn't like to eat well. But that's not what happened. When her now-grown daughter was young, Day thought that if she found food interesting, she'd be more likely to try it. So Day let her daughter shell peas, count them, sort them by size and play with them before putting them in the pot. She loved eating them raw or cooked, Day said. Same with mussels marinara, which became one of her daughter's favorite foods. She enjoyed inspecting the mussels and looking for the potentially dead ones to throw away, learning about their biology and pulling the cooked shells all the way apart and picking out the meat. "My main tip is to make food interesting if your child is naturally curious, enjoys science/nature and is willing to engage," Day said. 3. Get the kids involved Several parents talked about how bringing their children with them to the farmers market or the grocery store and having them help with the cooking can get them more excited and invested in what they are eating. "Kids can be inspired to eat healthy when they are part of the meal and snack planning process," said Margaret McSweeney, host of the podcast Kitchen Chat, on which she has interviewed about 200 chefs, cookbook authors and food industry experts. "A trip to the local farmers market or produce aisle can be an adventure and connect them with the source of food." Monica Sakala, a mother of two who runs the social media consulting business SOMA Strategies, said she continues to be amazed by the power that growing their own vegetables has had on encouraging healthy eating in her kids. This is their third summer with a vegetable garden. "They delight in going out back, getting dirty and picking the veggies. I watch them eat them raw," she said. "They seem to delight in what they've grown, and there's never a battle." 4. Give kids choices
Ava Parnass,
an infant-child psychotherapist and author of "Hungry Feelings Not Hungry Tummy," said that from a young age, parents should let their kids choose foods, fruits, vegetables and snacks they like, within reason. "Give them more room to choose as they get older," she added. And never get into a power struggle with your kids about eating, food or even healthy food, she said. "Make sure you are not overcontrolling, overeducating or over-lecturing them, or they will rebel in the food arena." 5. Get creative
Rachel Matos,
a social media marketing strategist, says her teenage son would live on chicken wings and Pop-Tarts if she let him. He has always been picky about eating his greens but loves his juices, she said. "Instead of arguing every night at dinner, I got a juicer ... and started making him natural fruit juices and smoothies but gradually started adding in kale, spinach and other greens." He noticed the change in color but continued to enjoy the taste, so as time went on, she added more and more greens. Now, he can drink a kale or spinach drink with no issue. "The juices helped him develop taste for veggies. He also notices how much better he feels when he drinks them consistently," she said. McSweeney, the podcast host, has another idea, this one for younger kids: Present healthy food in a creative way, such as hosting a purple night. "Everyone dresses in purple for a purple meal. Menu items could include purple peppers, purple cauliflower, purple potatoes, grapes and/or eggplant," she said. "Savor the day!" 6. Model healthy eating Our kids watch everything we do, so it should be no surprise that they can be influenced to make better choices if they watch us doing the same. Pam Moore says her kids, ages 3 and 5, always see her and husband eating healthy. "Both my husband and I typically add greens to our eggs (spinach, kale, Swiss chard, whatever is around) at breakfast. I always add greens to my smoothies. I often keep sliced veggies (bell peppers, carrots, cucumbers) washed, sliced and ready to eat for snacks," said Moore, founder of the blog Whatevs.Added Parnass, the author and psychotherapist, "Our children will ask for bites as time goes on, as they like to copy what we do, not what we say." 7. Forget about making your kids clear their plates
Cherylyn Harley LeBon
, a lawyer, strategist and mother of two, says that as a child who was the last person sitting at her table many nights, she is not a fan of making kids stay at the table until they are finished with their meal. "If they do not want to finish their vegetables or meal, they are welcome to leave the table, but there is nothing else to eat," she said. Moore, of the Whatevs blog, said she and her husband never force their kids to eat anything and are not in a habit of fixing them a separate dinner. "If they refuse to eat the meal, we tell them that's OK, but that's all there is, and they can eat again at breakfast," she said. "If they want a second helping of, say, steak, and they have not finished whatever veggies are on their plate, we tell them they have to finish what's there before they can have more of something else." 8. Words matter John Furjanic, a single father of one, said his daughter is the second-smallest child in her elementary