It’s time to face the facts: Most Canadian kids are not getting the required amount of daily physical activity. Obesity rates are climbing and traditionally adult disease such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes, are rapidly becoming commonplace among young adults and children.

According to Active Healthy Kids Canada, a research group formed to promote physical fitness, less than half of Canadian kids under five are getting regular physical activity as part of their daily routines. They also found that only 36 per cent of children between two and three and 44 per cent between four and five regularly engage in unorganized sport and physical activity each week.

With summer rapidly approaching, parents and children alike need to take advantage of the warm weather and start creating a culture of physical activity at home. This can be structured activity such as baseball teams or cheerleading squads, or unstructured activities like a family mountain bike rides or even a neighborhood game of hide and seek.

The solution to this problem begins by shutting off the TV and video games and exposing kids to healthy activities such as sport and play early on, so that they will carry these habits with them into adulthood. Parents must play an active role in this by encouraging (and in some cases financing) healthy childhood activities and also by limiting/restricting unhealthy habits and sedentary lifestyles.

From www.mercola.com:

Give your child a head start in life. Supplement with Krill oil before and during pregnancy, and while breast-feeding. The DHA and choline are critical to your child’s brain development and IQ. Your child is wholly dependent upon you to provide those nutrients through at least the first three months of life. Incidentally, this also supports your overall health and positive mental outlook both during and just after pregnancy.

Breast-feed your child if at all possible, for as long as possible. Infants receive vital DHA through your breast milk. Longer is better, in this case. If you can continue breast-feeding through the first year, you will give your child an even greater head start for success in life.

Provide structure for your child’s life. Children like a dependable schedule — regular times for meals, bedtimes, getting up times, and more. It helps them understand time, routines, and gives them a sense of security.

Be sure your child eats a diet strong with high-quality (organic if possible) meats and veggies. Early influence in training your child’s taste buds to like veggies will make it easier for them to resist the peer pressure of junk food throughout childhood. Avoid sweets, and every food with artificial colorings, preservatives, and high fructose corn syrup, at all cost.

Encourage your child from a young age to get daily exercise. Make it a part of your special time with them. Go for walks and bike rides, play badminton, take your dog for a run, jump rope, shoot baskets… and make it fun!

Provide clean inside air by not smoking, and by limiting toxins from cleaning products. If your home was built before 1978, test for lead paint hazards.

Strengthen your child’s immune system by giving them a probiotic daily. When everyone else’s kid is struggling with the latest bug to hit their school, you’ll be glad yours has a strong immune system.

Replace detergents, soaps, and shampoos containing risky ingredients, like parabens, mineral oil, paraffin, petrolatum, Sodium laurel or lauryl sulfate (SLS), sodium laureth sulfate (SLES), Acrylamide, Propylene glycol. The potential problems may not be worth the risk.

Just say “no” to immunizations vaccinations. They provide more health risks than benefits. You can read more about this elsewhere on this website (www.nvic.org), and an entire chapter is devoted to it in Take Control of Your Health.

Get your child outside in the sunshine for at least 15 minutes per day, preferably in mid-day, to optimize his or her vitamin D levels and thereby his/her immune and overall health.

- I would add one more: Get your kids checked for spinal subluxation!

Dr. CHRIS

Vitamin D has been all over the news lately.

Studies have shown that maintaining proper levels of vitamin D over the winter months can help fight off colds and flu. Low levels of Vitamin D have also been linked to asthma, depression, obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis and heart disease.

Most of our Vitamin D is obtained from the sun. To maintain acceptable levels, a person needs 10 to 15 minutes of midday sun (10 a.m. to 2 p.m.) with 40% body exposure. Obviously, for those of us who live in more northerly climates, this is not possible. This is especially true in the winter months where most of our time is spent indoors.

