kids health

Don't Overlook Your Biological Rhythms In selecting an exercise time that is best for you, consider your needs and personality. If you had the option of exercising whenever you want, what would be the best time for you? You know yourself better than anyone. Numerous studies have long noted that various individuals learn better at certain times of the day, are more alert during certain times of the day, are more productive during certain times of the day. Think about how all of this relates to you. Don't Forget to Consider Where You Are Going to Exercise If you like the energy you derive from a busy health club or gym, then by all means go there during prime-time hours (weekdays between 6:00 and 9:00 A.M. or 5:00 and 8:00 P.M.). If you would prefer a more relaxed environment, with easier access to the equipment, then go during off-peak time. If you have identified a television program you like to watch or listen to while exercising, then do it during that time. That way,

I know I'm an emotional eater. If I weren't, if I could stay on a controlled food intake, then all those other diets would have worked for me. But I eat in response to a feeling. And I can't stop those feelings from happening. Have you noticed that virtually every "eater" you know has been described as "sensitive"? I knew I wasn't going to stop eating, that food was urgently important to me. The problem was that food hadn't been working for me, and I had learned how vital that was. I had to make it work. I still had that old diet consciousness, which dictated that the only way I could give myself permission to blow my diet was by telling myself that tomorrow I'd go back on it. It was inconceivable to me that I could be on anything other than a strictly controlled eating regimen and not mushroom to three hundred pounds. But everything I was reading and studying, everything I was pulling together, was telling me otherwise. I had to try

It is virtually impossible to go through a day without hearing about or seeing signs of emotional and physical abuse of children—they are injustices that cross racial, class, religious, and ethnic lines with abandon. During the past quarter century, there has been heightened awareness of the prevalence and devastating consequences of child abuse. What is less well known is how children cope with it. A combination of commendable attempts to protect children's rights to privacy and confidentiality and the less commendable tendency to listen to adults far longer and more carefully than to children keep us from knowing how children cope with abuse. I have found myself studying the faces of children who have been physically or emotionally injured. I search the newspaper photograph and the television screen for a look, a gaze, or an expression that signals that the child will survive — will find the words, the love, and the tender support a child needs to grow up healthy and strong.

Often we eat at the wrong time because we're not following physical cues but emotional ones. The body is a wise instrument that will tell us when and which foods we need to eat, but we are often out of touch with these natural signals. When we are babies, our bodies give us clear hunger and satiation signals that we receive without interference, but the older we grow, the more we stop using food strictly as a fuel and begin to attach extra significance to eating. The "Oy! or Joy "Response. A lot of us turn to food unthinkingly when we're having a rough day and looking for a way to feel better. Powerful associations between food and love stem from our earliest memories of being held and fed at the same time by our mothers. As adults, when we don't feel loved we often turn to food, using it as a tranquilizer. The phrase we use to describe many of the foods we grew up with, "comfort food," says it all. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, chocolate pudding, and

Fruits, like vegetables, are good sources of fiber, and they're low in fat. They contain no cholesterol, and because of their high water content, are low in calories. Since many fresh fruits contain appreciable amounts of natural sugar (simple carbohydrates), you should limit your intake to four exchanges per day. Very active people can add additional fruit—up to two or more additional exchanges each day. Frozen or canned fruits, packed without sugar or syrup, are also recommended. Note that dried fruits are more concentrated sources of sugar, and so their exchange equivalent is half that of fresh fruit. Here is a list of fresh, frozen, and unsweetened canned fruit and fruit-juice exchanges: Fruits: apple (fresh: 1 small, about 2.5 -inch diameter; dried, 4 rings), applesauce (unsweetened: 0.5 cup), apricots (fresh: 4 medium; dried: 6 halves), banana (0.5 medium), berries (blueberries, raspberries, and so on: 0.75 cup), cantaloupe (5-inch diameter, 1/3 melon), cherries (large,

Deep down inside, the real reasons men eat, or overeat, are the same as for women. They like food. It makes them feel good. It is their friend. They too experience the stuff-gain-feel-guilty syndrome that women do, yet do not verbalize their concerns as often and do not admit to compulsive habits as readily. After all, men are big and strong and like to think they are in control of everything. They would lose respect for themselves if they thought they were not in control of their bodies, and even when they know they are not, they act as if they could lose the weight if they really wanted Women are much quicker to acknowledge that they have a problem, try a self-governing technique, or go for professional help or group support. Men are reluctant to look outside themselves. It generally takes a good bit of prodding to get a man to "go" on a diet or to join a weight-loss group. Although statistics prove that when husbands and wives, or partners, go to class or on a plan to

We have already seen that it is crucial to provide your body with the building blocks necessary to the constant renewal of your immune system. You now know about the immune-fat connection and realize that you must lose the excess weight that destroys immune power. However, there is one more, very subtle way that what you eat can affect your immune power. The problem is called masked or hidden food sensitivities, or simply food allergies. It is your immune system's Achilles heel—its secret vulnerability. You may be eating yourself into serious immune weakness without realizing it. Each of us has specific sensitivities to certain foods which can actually damage those trusty immune soldiers, the lymphocytes. If you looked through a microscope you would be able to see immune cells swell, slow down, and finally explode as they contact these food toxins. In a very real way, some foods are engaged in biological warfare against the very cells essential to our health. When you sit d