Make Alkaline foods part of your teenagers life Teenage years, that beautiful age where kids know everything and parents know nothing. Where everyday you are responsible to reinvent the rest of your life. Where everyone is after you, and no one understands anything... Sounds familiar? Try adding...
Our children are our future. And the fact that this generation of children has been said to have a shorter life expectancy than our generation is something we should all pay attention to, and act on. Many health advocates like Jamie Oliver have been of great help in raising awareness, and teaching...
When we talk about cardiovascular health we think of older people first. But we forget to include our children in this discussion. Modern diet is extremely acidic, and puts children in a high risk of developing hardening of the arteries at very young ages. This article may bring some light on how to prevent heart risk in kids. A diet rich in fruits and vegetables is the key to preventing atherosclerosis and other hear condition in our kids, now and in the future. Fruits and vegetables are alkalizing, and they help our blood cells flow freely without sticking to each other and forming the plaque responsible for those heart conditions.
If we increase our children's intake of fruits and veggies gradually, they will learn to eat them and love them, and this will have a positive effect in their health now and in their future. Fruits and vegetables prevent heart risk in kids, and build healthy eating habits in them that will go a long way in improving their overall health. A few ways to increase our children's consumption of fruits and vegetables that work are: - Adding a new vegetables cut in very small pieces to foods that they are used to eating. This is a way to camouflage it in the beginning, until they get familiarized with it. - Having fruits available and visible for them to snack. When we have a tray of fruits in a visible place, the bright colors will start to look appealing to them. They will be easier to get to, and when they come home hungry, they will more and more go for a fruit, instead of packaged snacks from the pantry. - Involving them in the kitchen. Have them suggest the vegetable of the week, and play with it, look up new recipes, and have your kids be part of that process. Decorate their plates in fun appealing ways featuring that vegetable, and make it a game to come up with a new fun way to eat it. What strategies have worked for you to get your kids to eat more fruits and veggies?"Kids Who Eat Fruits, Veggies May Cut Heart Risk
MONDAY, Nov. 29 (HealthDay News) -- Children who eat a diet rich in fruits and vegetables may be able to help ward off atherosclerosis in adulthood, a precursor of heart disease, a new study suggests. And a second new study found that children as young as 9 years old may already be exhibiting health problems such as high blood pressure that put them at risk of heart disease as adults. Both reports, from researchers in Finland, are published in the Nov. 29 online edition of Circulation. Commenting on the first study, Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Yale University School of Medicine's Prevention Research Center, who was not involved with the study, noted that it had taken knowledge about diet and heart health a step further. Atherosclerosis is a condition in which plaque -- a sticky substance consisting of fat, cholesterol, and other substances found in the blood -- builds up inside the arteries, eventually narrowing and stiffening the arteries and leading to heart problems. It's a process that can take years, even decades, and this study shows that diet even in childhood -- helps prevent the condition, Katz said. "We certainly, before this study, knew that vegetable and fruit intake were good for our health in general, and good for cardiovascular health in particular," he said. For the first study, researchers led by Dr. Mika Kahonen, chief physician in the Department of Clinical Physiology at Tampere University Hospital in Finland, looked at lifestyle factors and measured the pulse of 1,622 people who took part in the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study. The participants ranged in age from 3 to 18 when the study began and were followed for 27 years. The researchers also assessed "pulse wave velocity" -- a measure of arterial stiffness. The researchers found that those young people who ate fewer vegetables and fruits had higher pulse wave velocity, which means stiffer arteries. But those who ate the most vegetables and fruits had a pulse wave 6 percent lower than people who ate fewer fruits and veggies. Because arterial stiffness is linked with atherosclerosis, rigid arteries makes the heart work harder to pump blood. Besides low fruit and vegetable consumption, other lifestyle factors such as lack of physical activity and smoking in childhood was associated with pulse wave strength in adulthood, the researchers said. "These findings suggest that a lifetime pattern of low consumption of fruits and vegetables is related to arterial stiffness in young adulthood," Kahonen said in a news release from the American Heart Association, which publishes Circulation. "Parents and pediatricians have yet another reason to encourage children to consume high amounts of fruits and vegetables." "While it is never too late to use a healthful diet to prevent heart disease, it is certainly never too early," Katz said. "The best way to cultivate healthy blood vessels in adults, it seems, is to feed our children well." In the second study, Finnish researchers found that children as young as 9 who had the most risk factors for heart disease -- including high levels of cholesterol, high blood pressure and a greater body mass index -- faced a greater risk of thicker carotid artery walls as adults, an early sign of heart disease. "Cardiovascular risk factors measured at or after the age of 9 are predictive of vascular changes in adults," said lead researcher Dr. Markus Juonala, an adjunct professor at Turku University Hospital in Finland. "Of the individual risk factors, childhood obesity was the most consistently associated with vascular changes across different age groups," he said. Prevention of atherosclerosis should start in childhood, Juonala said, adding, "We should make all efforts to keep our kids fit, not fat." For the study, Juonala's team collected data on 4,380 