Trainer Says Letting Your Child Be Obese is Abuse. This May Be Harsh!

I’m sure Nick Mitchell, who is a celebrity personal trainer, ruffled a lot of feathers when he made a public statement saying that letting your child be obese is pretty much a form of child abuse. He even said that it’s no different than letting your child smoke or use drugs, according to one report.

Why Gardening In Schools May Be One Of The Best Lessons For Children

Our health is really our greatest wealth, but we have to be proactive to maintain our health. One way to be proactive about our health is to have our children learn very early on in their lives what they can do to be healthy. And a recent study provides some evidence which suggests that there is a connection between school gardens and children eating more vegetables. Getting kids outside and explaining to them why it’s so important to regularly eat natural, nutrient-dense foods that grow right out of the ground is an invaluable lesson that may serve them for a lifetime.

High School Principal Dies While Donating Bone Marrow. What is Bone Marrow & How Did This Happen?

A 44-year-old high school principal and father to a six-year-old recently died after donating bone marrow. His name was Derrick Nelson, and his fiancé said he suffered complications after the donation, according to this CNN report. Reportedly, in the United States each year nearly 17,500 people (between the ages of 0-74) are diagnosed with a serious disease in which a bone marrow transplant or an umbilical cord blood transplant is needed.

Does Your Child’s School Have a Nutrition Class? If Not, You May Want to Ask for a Curriculum Change

For most kids, school is like a second home. The average child in America receives approximately 900 to 1,000 instructional hours of time in school per year. And healthy lifestyle habits, such as meal prepping with nutritious foods, should comprise a portion of those instructional hours because the childhood obesity epidemic in America is a major public health concern that must be addressed.

Why Healthy School Lunches Are Important

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) serves approximately 30.4 million lunches daily to children in more than 100,000 schools across the nation. For many children, the food they get at school is the only healthy meal they will eat all day. By improving school meals, we are providing vital nutrients to growing minds.

Poor Nutrition Might be Killing Our Kids, Not Ritalin!

The nation suffered yet again another tragic school shooting! And, as with previous shootings, amid the expressions of sympathy and solidarity, the pundits took to the media to share their opinions on the cause of an epidemic that continues unabated. One of the most recent was given by Oliver North, the new head of the National Rifle Association (NRA). Of course, it’s human nature to look for ways to make sense of out of something as tragic as school shootings by looking for a simple explanation that leads to an equally simple solution.

Want to Raise Healthy Kids? Give Them Water

The incidence of childhood obesity in the United States has more than tripled since the 1970s. Currently, one in five school-aged children (ages 6-19) are obese. In addition to this, approximately one-third of American youth are overweight. And if our children are overweight or obese, the more likely they are to remain so as adults, which may increase their risk for a variety of diseases, including heart disease, cancer and diabetes.

Why recess may be the secret to your student’s academic success

What’s trending in schools across the country? The death of recess. Surveys and studies show schools are reducing recess in order to squeeze in more academics, the American Academy of Pediatrics reports. However, experts are grabbing the mic, saying hold on -- this is doing more harm than good. In fact, they say, research suggests physically active students who spend less time with academic content seem to outperform sedentary students who spend more time with academic content, they say. So is less academics and more recess the actual key to student success?

Why doctors need better nutrition training in med school

Extensive research has shown a link between the food you eat and your health. But even still, nutrition receives little, if any, attention in medical practices, due in part to the lack of nutrition education in medical school curricula. Nutrition is considered one of the most important prevention strategies for obesity-related conditions including heart disease, cancer Type 2 diabetes, stroke and hypertension. This is a big issue -- more than a third of American adults are obese, the CDC says.

Exercise does a kid’s brain good

It’s no secret that many students in every grade level at schools across the country are struggling with their studies. But what if the answer for helping them blossom isn't necessarily more time in the classroom or more teachers? To the contrary, could the answer be spending less time in the classroom and more time being outdoors playing or doing some form of exercise?