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	news bulletins october 2007

• Rub-a-Dub-Dub in a Clean, Safe Tub
• Hey McDonald's: Stop Selling Sex with a Side of Fries (or Apple Dippers)
• Liven Up Lunch
• Banning Pediatric Cold and Cough Medicines
• Fight Eating Disorders with Chinese Medicine

Rub-a-Dub-Dub in a Clean, Safe Tub

Sharon Trotter, a UK-based midwife, breastfeeding advocate and publisher, has released the findings of a rigorous product review, to help parents make informed decisions when it comes to bath time.

Cleaner, greener body care products help reduce exposure to unwanted and dangerous chemicals—and this resource makes it easy to identify brands and items that make the cut. Check out the winners here.

Hey McDonald's: Stop Selling Sex with a Side of Fries (or Apple Dippers)

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is demanding that McDonald's immediately end its highly sexualized My Scene Barbie Happy Meal promotion featuring ludicrously proportioned Barbies with micro miniskirts, halter tops, and rollerblades.

"It's bad enough that McDonald's continues to use toys to sell kids on junk food," said CCFC's director, Dr. Susan Linn, a psychologist at Judge Baker Children's Center. "But to lure young girls to its restaurants by promoting the worst sexualized stereotypes is reprehensible."

The McDonald's Barbie promotion runs through October 28, 2007. McDonald's is giving away four scantily clad Barbies and four sets of Barbie bracelets during the four-week promotion.

"It's ironic that McDonald's is using an impossibly thin doll as an incentive for girls to visit their restaurants twice-a-week," said Dr. Linn. A McDonald's Happy Meal contains as many as 710 calories and 28 grams of fat. In response to concerns about childhood obesity, McDonald's has moved to position itself as a socially responsible marketer. In June, as part of the food industry's efforts to ward off regulation, the fast food giant pledged to change its marketing practices and to produce advertising that includes "healthy lifestyle messages" for children.

"Putting rollerblades on Barbie doesn't make it healthy messaging," said CCFC's Dr. Diane Levin, professor of education at Wheelock College and co-author of the forthcoming, So Sexy So Soon. "These dolls send a host of harmful messages about play, appearance, sexuality and what it means to be a young girl."

In an effort to reposition itself as a family-friendly company, McDonald's has enlisted a Global Moms Panel to "provide input and guidance on a broad range of topics," including "restaurant communications and children's well-being."

"Parents all over the world are concerned about the sexualization of little girls," said Dr. Linn. "We hope that the Global Mom's Panel will consider the well-being of their daughters, and other people's daughters, by joining us in urging McDonald's to end its exploitative Barbie promotion."

Source: www.commercialfreechildhood.org

Liven Up Lunch

In recognition of National School Lunch Week, October 15-19, Chef Ann Cooper, the renegade lunch lady, is challenging schools and families to transform school lunches across the country into healthful, appetizing meals that teach students about good food and nutrition.

Chef Ann's Web site, www.lunchlessons.org, features resources to help parents and schools meet the challenge. It includes family-friendly recipes and recipes that can be modified to serve thousands of students; a kid-friendly food guide that helps children, their parents and school administrators identify the foods that best meet school-age children's nutritional needs; and information to help schools develop and/or implement wellness policies that emphasize health and nutrition. Those participating in the challenge are invited to share their experiences on Chef Ann's blog on her site and learn from people across the country.

"Teaching kids to make healthy food choices is our responsibility," said Chef Ann. "Right now, parents and students rely on schools to provide healthy food choices, but the National School Lunch Program often makes it difficult for schools to provide this food. We need to challenge ourselves and our schools to make real changes to the way we feed our kids and to help students learn more about health and nutrition."

Chef Ann is calling on schools and families to take a close look at what children are eating during the one week dedicated to raising awareness about school food service and nutrition programs. She hopes that parents will eat lunch at their children's school to see and taste what students are being served. Further, she is urging schools and families to see National School Lunch Week as a time to feed kids based on guidelines and strategies that put children's nutritional needs first, rather than the needs of U.S. Department of Agriculture programs driven by the commodity marketplace.

Chef Ann is the director of nutrition services for the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD), improving meals at 16 public schools with a population of more than 9,000 students. She is the author of several books, including Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children, which was released in paperback in September 2007.

For more information about Chef Ann and to learn more about the National School Food Challenge visit www.lunchlessons.org.