school class -- she's about to begin fifth grade -- and is acutely aware of the size difference between her and her classmates. Recently, she surprised Furjanic by repeating one of his mantras, which is "Protein builds muscles." "I flex my muscles when I say it, and she rolls her eyes, but apparently she has been listening," said Furjanic, who works as a financial adviser. "I'm ecstatic that she is asking me to make chicken, steak and eggs." 9. Get colorful Kathy Beymer, founder of the craft site Merriment Design, said that her mom taught her when she was growing up that she should eat a bunch of colors on her plate, so she has passed that on to her kids. "We talk about food colors and how it's healthiest to make meals that have a variety of colors, a little red, a little green, some orange, a bit of yellow," said Beymer, a mom of two. "If everything on the plate is beige, then they know that's not a healthy meal and that they need to add some brighter colors." 10. Consider "litterless lunches" Julia Cole, a mother of six and co-founder of the personalized labeling company Mabel's Labels,says that packing "litterless lunches" will mean you are not sending in "pre-packaged snacks that are often loaded with salt or sugar." It will encourage you to pack more fresh fruit and fresh veggies, she said. "Healthy snacks and good for the environment? Sign me up." 11. Experiment Jennifer Bosse, a mother of two boys ages 4 and 6, analyzed the family diet a few years ago and realized there were some "obvious tweaks" they could make to ensure healthier eating. She realized they were consuming a lot of bread at each meal, and pasta was on the weekly lunch and dinner rotation. So, she did some research and started trying new things. Instead of pasta noodles for spaghetti, she switched to spaghetti squash. When she makes baked goods like muffins, she uses alternative flours like coconut and almond. Instead of oil, she uses unsweetened applesauce. "I've made some dishes that my boys absolutely loved and others that weren't as successful," said Bosse, who has contributed to the Huffington Post, Scary Mommy and Mamalode. "It's an ongoing process. ... Some days, I hit a home run. Other days, I have to pull out the chicken nuggets. As with everything else in life, moderation is key." Health via CNN.com - RSS Channel - Health http://ift.tt/1rsiniF August 30, 2017 at 06:11AM
How to improve your flexibility -- and your health
http://ift.tt/2x3CVET How flexible you are and how flexible you can become are also influenced by factors that you can't control, such as genetics and gender. As anyone who has ever observed a co-ed yoga class can attest, women tend to be more flexible than men. Injuries and certain conditions like arthritis can also limit flexibility. Age plays a role, as well. Starting around age 30 or 40, flexibility continuously decreases, with men losing flexibility more quickly than women. But this decline doesn't occur uniformly throughout the body.
Research
shows that the shoulders and trunk tend to lose flexibility more quickly than the elbows and knees, for example. At any age, you may be relatively flexible in one part of your body and have limited range of motion in another. Flexibility can also vary from one side to another. As for how much flexibility is optimal, there's no definitive answer. We know that having poor range of motion can hamper athletic performance, increase the risk of injuries and make tasks of daily living more difficult. It's also true that a high level of flexibility can be beneficial if you do activities such as gymnastics, swimming or ballet. But this doesn't mean we should all strive to become human pretzels. Just as extreme inflexibility can lead to problems, so can extreme flexibility. People who are double-jointed -- or have "joint hypermobility," as the condition is technically known -- are more likely to experience pain and sports-related injuries. Interestingly, they're also at higher risk of anxiety disorders. (Why the two conditions are related is unknown.) Between the two extremes is a wide range of satisfactory flexibility levels. Being on the upper end of the range may impress your friends in yoga classes or games of Twister, but it won't necessarily confer any additional health benefits. Instead of worrying about how your flexibility stacks up against that of others, you should focus on what's right -- and realistic -- for yourself. Assess what your needs are and how stretching might address them. For example, maybe a certain part of your body is especially inflexible and holding you back in your workouts. Or perhaps you want to improve your flexibility to help your tennis or golf game, or to get on the floor and play with your kids or grandkids. Whatever the case, here are a few relatively simple tests you can use to assess your flexibility. Do them after a warmup or workout. Sit and reachDeveloped in the 1950s, this classic test of flexibility in the hamstrings and lower back has several variations. Here's a DIY version from the YMCA that requires only a yardstick and masking tape.