In this case, many families will need to supplement with Vitamin D during the winter months. Unfortunately, many parents are unsure about the amount and type of Vitamin D that is required for proper supplementation. Here are some general recommendations:

1) Get tested — Take away the guesswork by getting a proper Vitamin D test. A simple blood test called Serum 25(OH)D is the best. Levels for adults and children should be between 50 to 80 ng/mL.

2) Find a good quality supplement — Vitamin D3 is also known as the human form and the one that is most easily absorbed in the body. Also, you can obtain small amounts of Vitamin D by eating foods rich in Omega 3 fatty acids.

3) Take the right amount — Don’t guess, take the proper test to determine each individual’s needs. Vitamin D can be toxic in large amounts. The recommended daily allowance is 400 IU per day.

Recently a young mother expressed to me how she was concerned about the media reports from the US on the dangers of acetaminophen. The FDA was calling for new warning labels and reduced dosage for common over-the-counter medications like Tylenol and Excedrin because of renewed concerns over liver damage and gastric bleeding. She said: “I understand the risk, but I don’t know what else to do when my child runs a fever.” Her concerns, which I’m sure are shared by thousands of parents just like her, represent a common misunderstanding of the basic fundamentals of health and healing.

Essentially, there are two perspectives on healing. One is mechanistic—it defines life as a random series of events, devoid of an organized and intelligent purpose. Sickness is deemed to be the enemy, symptoms are to be eliminated at all costs, and the body requires outside help (medication) to help it heal.

The other is vitalistic. It recognizes that symptoms are a natural response to illness and trusts in the inherent recuperative ability of the body. The same natural processes that once brought sperm and egg together and run trillions of chemical and biological functions in your body everyday are capable of healing and repairing you. Chiropractors and other natural healthcare practitioners have always embraced this concept.

Yet, many of our allopathic healthcare practices are still centered on a mechanistic principle: The body is viewed as a series of parts that require specialists for each system. Parents are taught to fear fevers, germs and the environment, and we are led to believe that we require a pharmaceutical intervention every time we experience fevers, pain, coughs, sniffles etc.

If the young mother I spoke to earlier had a better understanding of how the body works and the vitalistic perspective, fevers would be seen as a natural response to infection and beneficial as they slowly raise the body’s core temperature to burn off bacteria and viruses. Pain is seen as a natural signal from the brain that warns us to stop our harmful behavior. Coughs and sneezes are seen as powerful ways the body expels germs and other matter from breathing passages. These are natural reactions that should rarely be contained artificially.

Vitalism is about living life without fear. Its about trusting in your body’s ability to heal and doing everything you can to promote proper heath and healing: taking care of your body, eating well, exercising, reducing toxicity, maintaining healthy relationships and a positive mental attitude. These are time-tested methods that have been proven to be safe and effective, which is more that I can say for Tylenol.

Kids need plenty of sleep to rest their growing bodies and keep their energy levels high during the day. Getting the right amount of sleep is also important for proper brain development and school performance. But for many parents, getting kids to bed – and staying there – can be an uphill battle.

Here are some bedtime tips to make your child’s transition from playtime to bedtime a little bit easier:

Start winding down early – Approximately 30 minutes before bed, begin issuing gentle reminders that toys must be put away, video games turned off, teeth brushed, and toilet visited. Keep TV’s out of the bedroom to prevent distractions.

Have a consistent bedtime routine – Soothing activities before bed, such as reading your child a story or tucking-in, are a great way to build routine into bedtime. This quality time spent together is also a great way to strengthen the bond with your child.

Have a set bedtime: A regular and consistent bedtime is essential; otherwise, your child will view an inconsistent bedtime as an interruption or punishment instead of a routine.

Give positive feedback: Praise you child the next day if they were able to stay in bed through the night. The old adage: you can catch more flies with honey, applies here.

Finally, make sure your child has everything they need for a comfortable sleep: warm blankets, temperature set at a comfortable level, proper ventilation and of course, peace and quiet. Following these simple tips can help make bedtime an enjoyable activity for both parents and kids alike.