Banning Pediatric Cold and Cough Medicines

The FDA may finally take action against the harmful, useless, and sometimes deadly decongestants and antihistamines commonly given to children. FDA safety experts have urged a ban on over-the-counter, multisymptom cough and cold medicines for children under six. The FDA experts have recommended removal of these cough and cold formulas from the market, despite the protests of powerful industry trade groups. About 800 of these formulas are marketed for pediatric use. Clinical studies have shown that these medicines are ineffective. The report issued on September 28, 2007 reports that at least 54 children died after taking decongestants and 69 children died after taking antihistamines. The panel suggested that these figures underestimate the number of deaths because of voluntary reporting guidelines. The FDA has also ordered drug makers to remove all prescription cough medicines for children containing hydrocodone, a narcotic, from pharmacy shelves. None of these products have been shown to be effective, and they are certainly not safe.

Holistic Treatment

By contrast, holistic pediatric medicine offers many safe and effective treatments for colds, coughs, and flus in children. Both Chinese and western herbal medicine provide excellent pediatric formulas. The most prominent of these are the Chinese herbal pediatric cold and cough formulas developed by Chinese Modular Solutions (Windbreaker, Chest Relief) and Blue Poppy (CQ Junior, Lung Qi Junior, and Bupleurum and Angelica). Golden Flower produces an excellent pediatric ear infection formula as well (Children's Ear Formula). These are available to any health care practitioner.

Black elderberry extract (Sambucol) is an excellent western pediatric formula for viral illness, which has proven to be effective in flu treatment. Echinacea and golden seal are effective in building the immune response to colds, despite contradictory clinical studies. Other Western products, like Emergen-C, and Airborne (a modern version of the Chinese formula yin chiao jin) are also helpful first-line treatments for children's colds.

Homeopathic medicine provides safe and quick acting treatment for children's colds, though most prescriptions need to be individualized to the patient's condition. I do not recommend homeopathic combination medicines. Single homeopathic medicines are more effective, more precise, and safer. Giving a 6, 12, or 30 strength will usually be equally effective. In the absence of specific characterizing symptoms (such as sore throat or cough) a guideline to follow for colds is:

Stage 1 of the cold: Allium cepa: the first remedy to give for clear, runny nose.

Or, Belladonna: if there is also a fever with clear runny nose. Once the discharge has changed from clear to yellow or green these remedies are no longer indicated.

Stage 2 of the cold: Pulsatilla: thick nasal discharge and clingy behavior.

Stage 3 of the cold: Kali bichromicum: thick green nasal discharge.

Source: www.Cure-Guide.com

Fight Eating Disorders with Chinese Medicine

Nearly one million men and women in the United States suffer from eating disorders, according to The National Institute of Mental Health. With such startling statistics, it is surprising to learn that many of these cases go untreated year after year.

The two most common types of eating disorders are anorexia and bulimia. Anorexia is characterized by drastic weight loss due a lack of eating. Women may entirely stop menstruating, and many suffer severe bouts of depression and anxiety. Victims will harvest a great fear of gaining weight, and an extreme inability to accept one's own appearance. Those suffering from bulimia are characterized by binge-eating behavior, accompanied by recurrent compensatory behavior to prevent weight gain.

Fortunately, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and acupuncture offer holistic treatments for these disorders. Prevalent in most eating disorder cases, depression and anxiety may be treated by acupuncture. In a study performed by Guo Ke Ren, 30 cases of anorexia were treated with acupuncture to specific meridians for 30 minutes; after treatments, 25 cases were resolved and 5 responded with improvement, with an effectiveness rate of 100%. According to a UK study, significant improvements before and after treatment were found in their levels of depression.

Many factors, as well as the acupuncture, may have contributed to these improvements. A Chinese study has also found positive results in integrating TCM into treatments for depression. Subjects have reported significant improvements in their physical health, mental health, sense of control and social support, after several acupuncture and body-mind treatments. TCM and acupuncture may offer healthy and effective alternatives to treatment for those suffering from anorexia, bulimia, and accompanying feelings of depression and anxiety.

The ancient Chinese believed that there is a universal life energy called qi, or chi, which is present in every living being and flows along body pathways called meridians. If the flow of this energy is blocked in any way, illness occurs. Acupuncture works to restore normal functions by stimulating certain points on the meridians in order to free up the qi energy.

For more information about using TCM to fight eating disorders, please call Pacific College at (800) 729-0941 or visit www.PacificCollege.edu