Latest Articles

• Eating Disorders Awareness Week
  Do you often say, “I’m too fat” or “I need to go on a diet”? How often do you make these comments in front of your child? As a parent or caregiver, you can help prevent eating disorders before they occur by being a good role model.
• Set Healthy Goals
  For many of us, New Year's resolutions are easily made and easily broken. Whether it's to lose weight, save money, or adopt a healthier lifestyle, New Year's resolutions can be hard to keep. But, working toward these and other goals can improve your life. Setting realistic goals year round-and not just at New Year's-can lead to a healthier lifestyle, improved self-esteem, and increased confidence.
• Junk Food and Your Children’s Health
  When was the last time you saw junk food advertised on TV? How about veggies? For junk food1, you probably answered, “The last time I watched TV with my child.” For veggies, most likely you said, “Never.”
• Be a Good Role Model: Someone Is Watching You
  Who is your role model? Mahatma Ghandi? Mother Teresa? Abraham Lincoln? Eleanor Roosevelt? Who are your child’s role model? You? Yes. Whether you know it or not, you are a role model for your child. What does this mean for you? As a parent, you have more influence for good than maybe you thought you did. By setting a good example of healthy living, you can help your child make healthy choices in his life.
• Secondhand Smoke Can Harm Children
  Now that spring is in full swing, you and your family might head outside for some fresh air. But if you’re smoking outside, your children still are being exposed to the nicotine in your cigarettes.
• Healthy Holiday Eating
  Whether your taste runs to old standbys or desires something new, it’s easy for normal eating patterns to take a back seat at holiday social events. By following a few tips on holiday eating, you and your family can enjoy special foods while keeping a balanced and healthy diet.
• Managing Holiday Stress
  Ready for decorating, shopping, and cooking? Or do you feel anxious, nervous, or worried when you think about what you have to do in the coming weeks? If so, you are not alone.
• Girls and Body Image
  Your daughter may have outgrown the nursery rhyme that describes her as “sugar and spice and everything nice.” Instead, she might be worried about all of that sugar making her fat. Some studies suggest that body image ideas begin in children as young as 3.1 But parents—particularly moms—can have a positive impact on their daughters’ body image when they model healthy attitudes toward their own bodies.
• Prescription for Harm
  More than 2.2 million! That’s the latest estimate of how many youth in the United States aged 12 to 17 used prescription drugs for non-medical reasons in the past year to self-treat physical or mental distress, improve appearance or performance, catch an energy wave, or simply mellow out. In 2004, more than 900,000 12- to 17-year-olds had begun using prescription pain relievers non-medically within the past year. Parents—rightly concerned about alcohol, marijuana, and illegal drug use among young people—may be surprised that the number of teens who begin abusing painkillers has grown for 10 years in a row, rising sevenfold to 1.2 million in 2003.
• Be My Neighbor! Forming Neighborhood
  Safety Nets
  Your community and your neighbors—you live in one and next to the others. And because you and your family spend so much time in and around your neighborhood, you want to make sure your loved ones are safe. So, how well do you know your neighbors?

  While they live nearby, neighbors sometimes can be so busy they rarely find an opportunity to speak to one another, let alone get to know each other. In today’s world, many people move to new places, work far from their homes, and communicate over long distances. As a result, they may have little attachment to the place where they live. But finding time to build relationships with the people who live close to you and your family can help your child in many ways.

* We refer to a child as "him" in some places and "her" in others. We do this for easier reading. All information applies to both boys and girls unless otherwise specified.