There is a growing obesity epidemic among children in Canada and the US. It is estimated that because of it, this could be the first generation of children that may not outlive their parents! Coupled with the fact that two of the most common adult diseases (heart disease and cancer) may be preventable with simple dietary changes, it is still amazing to see how little parents’ attitudes about nutrition have changed during this time.

You’ve may have heard the excuses before: “Little Johnny just won’t eat vegetables,” or “Kids just naturally prefer sweet foods” or “Obesity just runs in the family, it’s genetic” and finally, my personal favorite: “Well, I ate this way growing up and I turned out just fine!” Yeah right.

For years, I have been trying to help parents understand that proper nutrition starts at home with mom and dad and that ultimately, children will learn their nutritional habits from their parents. These habits will be carried with them well into adulthood, yet most parents resist the fact that they may be responsible for this growing problem.

Let me be perfectly clear: It is not the fancy fast-food marketing, not the vending machines in the schools and it’s usually not genetics. In my experience, poor nutritional habits follow one rule: If mom and dad won’t eat their vegetables, neither will Little Johnny.

Consider the recent study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine: Researchers had 120 children between the ages of two and six take part in a grocery store shopping game, where they were asked to pick anything they wanted from 133 food items including fruits, vegetables, bread, milk, candy, potato chips, soda, desserts and sugary or whole grain cereals. Meanwhile, the children’s parents filled out questionnaires about how often they purchased each of the foods and whether their children accompanied them on shopping trips.

The results showed that the foods selected by the children were virtually identical to those selected by the parents. In other words, the healthier a parent’s shopping choices, the healthier the child’s. This dispels many of the commonly held myths and objections about childhood nutrition.

So what’s a parent to do? Start by selecting healthier foods and snacks for yourself and teach your child by example. Don’t just shove them in the grocery cart and hand them a video game to keep them quiet, have them participate in the process and let them help you select healthier foods to eat. This simple step will pay off in the future.

Are you a mother of young children who wants support in raising your family the Maximied Living way? If so, please join the Maximized Moms Group!

Learn from guest speakers and other moms who are making the same lifestyle choices you are. Guest are welcome! Hosted by Janelle Bohemier and Dr. Suzanne Buffie, D.C.

First meeting is Saturday March 7th at Bohemier Chiropractic Centre
154 Provencher Blvd.
10:30 am – 12 pm.
[Children are welcome to attend, no childcare will be provided.]

Sleep problems plague about 25 percent of all infants; they are measured by the time it takes the child to settle down, the amount of consecutive sleep hours the child accumulates and the quality of sleep. A disturbed sleep pattern is usually also accompanied by an infant’s excessive crying, which can add a great amount of stress to new parents.

Currently, parents are told that the child will eventually grow out of it and not to be concerned. Sometimes, parents are taught “behavioral modification” techniques, which provide little comfort to both parent and child. These approaches are never the best solutions.

However, there is new hope for parents of babies who simply can’t settle down for sleep. A pilot study conducted by Drs. Joyce Miller and Matts Klemsdal evaluated whether routine chiropractic care had also improved the child’s sleep pattern.

The study, published this year in the Journal of Clinical Chiropractic Pediatrics investigated 116 infants, who were under chiropractic care for various conditions. Of the infants, only 10 percent had initially come to the chiropractor because of sleep disturbances, while the majority of the children received chiropractic care for excessive crying and colic.

Specific, gentle adjustments were applied to misaligned areas of the spine (called vertebral subluxations) over the course of a few visits. The results were astounding: After the 1st visit, almost 40 percent of infants slept deeper. That percentage jumped to more than 60 percent after the 7th visit.

It would appear that Chiropractic care seems not only to help children get a better night’s sleep, it also reduces the stress on new parents. And parental stress, as we all know, has its own health challenges.

If your baby is having difficulty settling down before sleep, it might be worth a trip to your family chiropractor.