Tag: children

Changes to US school meal program helped reduce BMI in children and teens, study says

Changes to US school meal program helped reduce BMI in children and teens, study says

CNN  —  Changes to faculty diet standards that pushed a lot more fruits, greens, total grains and reduced-unwanted fat dairy merchandise noticeably diminished kids’ and teens’ physique mass index right after the criteria ended up executed in 2010, a new study finds. The new research 

New pediatric guidelines on obesity in children and teens

New pediatric guidelines on obesity in children and teens

Obesity is a elaborate wellbeing issue that affects a staggering proportion of US young children and teenagers. Hovering all over 5{b574a629d83ad7698d9c0ca2d3a10ad895e8e51aa97c347fc42e9508f0e4325d} in 1963 to 1965, prices of obesity experienced more than tripled to 19{b574a629d83ad7698d9c0ca2d3a10ad895e8e51aa97c347fc42e9508f0e4325d} by 2017 to 2019. Early info counsel childhood weight problems premiums 

How could a mother allegedly kill her children?

How could a mother allegedly kill her children?

The Boston World

John Tlumacki/Globe Staff
A makeshift memorial grew with stuffed animals and bouquets through the working day Tuesday at the house in Duxbury. John Tlumacki/World Employees

It appears outside of comprehension: A Duxbury female has been billed with murdering two of her little ones, ages 3 and 5, and her 3rd, a 7-month-previous, has been hospitalized with traumatic injuries.

Neighbors mentioned they hardly ever noticed anything at all abnormal about the property with weathered shingles and a swing set in the yard. And certainly little is identified about what preceded the horrible occurrences of Tuesday night. Authorities said the mom, Lindsay Clancy, jumped out of a 2nd-tale window in what may have been a suicide endeavor, and continues to be hospitalized.

What would prompt a mom to do this kind of a detail?

Paradoxically, authorities say, the perpetrator in this sort of deaths is generally a loving mom in the throes of mental sickness, enthusiastic by enjoy and attachment to her young children.

Cheryl L. Meyer, a psychology professor at Wright Point out College who studies mothers who eliminate their children, recalled interviewing just one these kinds of girl who had also tried out to eliminate herself. The mother told her that killing her little ones felt rational because they were being an extension of herself, as if they have been a limb.

”She could not die devoid of using her arm. She couldn’t die with out taking the young children,” Meyer said Wednesday.

As mother of an 7-thirty day period-previous, Clancy was continue to in the yr-prolonged postpartum period, and she experienced discovered on social media that she experienced endured from postpartum melancholy in the past.

In rare conditions — about 1 or 2 out each and every 1,000 postpartum females – this despair can progress to psychosis, in which a woman’s brain is “hijacked by a actually, really really serious ailment that distorts reality” and prompts steps they would by no means choose if nutritious, reported Dr. Nancy Byatt, professor of psychiatry, obstetrics & gynecology and inhabitants & quantitative health sciences at UMass Chan Healthcare School.

Dr. Susan Hatters Friedman, a professor of forensic psychiatry at Scenario Western Reserve College who has investigated mothers and fathers who eliminate their little ones, reported the motives fall into 5 categories: a young person with an unwelcome being pregnant kills a new child yrs of abuse or neglect guide to a child’s demise a partner seeks revenge, normally in the situation of a connection separation and two kinds of mental ailment — “altruistic” and “acutely psychotic.”

The initially group is not relevant to the Duxbury deaths, and there is no evidence so far for the next or 3rd. And it is unknown whether or not Clancy experienced psychiatric issues.

But the prospect that a mental wellbeing affliction underlays the Duxbury killings raises troubling thoughts.

In some conditions, Hatters Friedman explained, the parent’s motive is altruistic — “murder out of adore,” however peculiar that could sound. A parent may possibly have delusions that the child faces a fate worse than loss of life, these types of as becoming kidnapped and murdered, and believes killing them gently is preferable. Moms and dads who are planning suicide may well not want to leave their boy or girl in a environment they perceive as way too terrible to dwell in.

In the acutely psychotic conditions, a mother or father might imagine God is commanding them to kill their little one or that their little one is evil, she claimed.

Persons are frequently stunned by this kind of killings since frequently the mothers have been acknowledged as perfect and loving, explained Meyer, who wrote two guides on the topic. “These moms are normally described as just being quintessential moms. They are the definition of a very good mother,” she reported. “And so that’s why it’s genuinely shocking when you hear that they do these points.”

This sort of women of all ages are not secretly evil. Alternatively, mental disease of some kind receives a grip on them. When their identities are so enmeshed with that of their little ones, they consider methods that in their distorted imagining appears finest for their youngsters.

“Why would a female who beloved her children kill them?” Meyer explained. “She killed them simply because she cherished them. That’s a tricky matter to have an understanding of.”

The defining element for girls who killed their children was a lack of social assistance, Meyer explained. She recalled assembly a lady who confessed that, through a key lifestyle disaster, she had organized to eliminate her young children and herself by poisoning their ice product. Just before she served it, her pastor called to see how she was executing. By the time the dialogue ended, the ice product experienced melted and the strategies for murder dissipated.

