Articles in the Wellness category

Red Bull “gives you wings”; and possibly a trip to the hospital

granos-de-cafe-25761289743473YwCAccording to a newly published study issued by the University of Miami School of Medicine, frequent consumption of energy drinks is correlated with “serious adverse effects.” The groups at highest risk are “children, adolescents, and young adults with seizures, diabetes, cardiac abnormalities, or mood and behavioral disorders or those who take certain medications.”

And yet, the study also reports that 30 to 50 percent of adolescents and young adults consume these potentially hazardous beverages, which often contain “high and unregulated amounts of caffeine,” according to the study.

Energy drinks such as Red Bull, Monster and Fuel, are readily available at several public schools, such as The University of Tennessee, which took heat for selling the drinks to young customers at sporting events.

According to United Marketing, a vending machine company, energy drinks are a product sure to produce “high-powered profits.” The company even names “sleep-deprived college students” as a target consumer group and “schools” as a “prime energy drink vending machine location.”

It’s well known that college students tend to thrive on caffeine, but I have to question the priorities of schools who jump on the energy drink bandwagon. Profits over student health perhaps? Not to mention that a jittering student with heart palpitations might not have the highest level of academic productivity.
(more…)

Naomi Dillon|February 14th, 2011|Categories: Governance, Leading Source, Wellness|Tags: |

New resources guide schools on LGBT bullying issues

“For youth to thrive in their schools and communities, they need to feel socially, emotionally, and physically safe,” states the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) new research and prevention page regarding the bullying of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual or transsexual) adolescents in U.S. schools.

But the new research shows this is not the case for many LGBT youth in the U.S. According to an online survey conducted in 2009, nearly one in three responding LGBT teens admitted skipping at least one school day in the previous month due to concerns for their safety.

The new CDC resources are a “nice tie between public health and education,” said Brenda Z. Greene, director of NSBA’s school health programs.

“When students are disengaged or bullied, they don’t feel safe and they’re not going to do as well in school—if they show up at all,” Greene said.

LGBT adolescents face tremendous stresses, which increase their risk for mental health problems and substance abuse. A national study of lesbian, gay, and bisexual 7th through 12th graders found that these youth were twice more likely than their straight classmates to have attempted suicide.

As a result, school board members and administrators are being called to take a stand against the bullying epidemic.

“This is a good time to be proactive,” said Roberta Stanley, NSBA’s director of federal affairs, at a Feb. 7 presentation on digital bullying at the Federal Relations Network conference. “You don’t want to be the one to be [negatively] highlighted.”

The CDC recommends enforcing “clear policies, procedures and activities designed to prevent bullying.” Additionally, an atmosphere with supportive staff,  psychological “safe spaces” and the development of student run organizations such as the Gay Straight Alliance can help LGBT youth flourish.

To improve sexual education, schools can use  “inclusive terminology” and cover issues relevant to LGBT youth. Information about community resources for HIV and other sexually transmitted disease testing should also be provided by schools.

“When people are talking about an important issue as if you’re not there, you’re not going to pay attention,” said Greene. Ignoring same-sex couple issues “disenfranchises” LGBT teens, who have a lower chance of engaging in “high risk” health behaviors if included in curricula.

NSBA’s 2011 annual conference, held April 9 to 11 in San Francisco, will include a presentation about “Welcoming Schools”, a Human Rights Campaign initiative to help public schools create a healthy and productive climate for all students.

These changes will help create “positive, supportive, and healthy environments,” which “promote acceptance and respect and help youth feel valued,” according to the CDC. But in order to succeed, Greene said, school employees must also have a “commitment to kids and a commitment to doing the right thing.”

-Melissa Major, publications intern

admin|February 11th, 2011|Categories: Bullying, FRN Conference 2011, School Board News, School Climate, School Security, Wellness|

Child nutrition remains a hot legislative topic

The Child Nutrition Act reauthorization passed in December. So why was it a hot topic at a session on legislative priorities at the Federal Relations Network conference?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is proposing regulations that could dramatically impact the implementation of the new law, and school leaders need to let their Congressional representatives know the issues they will be facing if some of the regulations do not blunt the impact of the law.

NSBA and several other groups opposed the passage of the “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act” because it created many vague mandates with minimal or no funding increases. However, the bill was pushed by First Lady Michelle Obama and others who want to help children living in poverty have access to healthier foods.

