Thirsty? Don’t ignore the urge. Take a big drink of water - not soda, juice, tea or coffee. These drinks are loaded with sugars, calories and some even have caffeine, a diuretic that makes you expel water and does the opposite of why you’re hoping to do: hydrate.
People continually underestimate the importance of water but it is essential to good health. I am constantly amazed when I see children attending sports practices and games without a water bottle - it’s important that both parents and children understand how important it is to keep your body hydrated. To start with, 70% of your body is water. Your bones are 25% water, your brain is 75% water and your blood is 83% water. Now consider this, water is a primary component of every single cell in your body and involved in every bodily function - making repairs, increasing immunity, helping your muscles contract, eliminating waste, regulating body temperature, lubricating joints, metabolizing fats and carrying oxygen and nutrients to your cells. When you’re dehydrated you’re depriving yourself of the ability to perform at your best.
And it’s not just sweating that causes you to lose water - you lose water when exhaling or going to the bathroom and when you have a fever, vomit or have diarrhea.
Dehydration means you’re losing more water than you’re taking in. Common signs of dehydration include feeling thirsty, dizzy or weak; dark-colored urine; dry mouth; confusion; heart palpitations; feeling sluggish; having swollen hands or feet; or being unable to sweat. If you do not drink enough water on a daily basis (whether you’re exercising or not) you may
- feel groggy
- not maintain its muscle tone
- have kidneys that underperform
- be more likely to get kidney stones or bladder infections
- become constipated
- have more frequent bladder infections
- suffer more headaches
- have dry and itchy skin
- not metabolize fats as well
- have trouble regulating your body temperature.
If you become severely dehydrated your blood pressure can fall, you can suffer seizures, coma or swelling of the brain.
Just how much water do you need? A good way to estimate is take your weight in pounds and divide it by two. That indicates how many ounces of water you should shoot for each day. If you want 120 pounds, that’s 60 ounces.
Finally, consider hydrating before exercise and outdoor activity. Your body has a bit of a delayed reaction - you don’t get thirsty when your body first needs water. That means by the time you’re feeling thirsty, your body is already suffering.
To parents — get your kids of the couch at an early age and promote a lifestyle that includes some sort of exercise every day (be it biking, a walk around the block, hitting baseballs, swimming, gardening…). To kids — get active, get outdoors.
Why? Well, besides the long-established benefits — cardiovascular health, lower rates of obesity and diabetes, healthier proportions of muscle mass — a new study shows a connection between exercise and GPA. According to the study, “Twenty minutes of daily vigorous physical activity among college students may lead them to have grade point averages about .4 higher, on a scale of 4.0, compared with students who do not exercise.”
Now think of what 40 minutes of exercise could do! I’m kidding, of course, but the study did indicate that while daily exercise is not necessary — the research did indicate that more exercise is better.
The latest research indicates the link between tanning beds and melanoma may be greater than previously suspected. While only 4 percent of skin cancers are melanomas, 75 percent of skin cancer deaths are from melanoma. According to this article, the more time you spend in the tanning bed, the greater the risk. The World Health Organization has labeled tanning beds as carcinogenic and recommends banning them for children under the age of 18.
Earaches can make for a long night. Your child may be symptom free during the day - but in the middle of the night she wakes up crying and rubbing her ear. Depending on how bad the infection of the middle ear is, your child may be comforted by either Aleve, Advil, Motrin or Tylenol (never give aspirin to a child under 20) and a warm washcloth or a heating pad placed on the ear. In other instances, you have a long night ahead of you until your child can visit your physician and possibly receive numbing ear drops that relieve your child’s discomfort. Your physician may also prescribe antibiotics, depending on the age of the child and the seriousness of the infection. Antibiotics do not address the issue of pain, so be sure to give your child one of the medications listed above.
Just why do children get middle ear infections? The tubes connecting a child’s ear to throat are small - so they can become blocked more easily. When your child has an upper respiratory infection, such as a cold (allergies can also lead to ear infections), the tube can swell and become blocked - trapping fluid within the ear. That fluid is easily infected by the very germs in the nose and throat that are causing the cold.
Today, doctors and researchers are taking concussions in children more seriously. Researchers have found that young brains don’t recover from concussions as quickly as they originally thought. And they’ve found that children’s brains are also more susceptible to second-impact syndrome in which the brain can suffer grievous injury as a result of suffering another blow to the head shortly after a first blow.
The problem remains - kids are still returning to the playing field too quickly after experiencing a head injury. The causes are many - parents may not know any better, athletes may hide their symptoms, and coaches may not be aware of the seriousness of concussions.
According to a report in Time magazine, a study found that from 2005 to 2008, 41% of athletes with concussions returned to the field too soon - and that can make them vulnerable to second-impact syndrome. While the American Academy of Neurology recommends that an athlete whose initial concussion symptoms last longer than 15 minutes be benched until he or she is symptom-free for a week - the study found that 16% of high school football players who lost consciousness during a concussion returned to the field the same day.
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