Situations like the Duxbury killings are unusual but unforgettable. Anyone remembers Susan Smith, who drove her two young small children into a lake in 1994, and Andrea Yates, who drowned her five little ones in a bathtub in 2001. Yates was a devoted mom who home-schooled her youngsters, but killed her little ones when struggling from postpartum psychosis.

In Canada and the United Kingdom, a woman can’t be convicted of 1st-degree murder if she kills her baby throughout the postpartum period of time, Meyer claimed.

In the United States, mothers generally get harsh sentences for killing their kids. “It’s much more horrific in our minds if a mother does this,” she reported.

Byatt, of UMass, finds it “concerning” that the Duxbury mom was billed with murder. If she had postpartum psychosis, she experienced no command more than what she was executing, Byatt mentioned.

Postpartum depression, which is brought on by hormonal adjustments following pregnancy, is a lot more popular than postpartum psychosis, but both can be averted with treatment method if medical professionals check out for the warning indicators through being pregnant and just after birth, reported Dr. Judith E. Robinson, a Tufts Clinical Center psychiatrist.

Men and women who already put up with from a mental sickness these types of as bipolar disorder, or who have experienced postpartum depression in the past, are at larger possibility.

“It’s a extremely severe condition,” Robinson explained. “It’s much more than just getting sad or crying from time to time.”

Signs of melancholy consist of persistent disappointment, hardly obtaining out of bed, crying all the time, and problems with feeding on, sleeping, and concentration. Psychosis will involve delusional or disordered imagining and hallucinations.

“It’s a lifestyle crisis to have a toddler below a yr old and to have some other little ones,” Robinson reported. “You are really at large threat of burning out. And if you have your very own psychiatric dysfunction and you never have help — your young ones could be tricky, just usual tricky. . . . It can drive you to the stage of getting to be psychotic.”

If you or another person you know have had feelings of suicide, get in touch with 988 or check out 988lifeline.org to chat on the internet.

How social media is feeding our children quack health tips, toxic masculinity and soft porn

How social media is feeding our children quack health tips, toxic masculinity and soft porn

Professor David Strain, chair of the British Professional medical Association Board of Science, stated that these types of articles is “utter nonsense” but the “real issue is the mental impact”. “It’s not likely that feeding on a total whole lot of papaya will do you 

Why flu and strep A can be so serious in children

Why flu and strep A can be so serious in children

Amid a flu period that started before than envisioned there’s also been a greater variety of strep A situations in young children this yr. The Facilities for Condition Handle and Prevention issued an advisory warning final thirty day period about the increase to make guaranteed 

Child Nutrition Reauthorization needs to happen to support Nebraska children

Child Nutrition Reauthorization needs to happen to support Nebraska children

The value of good nutrition to a strong education cannot be overstated. Without full stomachs, children are more likely to struggle with health, academic, and behavioral issues. For this reason, the Nebraska Department of Education is committed to supporting child nutrition program providers as they provide healthy school meals throughout the year.

Unfortunately, child nutrition programs are currently operating on regulations passed in 2010 — missing out on the last 12 years of learning and experience that could inform and refresh these programs going forward. This winter, Congress has a chance to pass critical child nutrition program updates that would better take care of students and support our schools. The federal omnibus bill that needs to be passed to fund our federal government by the end of the year must include support for child nutrition.







Matt Blomstedt mug

Matt Blomstedt


During the pandemic, schools became the front line for feeding hungry kids. The free meals provided by the USDA during this time bridged the gap between household needs and hunger for many families.

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Since the end of federal free school meals this fall, food costs have gone up and inflation has grown. Food insecurity rates stayed about the same during the pandemic, but food insecurity in families with children has skyrocketed. The lessons we learned during the last two and a half years must inform how child nutrition programs are structured for the future.

A strong child nutrition program reauthorization would have the following three provisions, already proposed in the House of Representatives through the Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids Act:

1. Expanded community eligibility, which allows high-need schools to offer free meals to all students.

More students eat when healthy school meals are free. Free meals for all students at high-need schools prevents low-income students from feeling stigmatized, and it helps families who are over the income threshold for free or reduced price meals but still struggle to make ends meet. It’s also great for schools whose nutrition programs benefit from increased participation as they struggle with supply chain and inflation themselves. Under current regulations, many schools have to subsidize their school meal programs with general fund dollars. This expansion would help that greatly.

2. Authorization of a Summer EBT program through which families with school children would receive a $75/summer EBT benefit per child to spend on groceries if they received free or reduced-price school meals.

Summer is a time of hunger for many kids. Without access to regular school meals, some of our most vulnerable children don’t receive proper nutrition for their growing bodies. The Summer Food Service Program, which provides free meals for kids ages 1-18 in high poverty areas, can leave many kids out because of a lack of program sponsors, program limitations, and long driving distances. A summer EBT program would help kids who have already been identified for free or reduced-price meals based on their family’s income by providing modest support to reduce food insecurity during the summer months. This program would be a smaller version of the Pandemic-EBT program that has supported students with replacement dollars for missed school meals since March 2020.

