Today we know more than ever about the importance of children's earliest years in shaping their learning and development. Yet, never before have the needs of young children and their families been more pressing. According to Harvard’s “Center on the Developing Child,” there are three basic foundations of lifelong health that are fundamental to early [...]
Practicing good sun safety is important at any age, but it is especially important for children since much of a person's lifetime exposure to the sun occurs before age 18. Arizona residents are at risk for developing skin cancer because our sunny state has areas of high environmental exposure and limited protection. It's hard to [...]
Skin cancer is now the most common cancer in the U.S. but is preventable by using good judgment. Thirteen new studies confirm what most of us have suspected, that protecting your skin from damaging UV rays with clothing, sunscreen, hats, sunglasses and shade, decreases sunburns, tanning and the formation of moles—all factors in developing a [...]
The latest CDC obesity data published in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association found a significant decline in obesity among kids aged 2 to 5. Obesity prevalence for this age group declined by 43% in the last 8 years (from 14% in 2004 to 8% in 2012. While the precise reasons for the [...]
I was fortunate to attend the 2nd annual “El Congreso Internacional de Promoción de la Salud (CIPS)” last week in Hermosillo. There were more than 400 public health attendees from 17 countries at the conference. I presented our pre-school Empower program…. which empowers kids to make good choices about nutrition, physical activity, and tobacco using age-appropriate vehicles including costumed characters and a coloring book. [...]
Public health embarked on a smoking revolution over the last few decades, kicking it into high gear to provide programs and policies to help Arizonans change their smoking habits. While by no means has the tobacco battle been won, America is currently undergoing another revolution—a walking revolution. Physical activity is not new territory in public [...]
We finally got some better news from the childhood obesity public health front this week. Tuesday’s CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report found that childhood obesity rates are stabilizing or decreasing slightly across the country. In fact, 19 states had a significant downward trend in obesity prevalence among low-income preschoolers. There was no change in [...]
A recent report by the American Cancer Society, suggests what many Arizonans may have suspected, that skin cancer is on the rise. An estimated 82,770 Americans will be diagnosed with skin cancer in 2013. In Arizona, one in five of us is likely to develop some form of skin cancer. The most common cause is overexposure [...]
This week the Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs gave us the National Best Practice Award for our Empower Program. As a refresher for those of you that aren’t familiar with Empower… it’s a program we started in 2009 that focuses on increasing healthy eating and active living in our licensed child care facilities… [...]
It is hard to believe we’re in the 3rd year of our successful Empower Program. As a refresher for those of you that aren’t familiar with Empower, it’s a program that focuses on increasing healthy eating and active living, along with helping to provide smoke-free environments, in licensed child care facilities… reaching over 200,000 children [...]
