Get Healthy

Healthy recipes, positive role model spice lesson for Chicago students

Julian Coleman, a sophomore at Gary Comer College Prep in Chicago, eats a meal of low-fat macaroni, baked chicken, and salad Sunday at the U-Cook program in Merrillville. The program focused on the importance of healthy eating.
(Photograph courtesy of Kyle Telechan/The Times.)

A couple of healthy dishes, nine interested students and one positive role model proved the perfect recipe last Sunday.

Chef Glennard Brooks spent the afternoon talking to students from Chicago’s Gary Comer College Prep, a charter high school, about healthy eating habits and how he became executive chef at the Hilton Garden Inn in Merrillville.

“He talked about what I want to go to school to learn how to do,” said Jamani Jones-O’Bryant, 15, a sophomore who said he watches cooking shows and cooks at home.
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According to a mother who asked me to write this column, the use of chewing tobacco and other forms of smoke-free tobacco has become the rage in her son’s high school. Many assume that if the tobacco does not make smoke, it must be safe. How wrong they are!!

Nothing about the use of any form of tobacco is safe. Another myth to dispel is that smokeless tobacco helps a person quit cigarette smoking. This simply is not the case.

Because most tobacco users start before they are 18 years old, the FDA has declared tobacco use a pediatric disease.
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This May 5, 2009 photo released by Sesame Workshop shows first lady Michelle Obama, third from left, with Big Bird, Elmo, Muppets & cast in ”Michelle Obama Plants A Garden” in Astoria, N.Y. (The Associated Press/Sesame Workshop, Richard Termine)

She’s hanging with Elmo and Emeril Lagasse, Big Bird and Bobby Flay.

Michelle Obama appeared on Sesame Street Tuesday and recently taped an episode of Iron Chef America, just two of the varied platforms she’s been using lately to get her healthy-eating message out to the masses.

And while the first lady herself didn’t appear on The Biggest Loser last week, her staff invited NBC’s popular weight-loss show into its kitchen and into Mrs. Obama’s famed White House Kitchen Garden.
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Parents frequently wonder if it’s good or bad to share a bed with their young infants. Much of the answer to this question is based on intuition and cultural perspectives rather than on solid data pointing to “truth” or to an equivocally correct answer. Thus, in spite of the many studies already performed, co-sleeping remains a controversial topic with its recommendation or discouragement essentially left up to the parents. It should be noted that bed sharing is well-accepted and promoted as the norm in many cultures, but it is not as popular a choice in the United States as it is in many other societies.

The benefits of bed sharing may be substantial. For example, we know that infants who sleep with their mothers are nursed longer, but other possible factors instead of bed sharing could explain this association. Bed sharing is thought to foster bonding between parents and the infant. This would seem to make sense, but unfortunately, there have not been studies to prove this intuitive outcome.

Most of the negatives about bed sharing (and co-sleeping on the same sofa) are related to the risk of the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Studies confirm that bed sharing is a significant risk for SIDS only in mothers who smoke, and that babies under 12 weeks of age are at greatest risk. Read the rest of this entry »

Nadia Czekajewski got braces on her teeth when she was 8. Now she’s in third grade, turning 9, and “she’ll be done before she begins fourth grade,” said her father, Tomasz Czekajewski.

“It was a wise decision to start young,” said Czekajewski, whose family lives in the Lakeview section of Chicago. “Kids are not as self-conscious at this age.”

Braces used to be another miserable part of being a teenager, but now some kids, like Nadia, start and finish orthodontic treatment long before adolescence.
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I grew up during the 1950s and ’60s in Madison, Wis., in a family that lived and breathed sports—and I don’t mean watching sports. We played sports, outdoors: hockey, cycling, tennis, hiking, golf. My grandparents lived on a lake so we were always outside swimming and skating. We even had our own personal physician in the off chance any injuries occurred—my dad, Dr. Jack Heiden, an orthopedic surgeon.

I remember when I was 12, I broke my wrist speed skating the same day I’d gotten the cast off from breaking my wrist cycling. And that was the second time I’d broken my wrist speed skating!

Did Dad rush in and advise me to take it easy or give up the sport? No way. My family never pressured us, but they really made activity a priority. My sister, Beth, and I didn’t begin training seriously as speed skaters until 1972, but because we’d always been so active, only eight years later we both medaled at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y.
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Bears mascot challenges youngsters to score a healthy life

Staley, the official mascot of the Chicago Bears, questions students about healthy choices during his visit to Protsman Elementary School. He offered the students ”Staley’s 6 Week Fitness Challenge” program. (Photograph provided by Protsman Elementary School.)

In an effort to encourage children into making healthy choices, the Chicago Bears and Staley Da Bear, the official mascot of the Bears, visited Protsman Elementary School recently.

“Staley’s 6 Week Fitness Challenge” is an informative, hands-on, educational school health show presented throughout Chicagoland. The students were introduced to the four elements, or “downs,” of this health/fitness program during an assembly entitled “First & Goal: How to Score a Touchdown for a Healthy Life.”

The students each took home a chart to monitor his/her progress daily during the six weeks following the assembly. Points are assigned for each “down” on a daily basis.
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At least one in five U.S. children aged 1 to 11 don’t get enough vitamin D and could be at risk for a variety of health problems including weak bones, the most recent national analysis suggests.

By a looser measure, almost 90 percent of black children that age and 80 percent of Hispanic kids could be vitamin D deficient—”astounding numbers” that should serve as a call to action, said Dr. Jonathan Mansbach, lead author of the new analysis and a researcher at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital in Boston.

The findings add to mounting evidence about vitamin D deficiency in children, teens and adults, a concern because of recent studies suggesting the vitamin might help prevent serious diseases, including infections, diabetes and even some cancers.
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There was a time Gavin Matusak’s family wasn’t sure he’d survive the day, much less be able to travel to Florida for a Disney vacation.

But then, the little guy has beaten some incredible odds.

With the support of family, doctors and a new technology at the Cardiac Critical Care Unit at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Matusak was healthy enough to make the trip. And with a gift in June from the Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors of Northwest Indiana, under the auspices of its “Make a Dream” program, the cost of the vacation was covered.

Matusak, who turned 3 on July 8, was born with a combination of four related heart defects that commonly occur together, called Tetralogy of Fallot. He also has pulmonary atresia, where his pulmonary valve was completely obstructed.
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Antibiotics are miracle drugs. But like so many good things, they have the potential for causing harm. This negative consequence may be inadvertent as all medications have side effects, or because widespread use of antibiotics may create deadlier germs. In large measure, determining which way the pendulum known as “nature’s balance” swings results from how antibiotics are used.

It is most important to realize that not all germs are killed by antibiotics. In fact, the minority of germs are susceptible, and these are bacteria.

Antibiotics do not kill viruses, and all colds are due to viruses. Thus, simple colds, including sore throats, runny noses and coughs should not be treated with antibiotics.
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