Healthy Family Eating
Big Nutrition Facts Change!
This is the first significant change to the Nutrition Facts part of the food label in the decade since it was established. On July 9, 2003, the FDA finalized a rule requiring that trans fats be clearl…
Chubby Babies
Almost every day I hear from parents or grandparents who are concerned because they feel that the babies they love just aren't getting enough to eat. They try to coax them to take just a few more ounc…
Couch Potatoes & Screen Potatoes Unpeeled
There's good news and bad news. Dramatically good and dramatically bad. Duke University announced on May 28, 2003 the results of their 5-year randomized study on body fat. Two kinds of body fat accumu…
Organic Lunchbox Challenge
Dr. Greene on the Organic Lunchbox Challenge... Students I speak with observe that school food is often either unappetizing (overcooked cafeteria veggies) or unhealthy. Tasty junk food at school has b…
Cardiovascular Health in Children
Heart disease remains the #1 cause of death in the United States, killing about half a million people each year. Coronary heart disease used to be thought of as a disease of the middle aged and the el…
“What’s Up, Doc?” — A Creative Way to Promote Veggies
Pass the carrots. Chuck Jones, the creator of Bugs Bunny, recently died at age 89. I asked my kids to each munch a carrot in honor of the passing of this man who did so much work that kids have enjoye…
Breast-Feeding and Obesity: What’s the Real Deal?
Dr. Greene explores contradictory studies about breastfeeding and obesity... It can be demoralizing when you get contradictory information about health. Two studies in the May 16th, 2001 issue of The …
Dads Make a Difference
Dr. Greene on the importance of dads! Men with multiple sclerosis seem to be more than twice as likely to transmit the disease to their children as women with this disease, say researchers from the Ma…
Fast Facts about Yogurt and Beneficial Bacteria
Dr. Greene's take on beneficial bacteria: The opposite of antibiotics are probiotics - a term coined in 1965 to describe substances that favor the growth of beneficial bacteria in the body. (more&hell…
Diet Influences Asthma Risk
Kids' changing diets may be, in part, responsible for the worldwide increase in asthma. A study published in the September 2000 issue of Thorax looked at the demographics and skin test results of chil…
An Orange a Day!
A study in the April 2000 issue of Thorax found that eating citrus fruit or kiwi might reduce asthma symptoms in children. In this Italian study of over 18,000 children, eating fruit rich in vitamin C…
Benefits of Zinc in Reducing Illness
An Ounce of Prevention... Kids who don't get enough zinc get sick more often and get well more slowly. Zinc is necessary for the immune system to be in top form. Where do kids get zinc? This is one in…
A Solid Foundation
When your children are grown, much of their long-term health will depend on what they ate as kids, nutrition experts reported at the July 1999 National Conference on Advances in Pediatric Nutrition at…
Could Childhood Obesity be a Genetic Disorder? Yes!
The July issue of Pediatrics reports convincing evidence (from an investigation of twins growing up in different environments) that up to 80% of the variation in body fat between children is genetic a…
Fast Facts about SIDS
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS, is defined as the sudden, unexpected and unexplained death of any infant or young child. (more…)…