Tag: family health

Working Moms are Feeling the Stress of Multitasking More than Working Dads

December 2, 2011 / Staff

Working moms feel more stress than working dads.

This fascinating study showed that effects of short-term memory stress like answering the phone while caring for a child was much different and much less damaging than overloading the memory with long-term multi-tasking.

The working parents in the study wore watches that beeped randomly seven times throughout the day. Researchers wanted to know how much they were multitasking. So, after the beep, the men and women filled out forms that described what they were doing, what “else” they were doing, and whether they were happy, stressed or wished they were doing something else.
After gathering all the information, the researchers found that working mothers spent 10.5 more hours every week on multitasking compared with working fathers — typical chores like preparing dinner, doing laundry, maybe even doing some work brought home from the office, while also talking with their child and helping with homework.
Fathers, on the other hand, did a different kind of juggling. “When they’re multitasking, it tends to be more work related — so they might be answering a work call” while spending time with the kids, Schneider says.
As a result, Schneider says, the women reported much greater feelings of stress and being overwhelmed than the men reported. The men reported feeling pleased with their multitasking.

Research, Wellness

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Fighting Childhood Obesity Takes the Whole Family

December 2, 2011 / Staff

Fighting childhood obesity is a family business!

Isolating a child with a weight problem is neither practical nor possible.

Family eating habits are ubiquitous and often times an obese child is the progeny of an obese parent.

Sometime it is necessary for a third party to become involved and retrain the whole family’s ideas about food.

With more and more children in the U.S. becoming overweight, many parents are wondering how to talk to their children about weight. The Packard Pediatric Weight Control Program for families is remarkably straightforward and successful.
After a long day of school or work, a group of families gathers in a Stanford Hospital classroom in Menlo Park, Calif. The children are all in the highest percentile for body mass index, or BMI. They’ve signed up with their parents, often at the urging of a pediatrician, for a six-month healthy eating and exercise boot camp.

Nutrition, Resources, Wellness

childhood health childhood obesity family health obesity

The Best Packaged Foods for Nutrition and Taste

October 13, 2011 / Staff

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Although packaged food is not the first choice for a healthy meal, sometime it is the only alternative.

Prepared foods have come a long way from the sodium filled T.V. dinners and nutritionally void canned foods of days gone by.

Many are organic, healthy, environmentally friendly and lacking in preservatives and sugars which generally make prepared foods unhealthy and fattening.

Whether balancing busy schedules or leaving the cooking up to the kids a packaged meal fills the bill on occasion.

Finding the healthiest options and stocking up on the best prepared meals can make your life a little easier.

Nutrition, Quality Control, Research, Wellness

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Make the Switch to Healthy Food for Your Family

August 23, 2011 / Staff

Feeding your family a healthy diet can be daunting but sometimes all you need to do is to make a few substitutions.

Switching out high calorie less nutritious food for more nutrient dense choices can simply be a matter of habit.

Check this list of easy switches to maximize your family’s nutrition.

Nutrition, Wellness

family health family nutrition Healthy food nutritious foods for families

Work out, baby on board

April 14, 2011 / Staff

For women who exercise daily some mothers choose to continue their exercise routine well into their pregnancy, sometimes even up to their delivery.

It is the opinion of many that it is generally considered safe to continue with exercises like jogging, power-walking, working out at a moderate pace, lifting light weights, aerobic exercise or practicing yoga as these activities can be healthy not just for the mother but for the unborn baby as well.

Babies born to women who exercised during pregnancy were found to have healthier hearts.

Always consult with your physician when planning to embark upon an exercise regime.

“It’s exciting research,” Dr. May said, though it is also preliminary and incomplete. Just how a pregnant woman’s jogging or power-walking remakes her unborn child’s heart remains unknown, she said. Mother and fetus have, after all, completely separate cardiac systems and blood circulations. But certain hormones released during exercise do cross the placenta, Dr. May said, and could be stimulating changes in the developing fetus’s heart.