“Sometimes what looks good on paper doesn’t work on the ground,” noted NSBA legislative analyst Katherine Shek.

Some of the more problematic provisions include new “voluntary” meal standards that will set new nutritional standards for all school meals, including foods sold in vending machines and during fundraisers; plus more reporting, training, and certification requirements.

NSBA is also concerned about the indirect costs for program operations, maintaining buildings and equipment, and the possibility of increased administrative salaries due to the new requirements.

One school board member said her small, rural district only paid its food service director $11 an hour — not enough to attract someone who has a college education or higher career prospects.

The new law also will regulate the amount charged for unsubsidized cafeteria meals. The federal government will require school districts to raise any “artificially low” prices or cover the difference with non-federal funds.

“Sometimes you might want to make [school lunches] affordable for other kids who might be low income but not qualify for free and reduced-price lunches,” said Shek.

Overall, NSBA wants school boards to share their stories of successful programs with Congress. “Improving health and wellness of kids really is a local effort.”

The deadline to comment on the proposed regulations is April 13. For more information, go to www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-01-13/pdf/2011-485.pdf.

Joetta Sack-Min|February 7th, 2011|Categories: Educational Legislation, Food Service, FRN Conference 2011, Governance, Nutrition, Obesity, School Board News, School Boards, Student Achievement, Wellness|

Respect: Not just a word, but a behavior

BoardBuzz is pleased that NSBA has endorsed “No Name-Calling Week” which is taking place this week, from January 24-28.  By observing this event, schools across the country will foster the important and essential message of “respect for all.”  

In a press release about the week, the Gay, Lesbian, Straight and Education Network’s (GLSEN) Executive Director Eliza Byard soberly alerts us to the fact that “bullying is a public health crisis in this country.”  As shown in a 2005 Harris Interactive report commissioned by GLSEN, 47 percent of junior/middle high school students identified bullying, name-calling or harassment as a somewhat serious or very serious problem at their school.  Additionally, 69 percent of junior/middle high school students reported being assaulted or harassed in the previous year.  Notably, bullying, among other problems, results in lower academic achievement as kids who are bullied are often absent from school and/or cannot pay attention to class.

These data are alarming, to say the least, and recent reports of bullying-related suicides makes all of this even more troubling.  However, all around the country, many schools are already stepping up to the plate to improve bullying policies and BoardBuzz wants to applaud that effort. 

In GLSEN’s press release, Byard states that “through programs like No Name-Calling Week, we know we can make schools safer and more affirming for everyone.” The event is in its eighth year and has become one of the most used and celebrated bullying prevention programs in the country. 

BoardBuzz hopes this is not just “one more event to be honored,” but rather that schools will address bullying in effective ways and that respect be not only a word that is thrown around classrooms and school hallways, but that it be a permanent behavior adopted by students, teachers, and school staff alike. 

Daniela Espinosa|January 26th, 2011|Categories: Boardbuzz, Wellness|

In surprising alliance, Walmart join’s First Lady’s childhood obesity campaign

0519-0906-1808-5518_michelle_obama_in_the_white_house_vegetable_with_kids_from_bancroft_elementary_school_sWhy don’t I shop at Wal-Mart? Oh, let me count the ways—the giant corporate retailer’s destruction of small-town businesses that can’t compete, it’s tendency to build mass supercenters on the fringes of town, its bullying of manufacturers to lower the prices and thus quality of their products, the claims of discrimination, the claims of denying health insurance, the reopening of a store on Black Friday just hours after an employee had been trampled to death a couple years ago. I guess I could just say, their relentless pursuit of profit at any cost to society.

So I’m quite skeptical of their new campaign that says they’re going green, and giving health insurance and valuable career pathways to employees.

And I was quite surprised to hear last week that First Lady Michelle Obama was endorsing Wal-Mart’s new plan to require its suppliers to create healthier foods, with less sodium, fat, and sugar on its house-brand products, and lower the prices of fresh fruits, vegetables, and other healthier foods. And it’s building stores in places where poor residents do not have access to grocery stores or fresh foods.

Wal-Mart is the nation’s largest grocery retailer, and analysts say this position will have a major ripple through the food manufacturing community. According to USA Today, Mrs. Obama said the plan has “the potential to transform the marketplace and help Americans put healthier foods on their tables every single day.”