participants in four studies that looked at heart disease risk factors in children and carotid artery thickness in adulthood. They found that children as young as 9 years old who had the most risk factors for heart disease had a 37 percent increased risk of thicker carotid arteries -- which supply oxygen-rich blood to the head and neck -- in adulthood, compared with other children. By age 12, children in the highest heart disease risk factor group had a 48 percent increased risk of thicker carotid arteries. This risk rose to 56 percent by 15, the researchers noted. Commenting on the study, Dr. Gregg Fonarow, American Heart Association spokesman and professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, said "atherosclerotic vascular disease can begin early in childhood and adolescence but becomes clinically manifest later in life." This study provides insights into the early development of vascular disease and has important implications for prevention efforts in children, he said. "There is currently an important, but largely unmet, need to prevent and reverse cardiovascular risk factors in childhood," Fonarow said."
Every school board in our nation expressly prohibits bullying, including cyber-bullying, by or towards any student or employee. That is definitely the way it should be, they are protecting our children. But there is an awful big group of bullies attacking our kids everyday, right under our noses. In fact, right on their plate. Some foods, and some ingredients present in the food our kids eat, are called immune suppressors. What this means is they kill the immune system for extended periods of time. The immune system is our body’s weapon of defense against infection and illness. These foods are extremely acid, and impair our bodies functions. According to Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale Prevention Research Center, “Our children will suffer more chronic disease and premature death from eating poorly than from exposure to alcohol, tobacco, and drugs combined.” The main immune suppressor our kids are exposed to is simple sugar. The processed type, the one that comes from a factory and not from nature. The problem is, our body recognizes the complex carbohydrates that come from nature, but it has a hard time with those that come from an industrial process... no wonder. Our bodies need Alkaline Foods from plant origin, the kind of foods that feed our cells, and allow our bodies to fight disease and stay healthy. Other big enemies of our children’s heath are the trans fats, hydrogenated oil and saturated fats. Trans fats are basically fat molecules that have their head on backward. They come into our bodies, and guess what, the body doesn’t recognize them, so it starts using other good stuff in it’s system to try to metabolize them. Now, how can we help our kids have a stronger immune system and be better able to fight invaders that try to get into their bodies? The ultimate karate for a black belt immune system: Alkaline Foods. Feed your kids the right food. Go back to nature. Give them what their bodies recognize. Live food from nature, fruits, vegetables and grains, contains what we call immune builders. The tools needed to defend themselves from those immune suppressors they are exposed to. You might want to keep this in mind, the longer the shelf life of a product, the longer it’ll take our bodies to process it. Ripe strawberries have a shelf life of just a couple of days, that means when we eat them, our body benefits immediately. On the other hand, fast food fries won’t go bad for years, eeeu!!! That is right you could keep a pack of fries in your garage, if you will, for as long as you want, and they won’t go bad. Do we want these stuff to last that long in our children’s systems? I don't think so!! I will list some great immune builders to have in mind. And I invite you to be creative, you don’t need to go to extremes, just try to mix as many of these builders as possible in your kid’s diet. The good fats: those found in nuts, unrefined oil, flax seed, avocado and wild fish. The good carbohydrates: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and potatoes (just not the ones that come with a happy meal, please!!). Our children need a lot more fruits and vegetables in their everyday diet. Fruits and vegetables are the only source of those, much needed, live enzymes the body needs to grow and to heal itself. The good proteins: green vegetables, tofu, lentils and beans, quinoa and other whole grains, and fish. And the good old habits: exercise, sleep, laughter, and affection. Yes showing your love to your children does influence the way their bodies behave inside. Make sure you always have fruits at home, and make them handy, so your kids can snack on them, the more they see them, the more they’ll want to eat them. Another good idea is to get them involved in the kitchen, teach them what’s good and what’s bad for them, they love to feel in power, and it is a chance to spend some nice quality time with them too. Offer them new things to try often, expose them to a variety of different foods. An most important, give them love, lots and lots of love, this will strengthen their self-esteem as well as their metabolism. Happy kids are healthier kids. To our babies health!! Tatiana
U.S. Today is highlighting a fact that may turn into a time bomb. Teenage kids do not eat enough Fruits and Vegetables on a daily basis. What does this really mean, and what are it's implications? What it means is they are basically having an Acid Diet, and an acid diet is synonym for trouble. Encouraging an alkaline diet for teenagers may be the best way to protect their health both in these developmental years, and in their future. An Acid Diet constitutes mainly Simple Carbohydrates, animal products, and processed foods. This acidity in their bodies is creating a haven for the development of many diseases. It sets the stage for cholesterol problems, heart disease and other degenerative diseases. Fruits and Vegetables are Alkaline Foods and they balance the pH in our bodies to maintain good health. Teenagers, and Children in general, need a strong nutritional foundation in those developmental years. An alkaline diet for teenagers will provide them with the nutrients they need for growing and to prevent diseases that used to be seen only in adults and that, more and more today, we are seeing in kids this age.
