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Children’s
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.Health Issues
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those things at home, and yes, that is, a girl between the ages of 12 and 15, you really should learn all you can about Gardasil (and you should also know that hey, these tempestuous phases she’s going through will one day pass. Honest).
....The second health issue that I want to address is one that gets very little attention but which is a major health risk for many kids: lack of sleep, or more accurately, lack of adequate sleep (as anyone who’s ever had even a spot of trouble sleeping – and that’s nearly all of us – can attest, it’s not just how much time you spend asleep that matters, it’s also how well you sleep).
Study after study tells us that, especially as they move into their teens, the large majority of kids are sleep-deprived, which leads to some pretty terrible potential consequences including:
...1) poorer school performance,
...2) behaviour problems and
...... mood disorders,
...3) higher risks of being involved
......in MVAs and other accidents,
...... and the real surprise to many
...... parents,
...4) a substantially raised tendency
...... to obesity. |
.....“OK, so now that the kids are back in school, and parents are presumably more free to focus on what’s important, what health advice do you want to offer parents about what they should do,” my erstwhile editor asked before assigning this month’s topic.
.....“Easy,” I said. “Party, party, party, party!”
.....“Huh”, my editor replied in his usual articulate but to-the-point manner. “That’s not really what parents should do, is it?”
.....“Yes,” I was going to say, but then I hesitated because it occurred to me that my editor could be right for once, since he still has kids at home and it’s been a heck of a long time since any kids were running around the Hister manse.
.....So, credit my editor for getting me to tell all parents that back-to-school time is a very useful occasion for parents to remind themselves about several very important health issues, and here, in no specific order (because to me these are all equally important, although, of course, some are more important to some kids and parents than others are) are some of the health matters which I think every parent |
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should consider at back-to-school time.
.....First, this is a great time to ?cate yourself about the immunizations your children need, and if you have older kids, to make sure your kids’ immunizations are up-to-date (not to mention that it’s also a great time to think about your own immunizations, an area of health that is sadly neglected by many adults).
.....I know schools and family docs are supposed to keep track of such matters, but recommendations about immunizations are constantly changing, so it’s always a good idea to re-check every year about which shots are now advised for a kid the age of yours.
.....For example, here’s a new one for most of you, I’m sure: the provincial government has recently introduced a province-wide program to immunize all grade 6-grade 9 girls with Gardasil, the vaccine against some strains of HPV, the virus that causes the majority of cases of cervical cancer, and if you have one of |
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