“We are really gaining some momentum on this issue, we’re beginning to see things move,” she said at an event in impoverished Southeast Washington, D.C., where Wal-Mart plans to open news stores.

While I’m sure Wal-Mart’s ultimate goal is to make a profit from this, it could bring some positive changes that could eventually help schools as they comply with the new Child Nutrition Act requirements (for more on the recently released regulations, read this School Board News Today story) In other words if you’ve got the power to be a bully, at least use it to do some good.

Now, about the environment…

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor

Naomi Dillon|January 24th, 2011|Categories: Governance, Leading Source, Wellness|Tags: , , , |

Report: More children receiving school breakfast, but numbers still lag

Though more low-income children than ever are benefitting from school meals, breakfast participation continues to lag behind its midday counterpart, according to the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), a national anti-hunger organization.

On Thursday, FRAC released its an annual School Breakfast Scorecard, which analyzes student participation in the first meal of the day and found that, although the number of children who ate breakfast increased by 663,000 to 9.4 million students nationally in 2009-2010–the largest single jump since FRAC began tracking the data in 1991–it was still far less than the nearly 20 million low-income students who receive lunch every day.

To be exact, only 47 percent of students who took advantage of free and reduced priced lunches also took advantage of the schools’ breakfast offerings. FRAC determined that if for every 100 students who ate lunch, 60 ate breakfast, 2.5 million more children would have started the day off right and states would have recouped an additional $611 million in federal child nutrition funding. Participation rates ranged from a high of nearly 61 percent in New Mexico to Utah’s dismal 34 percent.

One of the most promising strategies to emerge in recent years to address the disparity is universal breakfast–the practice of providing a free meal to every student regardless of income level. Indeed, each of 10 districts with the highest participation levels profiled in a separate analysis, School Breakfast in America’s Big Cities, report employ universal breakfast programs.

To increase breakfast participation, FRAC recommends school districts and states serve breakfast in the classroom, offer grab-and-go options, streamline the free and reduced meal application process, and conduct frequent campaigns and outreach.

Naomi Dillon|January 13th, 2011|Categories: Food Service, Nutrition, School Board News, Wellness|

Schools and public health departments: partnering for success

While school leaders and other BoardBuzz readers are busy making sure students are performing well academically and able to graduate from high school, you might not realize that public health departments are doing the same.

Why?

Research shows that the more education one has, the healthier that person is. Not only that, but also that being healthy is essential for being able to learn and obtain education.  Makes sense, right?

Some of you BoardBuzz readers may already know that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently released Healthy People 2020, the nation’s new 10-year goals and objectives for health promotion and disease prevention, which aims for a society in which all people live long, healthy lives. 

You may be asking yourselves two questions:

1) Have setting such objectives produced any results in the past?

2) What role can the education community play in this?

The answer to the first question is that preliminary analyses conducted in the last decade show that the country has either progressed toward or met 71 percent of its Healthy People targets – both exciting and positive news! 

The answer to the second question is that one of the Healthy People 2020 objectives is is increasing the educational achievement of adolescents (including high school completion) and school leaders are already working hard to achieve that goal. Again, within this context, not only is it important for the education community to understand that in order to increase student achievement schools need to implement policies and practices that keep youth healthy, but also that high school completion in itself is essential to people living healthy adult lives.

In addition, Healthy People 2020 has a number of new topic areas that are relevant to schools including:  Early and Middle Childhood; Adolescent Health; Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Health; Preparedness; and Sleep Health and that schools are well positioned to help the nation with such issues because they serve millions of children and adolescents and their communities on a daily basis. 

So how exactly can schools help children and youth be healthy and ready to learn while also helping achieve national efforts related to the Healthy People objectives? For one, schools can work with their local health departments – try knocking on their door, and maybe they’ll also be trying to knock on yours!  To learn more how to partner with health departments, check out this publication released by the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors last year. 

Also, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends the use of a coordinated school health (CSH) model, which includes eight interrelated components such as health education, nutrition services, and a healthy and safe environment.  The CDC has recently expanded its CSH website to include frequently asked questions about CSH, key goals, a model framework for planning, strategies for implementing and evaluating a coordinated approach to school health, fact sheets on the status of school health policies and practices, among other relevant items. 