ZipperThis test of shoulder flexibility measures how closely you can bring your hands together behind your back. You need a tape measure or ruler and an assistant.
Sitting-risingThis test, developed by a Brazilian doctor, has received attention as a tool to predict mortality risk in middle-aged and older people. But research suggests that it can also be an indicator of flexibility (as well as strength and balance) in people of all ages. No equipment is required, but you need sufficient space and a surface that's not slippery.
There's no need to get perfect scores on these tests -- though if you do, that's great. Instead, use the results to track improvements in flexibility over time. That way, you can tell whether all those shoulder stretches or Cobra poses are paying off. Health via CNN.com - RSS Channel - Health http://ift.tt/1rsiniF August 30, 2017 at 06:11AM
Phys Ed: Moving When Young May Strengthen the Adult Brain
http://ift.tt/2wh7HZY The brain’s responses to exercise are particularly strong when animals are young, past experiments have found, because young brains are so reactive to all kinds of stimuli. But it has not been clear whether these impacts are long lasting and beneficial for older brains, or if they sputter and vanish as we age, especially if we stop exercising. So for the new experiment, which was published this month in eNeuro, researchers at the University of Toronto and other institutions gathered a group of adolescent rats. They then divided the animals into two groups, one of which went to live in standard cages. The others were given cages with running wheels and allowed to exercise as much as they wished for six weeks. Rats seem to enjoy running, and these rats ran a few miles almost every day. After six weeks, the wheels were removed and all of the animals became sedentary as they eased into adulthood. When they were about 7 months old, which is middle-aged for rodents, the researchers injected the animals with a chemical that binds to newborn neurons in the brain and marks them. They then placed the rats in a specialized cage and lightly shocked them several times. This process, known as fear conditioning, creates strong memories in the hippocampus. When animals are reintroduced to that cage, they will typically freeze repeatedly as they remember their earlier experience. The scientists waited two weeks before setting a number of the animals back into that cage. Some had been runners while young; others had not. Another group of the rats, runners and not, were placed into a cage that was similar to but not precisely the same as the scary cage, while a final group was settled into a cage that was nothing like that earlier one. The scientists noted how often each rat froze. Then they microscopically examined brain tissue, counting the total number of newborn neurons in each animal’s hippocampus. The scientists also determined whether any of these new neurons had fired during the fear reconditioning, based on certain gene markers. The researchers wanted to see to what extent the new cells had helped the animals to identify and respond to their environment. In effect, had these new neurons aided the animals’ thinking? And they had, although the results were not precisely what the researchers had expected. They had thought that the runners’ brains might contain more newborn neurons over all, meaning that their youthful workouts had amplified later neurogenesis. Instead, the runners’ brains contained the same number of new neurons as those of the sedentary animals. But their newborn cells behaved differently than those in the sedentary rats. They were about twice as likely to have fired during the reconditioning, when the animals were recalling their past fear and deciding if they should be scared now. Presumably as a result, the one-time runners froze less often than the sedentary animals when placed in cages that were not the same as the original one. In other words, the runners had proven to be better able to discriminate places and interpret their experience, to remember, assess and respond, even though they had not run for some time. The potential implications of these results are both encouraging and equivocal, says J. Martin Wojtowicz, an emeritus professor of physiology at the University of Toronto, who oversaw the study. Obviously, the study involved rats, which are not people. But the data do “suggest that early-life exercise may help build cognitive reserve,” he says. Whether the window for these benefits slams shut after adolescence remains unclear. “There may be something about the young brain” and exercise that cannot be replicated with workouts later in life, he says. He and his colleagues hope to study that issue in future experiments. This study also did not look into how youthful exercise could affect the inner working of neurons born much later. But Dr. Wojtowicz and his co-authors suspect that it may permanently alter aspects of the brain’s chemical environment and also perhaps of the stem cells located there, which eventually give rise to new brain cells. Continue reading the main storyHealth via NYT > Health http://ift.tt/2koaaw3 August 30, 2017 at 06:03AM |
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