Interesting Link

While I was at work yesterday, an email from a coworker introduced me to a great blog regarding care of children from a pediatrician's perspective and sharing information. I read a great article about tongue clipping, which is great for my line of work, but my not get the rest of you jazzed up. However, there's also a dialog about childhood obesity. This one interested me more from my job as a mom than as a therapist. The best info from that one was the 5/2/1/0 guideline that they are teaching to families-- 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, no more than 2 hours of screen time, at least 1 hour of moderately vigorous exercise a day, and 0 sugar- containing beverages. They also talked about "Kaizen-the Japanese approach to improvement: small, simple steps that can be sustained. In counseling families, we must encourage gradual and incremental changes." It's like they were thinking of things just for me. I am going incorporate these into my new years resolutions.

I was also impressed by an informative perspective on the current movement to refuse immunizations based on the fear of contributions to pervasive developmental disorders, such as autism. A close friend of mine and I have this discussion regularly. She has chosen to delay immunizing for her child, and I, being a healthcare worker, try to talk her into proceeding with the course. It doesn't affect our friendship, it's just a point of view that we differ on. I respect her fears and doubts and she respects my position as well. This blog entry is written by pediatricians, so you can guess that it's in support of immunizing, but it's full of good data and recent studies related to these ideas. I'm not trying to push my viewpoint on anyone, just sharing what it is.

And on a lighter note, while I was at work yesterday, my family took down all the Christmas decorations! What a man I have. He must really love me to do that for me. My living room looks so refreshed.