Articles in the Wellness category

Diabetes and the need for school nurses

Powerful series in the New York Times here about diabetes, which points out that one in eight New Yorkers has the incurable disease. Including, of course, more and more children, suffering from Type 2 diabetes, formerly associated only with adults. For schools, here is one of many related questions: How many school nurses do we need? Despite federal recommendations on the ratio of nurses to students, the Department of Education has no plans to enforce them. “State and local officials determine staffing needs,” Susan Aspey, press secretary for the U.S. Department of Education, told the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. “We don’t dictate hiring decisions.”

Diabetes together with asthma and other increasingly common health challenges for students are increasing the strain on schools. And here is another student health challenge schools are facing: Every day, more than 3.5 million schoolchildren take medication at school, the Argus Leader story points out. That includes 200 types of prescription drugs, which is about three times the number taken in the late 1980s, University of Iowa researchers found.

admin|January 9th, 2006|Categories: Boardbuzz, Wellness|

Cheerleader health takes a tumble

Research indicates cheerleading injuries more than doubled from 1990 through 2002, while participation grew just 18 percent over the same period, reports a study published Tuesday in the offical journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. AP here. The study estimates 208,800 young people ages 5 to 18 were treated at U.S. hospitals for cheerleading-related injures during the 13-year period. Most of the injuries were suffered by 12- to 17-year-olds; nearly 40 percent were leg, ankle, and foot injuries.

The study recommends that coaches get professional safety training and that high schools and cheerleading associations adopt uniform safety procedures and also develop a national database for injuries. That is something the Memphis-based American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Advisors has been advocating for several years, AP reports.

admin|January 4th, 2006|Categories: Boardbuzz, School Security, Wellness|

School boards chew over school wellness mandates

The Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act of 2004 requires every school system that participates in the federal school lunch program to have a wellness policy in place by the start of the 2006-2007 school year. The requirements passed down by Congress do not prescribe a specific plan each school must follow, reports the Kingsport, Tenn. Times-News. Instead, the requirements leave to school districts the authority to make decisions about what foods to serve and how much physical activity to incorporate.

Brenda Greene, director of School Health Programs for NSBA, is working with state school boards associations as they assist local school boards in developing policies to meet this requirement. The Kingsport Times-News article is the best one we have seen on these new demands on school districts.

Need some good resources? Check out USDA Team Nutrition. Also, Action for Healthy Kids has a policy development tool that was developed in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

How is your state doing on this? We would love to write about it.

admin|November 29th, 2005|Categories: Boardbuzz, Wellness|
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