U.S. teens don't eat enough fruits and veggies: CDC
By Robert Preidt, HealthDay
U.S. high school students still aren't eating enough fruits and vegetables, according to a new study by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers.
SOURCE: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, news release, Nov. 23, 2011 Copyright © 2011 HealthDay. All rights reserved.The researchers said their findings indicate that most high school students don't meet the daily fruit and vegetable recommendations for teens who do less than 30 minutes of physical activity a day: 1.5 cups of fruit and 2.5 cups of vegetables for females and 2 cups of fruit and 3 cups of vegetables for males. Teens who get more physical activity need to eat even more fruits and vegetables, the researchers noted. "The infrequent fruit and vegetable consumption by high school students highlights the need for effective strategies to increase consumption," the researchers wrote in the report published in the Nov. 25 issue of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Potentially promising school and community-based strategies include policy and environmental approaches such as farm-to-school initiatives, school gardens, salad bars in schools, and farmers' markets. All of these programs seek to improve access to and availability of fruits and vegetables, the researchers explained. More information The Nemours Foundation outlines how parents can encourage healthy eating among children.The investigators analyzed data from nearly 10,800 students in grades nine through 12 who took part in the National Youth Physical Activity and Nutrition Study 2010, and found that median consumption was 1.2 times per day for both fruits and vegetables.Median daily fruit consumption was much higher among males than females, and much higher among grade nine students than among students in grades 10 and 12.Slightly more than one in four (28.5 percent) of high school students ate fruit less than once a day, and 33.2 percent ate vegetables less than once a day.Vegetable consumption was lowest among Hispanic and black students.
"A new analysis of U.S. federal data provides a dismal picture of children's cardiovascular health that suggests the current generation of teenagers could be at risk of increased heart disease. The study, which examined children between 12 and 19 years old in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that the adolescents performed poorly overall on a set of seven criteria set by the American Heart Association (AHA) for ideal cardiovascular health. Diet in particular was a problem, with not one of the 5,450 children randomly selected for the survey from the US population meeting the standards for diet. Taking out the diet measure, still just 16.4 percent of boys and 11.3 percent of girls were rated ideal on all of the other six criteria, which included smoking, exercise, weight, cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar. The findings, presented Wednesday at the annual scientific meeting of the heart association in Orlando, Fla., come amid continuing concern about the implications of obesity and other factors on the health of children. Just last week, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute called for all children between nine and 11 years old to get a cholesterol test in an effort to detect heart risk at an early age. Cholesterol and especially blood-sugar levels can be naturally elevated during puberty and level out in adulthood, and how that phenomenon might affect the results is not fully understood. But researchers note that the ideal benchmarks in the seven categories have been shown to be associated with reduced risk of heart disease. The seven criteria for ideal cardiovascular health are the backbone of a public health initiative recently launched by the heart association. The goal is to get 20 percent of all American adults within optimal range on all seven measures. The focus on children reflects growing awareness that while heart attacks and other consequences of cardiovascular disease typically strike later in life, the biological processes that lead to them begin in childhood. Researchers found that kids performed best on blood pressure, with more than 90 percent in the ideal range, and in smoking, where about 80 percent of those 17 and under had never smoked. For exercise, 50 percent of boys and 60 percent of girls did not regularly exercise for more than 60 minutes a day, the optimal target. Between 10 percent and 20 percent reported getting no exercise. About 30 percent to 45 percent had less-than-ideal cholesterol, while about one-third were either overweight or obese."Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204517204577042412501431378.html