3. Set parameters for the collection of unpaid school meal fees, including limiting most communications to the parent or guardian, not the student; prohibiting the disposal of food that has been served to a child whose household has unpaid school meal fees; and prohibiting overt identification of students whose households have unpaid school meal fees.

Unpaid meal debt has risen quickly since the national free school meals program expired this fall. School nutrition directors in Nebraska have expressed concern that the levels of unpaid meal debt they’re seeing after just a few months are as high as the balances from the end of pre-pandemic school years. While recouping the costs of unpaid meal debt is critical to the existing structure of our school meals programs, protecting students from practices that shame them for not having funds, or having a negative balance, is the right thing to do.

These basic principles, as outlined in the House’s proposed Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids Act, would support nutrition access and dignity for all students.

We know that Nebraskans value supporting one another. The COVID-19 pandemic has provided example after example of people stepping up when a neighbor is in need, demonstrating our commitment to the common good. Congress has one more chance to do right for the 30 million children in our nation, including over 300,000 kids in Nebraska, who rely on school meals for proper nutrition. A federal omnibus bill will pass before 2023 — it’s up to our members of Congress to ensure that our kids are included.


Midlands Voices: Preserve our nonpartisan Nebraska Legislature

Former Nebraska senators write in support of continuing the nonpartisan legislature.


Midlands Voices: Nebraska ethanol meets energy needs in Japan

Jan tenBensel writes, “Already the No. 2 producer of ethanol in the country, Nebraska has been preparing for the carbon revolution that is to come.” 


Midlands Voices: Violent extremists find vulnerable, high-impact targets in the U.S. power grid

To extremists, targeting the U.S. power grid offers a lot of return. In most cases, acts that cause widespread harm and disruption can act as a megaphone to extremists’ cause and demands.


Midlands Voices: What if it’s true?

James P. Eckman, Ph.D., writes, “What if the angels, the virgin birth, the Incarnation were true? What difference would it make?”


Midlands Voices: Even with challenges, Medicare Advantage is still the better option

Frank Adkisson writes that while Medicare Advantage has challenges, it is more cost-effective than original Medicare with supplement add-ons.


Midlands Voices: The Afghan Adjustment Act honors the sacrifices of our veterans and allies

Rachel Bonar writes, “The good life in Nebraska — as well as in other parts of the U.S. — is not permanent for Afghan evacuees who came to this country under humanitarian parole.”


Midlands Voices: Solving the workforce crisis will require a culture shift in higher education

Joanne Li writes, “Attending a university is not and should not be equivalent to joining an exclusive club.”


Midlands Voices: A Christmas truce in 2022

Jay Jackson writes, “Can we use the 1914 Christmas truce as inspiration to take a break from the hyperpartisanship and political rancor that consumes us?”


Midlands Voices: Traffic fatality estimates show action is needed to protect Nebraskans

Dave Lutton lost his daughter due to the actions of a drunk driver. Now, he’s asking for help to protect others.


Midlands Voices: Remembering the Eleven Day War of 1972

Dave Stuart writes, 50 years ago this month, a very significant event in the history of aerial bombing by bombers from the Strategic Air Command took place.


Midlands Voices: Medicare Advantage — whose advantage is it?

Donald R. Frey, M.D., writes, “Through clever (and expensive) marketing, nearly half of all Medicare recipients have signed up for Advantage plans. That doesn’t change the fact that these plans are bleeding the trust fund dry.”


Midlands Voices: Lucy and Julia and the war

Susan M. Stein, Ph.D. writes about her friendship and communication with two Ukrainian women who are experiencing war firsthand.


Midlands Voices: Omaha's streetcar plan should be delayed pending further review

Tom Rubin writes, “Days before the Omaha City Council streetcar construction bond public hearing, we’re still waiting for the long-promised financial plan.”


Midlands Voices: Wasting opportunities for climate solutions in Omaha

David E. Corbin writes, “Omaha can greatly reduce the amount of organic waste that goes into our county-owned landfill.”


Midlands Voices: 'Let Me Tell You How Wonderful I Am': Virtue signaling on social media

Rebecca S. Fahrlander writes, “Virtue signaling is a way to get “likes” and attention on social media and feel virtuous without having to actually do anything.”


Midlands Voices: OPPD Board should repeal its net zero carbon policy

David D. Begley writes, “OPPD is not a private company. The right thing to do is to end OPPD’s pursuit of solar and wind energy.”


Midlands Voices: Society should not tolerate staged cruelty of animal fighting

Marty Irby writes, “Animal fighting is animal abuse — plain and simple. The illegal gambling adds to lawlessness … It’s not only inhumane and unconscionable but, it’s a health and human safety threat.”

Matt Blomstedt is the Nebraska Commissioner of Education.