Healthy Little Ones

Having helped raised my younger brother and sister was an experience that I wouldn't give up for the world. They are fantastic kids with great personalities and an appreciation for their family. However, they are terrible eaters, and I know that that is completely my fault. I was the one who "cooked" dinner for us most nights, and being the most un-culinary person alive, I didn't always provide them with the most tasty, let alone nutritious options.

It's so difficult to get kids to eat correctly, even with the necessary resources to do so, but MSN recently released an article about how to help the little ones with better eating habits that they can grow with to become healthy adults.

The article discusses a lot of tactics for getting children to become healthy eaters, which I won't regurgitate here, but the main point of the article is that children mimic their parents and older siblings when it comes to about everything, including food. Setting a good example by eating well and introducing a variety of tasty and nutritious foods is essential for teaching a child how to eat correctly.

The Fountain of Youth

In his article, Peter Jaret discusses how to eat to a long life. I highly recommend anyone reading this blog to read this article and just think about it. While he starts out discussing different foods that offer longer lives, in the middle of the second page of his argument lies his true discussion: that of calorie restriction. I've heard about this technique for several years, and it seems to be the best way to lead a healthier, happier, longer life.

However, this technique does have it practicality problems. In today's day and age, when people are consuming more calories than ever, it is difficult to expect especially Americans to try to adopt this practice.

All I have to say is read the article. It's really compelling, and whether you decide to adopt the practice or not, it's great to be knowledgeable about an issue that could have a real affect on your life.

Drink Up!

So I found this cool article about drinking to better health. The author cites several drinks that can curb appetite, help you lose pounds, and recover after a hard workout, among other things.

• The best drink to lose weight is V8, about 15-20 minutes before a meal. This will curb your appetite, causing you to eat fewer calories during the meal itself.
• The best drink to recover from a workout is fat-free chocolate milk. Yeah, that's right. The cocoa beans found in chocolate help the muscles to recover from the workout, and the milk itself is filled with tons of good protein and carbs.
• The best drink to curb appetite and burn calories at the same time is cold water - below 72 degress. It actually takes the body calories to bring the water up to your body temperature, which can cause a five pound weight loss per year.

These are only a few of the benefits of researching your drinking habits, and the article includes somewhat healthy options for alcohol as well, for drinking better when out with the girls.

90 Seconds

I love articles that provide fast, easy ways to do something good for yourself. Nowadays, everyone is so busy with our hectic lifestyles that it's often difficult to take care of ourselves in the ways that we should. This article shows some really cool ways to improve your health in just a few seconds a day:

• Fight Cancer: Eat the peel - where most of the vitamins and minerals from fruits and veggies are found
• Slow Aging: Sniff some Lavender or Rosemary - lowers your stress levels and allows for a better night's sleep
• Cut Cholesterol: Sprinkle some pistachios on your salad - the benefits of nuts can be found in a past post of mine
• Keep your Vision Sharp: Eat an egg - shown to have more visual benefits than carrots
• Prevent Headaches: Keep your head up - posture has actually been shown to increase headaches.

There are a abunch more, but I fel that these were the coolest ones to include!

Curb Your Hunger

So I love MSN's Power Points on various health issues, as they are a simple way of breaking down different strategies that might otherwise seem complicated or hard to remember. This past one I've noticed involves how to curb your appetite, which I feel is more important now, considering how much we as a nation tend to snnack int he winter time.

Step 1: Pile on the Protein: Protein shakes and even smaller snacks such as nuts give the body the adequate amount of fiber to make us feel fuller, longer. For this reason, don't skip out on this important area of nutrition just because you may feel like fat is bad. Some fats are essential to the body, and they provide the adequate vitamins needed to make us look and feel healthy.

Step 2: Fill up on Fiber: Like I said before, fiber has the great benefit of making you feel fuller, longer, not to mention that it keeps you regular! Stick to the veggies and whole grains.

Step 3: Go Nuts!: And I quote from the article:

A hormone called ghrelin stimulates appetite and makes your stomach growl, says Mehmet Oz, MD, vice chair of surgery and professor of cardiac surgery at Columbia University and co-author of You on a Diet: The Owner's Manual for Waist Management. But just a handful of nuts can cause ghrelin levels to take a dive.

Calorically, the most dangerous part of a meal eaten out is the first 10 minutes when you arrive, famished, and clean out the breadbasket, says Oz. "If you eat a few nuts 30 minutes before dinner, your hunger will drop off dramatically," he says. "By the time you sit down for the meal, you'll be able to slow down, enjoy the food, and stop before you're stuffed."

Step 4: Take a Brisk Walk: A lot of times, you feel hungry even when you're not. This can be attributed to the fact that your body has a difficult time telling the difference between extreme hunger and axtreme fatigue. Taking a walk can help you to relax and understand if you are really hungry at all. Maybe you're just exhausted or stressed, causing your body to think that food is what it needs instead of, say a good night's rest or some excercise.

Step 5: Keep your Hands Busy: As an avid knitter, I can attest to this one. When you're working on a project that involves working with your hands, whether it be crafts or even writing a paper, you don't have time to worry about snacking. Most of the time, we eat out of boredom, a terrible habit to give in to. So take up a hobby or get ahead on your schoolwork and drop some pounds at the same time.

Step 6: Soothe Your Taste Buds: Many times, your mouth just wants the taste of something, and often a minnt or some gum will do the trick, so start off slow, and think about why you are hungry rather than just leaping for the chocolate.

Boys as an Endangeered Species

No, I'm not making any threats here. In a recent article, Francesca Lyman produced what is appearing to be a small crisis: the lack of baby boys being born. Whereas in the past males tended to be produced more, in some areas of the world, the ratio of males to females is so skewed, some people are wondering what is causing this change.

I discussed in an earlier post about the rise of conditions such as allergies, asthma and autism, and it is thought that environmental pollutants can be the cause of all of these afflictions, the endangered male included.

However, several people are attributing these problems to lifestyle changes, most notably the rise in the age of parents nowadays. True enough, education and career development has put baby-making on the back burner for many couples, causing them to start families at an older age, which can lead to higher birth complications, but it is only one in a line of possible causes that links all of these problems associated with children now.

Sounds Fishy...

In a recent article from msn health, scientists are now trying to prove that foods such as fish and yogurt can be passed off as "smart foods." The article confused me a bit, as there was no hard scientific explanation as to this new "discovery," but the general idea sounds about right.

My mother always told me that fish were good for me, and while I figured that was just because we were from the Gulf of Mexico and seafood was readily available, it has been proven that high levels of DHA are found in fish.

DHA, a chemical that provides much of the cell membranes in our brains can be found in other foods such as soy milk, eggs and yogurt. And even though I will not disagree that these foods provide tremendous health benefits, I'm gonna need a little more information before signing up for Jeopardy after a salmon-binge.