And if you need more information on steps you can take to promote school health, contact NSBA’s School Health Programs at schoolhealth@nsba.org.

Daniela Espinosa|January 12th, 2011|Categories: Boardbuzz, Student Achievement, Wellness|

Anger and trajedy in Arizona

Photo courtesy of Stockvault.net

Photo courtesy of Stockvault.net

There was a time — for days, even weeks – after the terrorist attacks of 2001 that I could not look at a digital clock showing 9:11 without seeing images from that horrible day.

But I got over it. And in the same way (in much abbreviated fashion) I got over Saturday’s shootings in Arizona. Sunday was a strange day. Yesterday was more depressing. But today? Things seem back to “normal,” whatever that is. How quickly we move on.

But there are a few things I’d like to say about the terrible shootings that killed six people and injured 14, including a U.S. congresswoman. On the issue of whether the killer, Jared Loughner, was influenced by violent, mostly rightwing, rhetoric, we might never know for sure. But at a time when some on-air entertainers/commentators regularly denounce not simply the ideas or policies of opponents but their very legitimacy – in what some observers have called, using a rather odd phrase, “eliminationist rhetoric” — the potential impact on unstable individuals seems self-evident.  
(more…)

Lawrence Hardy|January 11th, 2011|Categories: Governance, Leading Source, School Climate, School Security, Wellness|

Keeping children safe from defective products

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced it will be launching a public database of complaints. The Washington Post reports that, “The federal government is poised for the first time to make public thousands of complaints it receives each year about safety problems with various products, from power tools to piggy banks. The compilation of consumer complaints, set to be launched online in March by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, has been hailed by consumer advocates as a resource that will revolutionize the way people make buying decisions.”

School boards must help to make sure their schools are safe and that that recall messages reach the parents of school children. We are proud that the National School Boards Association has teamed up with the Consumers Union, National PTA, and other leading national organizations to form the National School Safety Coalition, a partnership that delivers critical and time-sensitive information on recalled and defective children’s products to millions of parents and educators across the U.S.

The coalition has created the Click, Check, and Protect Campaign, a national effort to help safeguard children and inform parents, educators, and caregivers about the potential dangers of products. The campaign’s website, www.clickcheckandprotect.org, is updated regularly with vital safety alert and recall information.

Alexis Rice|January 11th, 2011|Categories: Boardbuzz, School Boards, Student Achievement, Wellness|

Fraudulent autism-vaccine link truly endangers children

I find autism fascinating. Not that I would wish this disability, which often comes with some degree of mental retardation and social and behavioral issues, on anyone. But the cause is such a compelling medical mystery.

One of the earliest and most widely disseminated theories was that vaccines might be directly or indirectly related to a cause. The theory, based on research published in 1998 by British pediatrician Andrew Wakefield, caused many parents to outright refuse to vaccinate their children or question whether they might be putting them at risk by doing so.

The theory had been controversial from the start, but after the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine was reformulated to take out thimerosal, believed to be the culprit, autism rates continues to rise. Last year, the Lancet, the British medical journal that originally published Dr. Wakefield’s research, retracted the study. Last week, another medical journal released an investigation that calls the research fraudulent.

The British Medical Journal investigation found serious flaws in the research, including evidence that Dr. Wakefield altered evidence and facts about the children whose cases were studied.

Although his medical license was revoked in Great Britain last year, Dr. Wakefield is now living in the U.S. and has a loyal following as he still makes claims about the potential for harm from vaccines. Meanwhile, cases of measles have risen exponentially in England, Wales, and other European countries because parents were afraid to have their children vaccinated.

The British Medical Journal says in an editorial that “clear evidence of falsification of data should now close the door on this damaging vaccine scare” for good. Personally, I’d like to see Dr. Wakefield held liable for all the children who were not vaccinated and have died or been seriously injured from measles or other illnesses. And any parent who doesn’t get their child vaccinated at this point should also be held liable.

NPR, meanwhile, quotes David Ropeik, an instructor at Harvard, on what could ease the fears of vaccines: “As more and more people get measles and kids die, which is happening around the world, eventually the threat of the disease will come back and surmount our fear of the vaccine.”

-Joetta Sack-Min

Joetta Sack-Min|January 10th, 2011|Categories: Leading Source, Wellness|
Page 3 of 37«12345»102030...Last »