Poor eating and activity habits, not genetics, are the underlying causes for most cases of adolescent obesity, new research suggests.

The finding stems from an analysis involving more than 1,000 Michigan sixth-grade students who participated in the Project Healthy Schools program, which is in place in 13 middle schools across the state.

“For the extremely overweight child, genetic screening may be a consideration,” study senior author Dr. Kim A. Eagle, a cardiologist and a director of the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center in Ann Arbor, said in a center news release.

“For the rest, increasing physical activity, reducing recreational screen time and improving the nutritional value of school lunches offers great promise to begin a reversal of current childhood obesity trends.”

The study findings were published in a recent issue of the American Heart Journal.

The authors noted that, in 1980, just 6.5 percent of U.S. children aged 6 to 11 years were considered obese, but that percentage rose to nearly 20 percent by 2008.

The recent study found that 15 percent of the participants were obese. And almost all had poor eating habits.

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What happens when your child says, “I’m sick”? Do you keep her home or send her off to school?

Following these steps can help you find out, decide and care for your child. First, ask yourself these three questions:

• Does your child have an illness that will make other children sick? Examples of this is are a bad cough, cold or vomiting.
• Will your child need constant care from a grown-up?
• Will the illness make it hard for your child to learn or play?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, keep your child at home. If you’re not sure, call your child’s doctor. Be sure to call the doctor if your child has an elevated temperature, taken with a mouth thermometer.

Decide if your older child can stay home alone, if need be. Ask yourself these questions: Read the rest of this entry »

Are you a mom of a middle schooler (or two)?  Onslow Memorial Hospital is recruiting women who would like to share their experiences raising children in middle school, and lead conversations about parenting with other women in the community.

The ideal author will be willing to share stories about their families and discuss their thoughts and feelings about how their children are growing, what it means to be a parent of growing children, struggles as a parent, the best things about raising children and the things our children do that make us all laugh, cry and sometimes cringe!

This is an exciting, paid opportunity and we’re looking for someone with passion, dedication and the skill set to keep a blog lively, timely and relevant to parents who will be following the blog. Previous blogging, journalism or PR experience is helpful but not necessary.

If you are interested in joining our team, please click here to apply today!

Just as an adolescent beings to look inwardly and develop a sense of who they are, they also begin to evaluate relationships with others – including family members and friends. Family relationships are often reorganized with the onset of puberty, the desire for increased autonomy, and increased emotional distance between teens and their parents. Adolescent attention often shifts to a more intense focus on social interactions and friendships expanding from same sex friends to same sex groups of friends to heterosexual groups of friends. Sexual maturity marks the need to reorganize friendships again, to include an increased interest in opposite sex relationships and dating.

Developmental changes in peer relationships:

The amount of time spent with friends increases during the course of adolescence. Most often, teenagers enjoy the time they spend with their friends more than other activities. They report feeling more understood and accepted by their friends. Less and less time is spent with parents and other family members.

Close friendships tend to develop between teens that are more similar in nature, interest, social class, and ethnic backgrounds, than younger age friendships. While childhood friends tend to be based on common activities, adolescent friendships expand to include similarities in attitudes, values, loyalty, and intimacy, as well as common activities. Teen friendships also tend to be more similar in level of involvement in academic and educational interest. Especially for girls, close, intimate, self-disclosing conversations with friends help to explore identities and define one’s sense of self. Conversations within these important friendships also assist adolescents in exploring their sexuality and how they feel about it. The friendships of adolescent boys are less likely to be as intimate than those of girls. Boys are more prone to form an alliance with a group of friends who validate each other’s worth through actions and deeds rather than interpersonal disclosure.

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As children grow and mature into adolescents and teens, they will go through a number of physical and emotional changes.  These changes will affect their relationships with others – including family member and friends – but they will also affect a tween’s sense of self.  It is during adolescence, as tweens learn to focus on their changing relationships with others, that a new understanding of one’s self emerges.

As your tween learns to look inwardly at themselves, they will learn and develop the following self-concepts:

• independence
  Independence is defined as making decisions for one’s self and acting on the basis of one’s own thought processes, judgment, and decision making. Part of the developmental process for adolescents is to learn to work out one’s own problems independently. With increasing cognitive and intuitive abilities, adolescents begin to face new responsibilities and to enjoy independent thoughts and actions. Adolescents begin to have thoughts and fantasies about their future and adult life (i.e., college or job training, work, and marriage).
• identity
  Identity is defined as a sense of self or self knowledge about one’s characteristics, or personality. One of the fundamental tasks of adolescence is to achieve a sense of a personal identity and a secure sense of self. As an adolescent gains comfort with, and acceptance of, a more mature physical body, learns to use his/her own judgment, learns to make decisions independently, and addresses his/her own problems, he/she begins to develop a concept of himself/herself as an individual, and thus an identity. Difficulty in developing a clear concept of self or identity occurs when an adolescent is unable to resolve struggles about who he/she is as a physical, sexual, and independent person.
• self-esteem
  Self-esteem is defined as the feelings one has about one’s self. Self-esteem is determined by answering the question “How much do I like myself?” With the onset of adolescence, a decrease in self-esteem is somewhat common – based on the many body changes occurring, new thoughts being developed, and new ways of thinking about things becoming more and more apparent. During adolescence, teens become more thoughtful about who they are and who they want to be. They notice differences in the way they act and the way they think they should act. Once teens start thinking about their actions and characteristics, they are confronted with how they judge themselves. Adolescent females tend to place importance on attractiveness. When teens do not perceive themselves as attractive, it often causes poor self-esteem. Females tend to have less self-esteem than males. Typically, self-esteem increases during late adolescence as teens develop a better sense of who they are.

As tweens grow and develop they are likely to seek a higher degree of autonomy, which plays a key role in their relationships with family and friends. Stay tuned for Relationship Development in tweens, where we will address some of the change adolescents experience in their peer relationships, male-female relationships and family relationships.

In the meantime, have you noticed your tween taking a closer look at themselves and redefining their self concept, as they grow and mature?