Childrens' Movies Setting a Bad Example

If you have children than you're used to watching children's movies. But some of those movies might be sending them the wrong message.

It looks like kids might be getting the wrong idea about unsafe behaviors from these movies.

The American Academy of Pediatrics just released a study looking at children's movies and how well those in the movies used safe behaviors like wearing seat belts and bicycle helmets. It turns out these movies aren't doing as well as you'd think.

They looked at G and PG rated movies and found that only around twenty five percent of bicyclists in those movies wore helmets and thirty five percent of pedestrians used crosswalks. But perhaps more concerning, seat belts were worn in only around one half of the scenes involving a vehicle.

The concern here is that children tend to copy what they see on TV and in the movies. And in these children's movies, the characters never had bad outcomes from their bad practices. So if kids see someone having fun and doing well without a bicycle helmet or a seat belt, their more likely to forget to use them as well. But for real life children the results can be devastating.

That doesn't mean to stop watching these types of movies. Instead use it as a great learning tool. Bring up the fact that someone isn't wearing a helmet or seat belt and explain why that's a very bad idea, even though it's a good movie.

Diet Pills

If you trying to lose weight with a diet pill you need to make sure you know where you get it from. One source could be selling you a dangerous fake.

It’s a fake form of the popular diet pill Alli. Unfortunately, these fake pills have ingredients in them that you don’t want to take.

Alli is an over the counter diet pill you can buy at most drug stores. The active ingredient in this pill is called Orlistat, which has been FDA approved as a weight loss pill that can be sold without a prescription. The medication is also sold over the internet, sometimes for a lower cost.

But this week the food and drug administration has issued a warning that some of the Alli pills sold on the internet can be bad for you health. That’s because pills they are warning about contain high levels of sibutramine. That’s the active ingredient in the prescription diet pill Meridia. But the fake Alli pills contain two times the maximum dose of the prescription Meridia pills. At this level, the pill could cause palpitations, anxiety and elevated blood pressure and sleeplessness, even in healthy adults.

The bottom line here is to make sure you know the source of any medications you put in your body. It’s always good to save a buck or two, but not at the risk of your own health.

For more information about the FDA warning, go to KRDO.com and click on the health tab.

Is TV really bad for you?

We all know that watching too much TV can lead to gaining weight but now it looks like it can also increase your chances of dying, even if you exercise every day.

It's not the TV watching that's bad for us but the sitting around while we do it causing the problems. and the solution might be as simple as hopping on a treadmill and walking while you watch.

We have known for a while that too much TV watching can increase your chances of becoming overweight mainly because it robs you of time to exercise. but researchers in Australia found even for those exercising thirty to forty five minutes a day, too much TV increased their chances of an early death.

These researchers followed the exercise and TV habits of over 8,000 people for six years. The surprise came when they discovered that the risk of dying from any cause, especially heart disease or cancer, went up with each daily hour of TV watched. as a matter of fact, watching two to four hours a day increased chances of dying by thirteen percent and watching over four hours a day by nearly fifty percent.

Experts think the reason this is happening, even in those that exercise, is because when you watch TV you just sit or lie down. and when you do that for hours on end, your body starts to process fats differently, affecting your health. As the experts put it, it's not the sweaty activity we're losing but the incidental moving around that helps us stay healthy. One tip, stand while watching, or better yet, just hop on the treadmill and slowly walk instead of just sitting in front to the tube.

Calorie Counts Not Adding Up

When you read a label to find out how many calories a particular food has you might not be getting the most accurate information.

It's not just restaurants but also some of the food items you buy at the grocery store---turns out, they have more calories in them than it says on the label.

First off, if you're trying to lose weight and are using calorie counting to help, congrats—that's one of the best ways to do it. But this latest news means you need to be even a little more careful. Researchers at Tufts University examined food items at both restaurants and frozen foods you can buy at a grocery store.

They purchases the items, took them to their lab and analyzed how many calories the items actually had. When they compared them to how many calories the menu or box said they had, they were surprised to find a big difference. Overall, the food items from restaurants had eighteen percent more calories than they were supposed to with some having four times as many, and frozen foods averaged eight times more calories.

These researchers are hoping this is a wake up call to food preparers to more accurately post calories numbers. But if your using their numbers now to diet, just realize you might be overshooting your goals, so you might need to cut back a little more to get the weight loss you want.

plantar fasciitis

It's called plantar fasciitis and affects millions of us each year. But an Orthopedic group has just come out with some ways to fix the pain without surgery.

We all have a strip of fibrous tissue that comes from the back of our heel across the bottom of our foot. If that tissue gets inflamed it can give us a pain that doesn't seem to want to go away. It usually starts after a lot of heavy walking---like holiday shopping. The first couple of steps in the morning after getting out of bed are the worst, then the foot kind of “warms up” during the day but you'll notice the pain returning in the evening as the foot gets tired from walking or standing all day.

Different things have been tried---stretching, steroid injections and even surgery, but they don't always work very well. But now the American Orthopedic Foot and Ankle Society is telling us that your best course of action is home stretching. They recommend doing a very specific set of foot and heel stretches before you take your first step in the morning and four to five times during the day for the first month, then as needed after that. Plus they recommend adding non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication, like ibuprofen, use ice on the heel and add gel heel inserts to your shoes.

Using these techniques should help put an end to that heel pain that's starting to slow you down.

Sugar Loaded Sodas

When it comes to losing weight you might have switched from sugar to sugar
free drinks. But can combining the two help you lose even more weight?

Here’s the deal. Sugar loaded sodas can add to your weight and according to new research, diet sodas might make you eat more. So if you’re confused as to what to do, you’re not alone.

But new government research has found that combining sugar free drinks with some carbohydrates might help suppress you appetite.

Researchers had participants drink one of two different things -- either a diet free soda, along with a sugar filled beverage, or a club soda and the same sugar filled beverage. Then they did some blood tests. They found blood sugar was the same for both groups but they did find a difference in a chemical our stomach releases that lets us know we’re full--- called GLP-1. The group that had both a diet soda and sugar filled drink also ended up having more of this chemical in their bloodstream.

Past studies have shown that when diet drinks are consumed without additional carbohydrates, our bodies don’t release this chemical, which is probably why we ended up eating more later on.

According to these researchers, although they can’t say this is a sure fire way to lose weight, by combing artificial sweeteners with regular sweeteners, it does look like it might be something that---as they put it---might be relevant in daily life. Stay tuned for future studies.

Kids vs. Dirt/Germs

When it comes to our kids, keeping them clean and germ free not be the best thing to do.

It’s ok for your kids to play in dirt every now and then.

This might be tough to hear, but with our American obsession with keeping clean, we are raising a generation of kids that might not be able to fight off many diseases later in life. Back when we were kids, it wasn’t unusual to play out in a dirt field than grab a bite to eat without washing our hands very well. Nowadays, most kids are conditioned to wash thoroughly before eating anything, and with the H1N1 virus around, a lot of them carry hand sanitizers to keep from getting sick.

Now I’m certainly not advocating we go out and jump in the mud, or cut back on washing our hands, but a new study is showing that it’s ok for our kids to get exposed to bacteria and germs every now and then.

Researchers looked at Filipino children from birth and followed them for twenty two years. Those that lived lives that weren’t as clean also had lower levels of a marker in the blood, c reactive protein, indicating they had stronger immune systems as adults.

So again, the lesson here is not to ignore basic hygiene but to remember that children’s immune systems need a workout to get stronger. It’s okay from time to time to let them ignore the 30 second rule or maybe share a bag of candy or popcorn with other kids. It could make them stronger adults.