Toy Safety Tips for Holiday Shoppers

by U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission

Safety Measures

WASHINGTON, D.C. - As the holiday season approaches, theU.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission(CPSC) urges gift-givers to keep safety in mind when choosing toys for young children. The CPSC estimates that more than 120,000 children are treated in hospital emergency rooms for toy-related injuries each year.

"Toys are an important part of holiday gift-giving, and CPSC is on the job 365 days a year to make sure toys are as safe as possible," said CPSC chairman Ann Brown. "CPSC's goal is to prevent deaths and injuries; unfortunately, each year some children are hurt by toys. By always reading labels and being safety conscious, parents and caregivers can help prevent toy-related injuries."

CPSC requires labels to be on all toys marketed for children from three to six years old if the toys pose a choking hazard to children under age three. These labels tell consumers two critical things: that a toy is not safe for younger children and why it is not safe. Before CPSC issued these labeling requirements, it was more difficult for consumers to know that certain toys they bought for older children could be a danger to younger kids. CPSC has the most stringent toy-safety standards in the world, and toys on store shelves are safer because of the day-to-day compliance work by CPSC.

Choosing Appropriate Toys

Parents and gift-givers can help prevent toy-related injuries and deaths by always reading labels and being safety conscious. The following tips will help you choose appropriate toys this holiday season -- and all year round:

• Select toys to suit the age, abilities, skills, and interest level of the intended child. Toys too advanced may pose safety hazards to younger children.
• For infants, toddlers, and all children who still mouth objects, avoid toys with small parts which could pose a fatal choking hazard.
• For all children under age eight, avoid toys that have sharp edges and points.
• Do not purchase electric toys with heating elements for children under age eight.
• Be a label reader. Look for labels that give age recommendations and use that information as a guide.
• Look for sturdy construction, such as tightly secured eyes, noses, and other potential small parts.
• Check instructions for clarity. They should be clear to you, and when appropriate, to the child.
• Discard plastic wrappings on toys immediately, which can cause suffocation, before they become deadly playthings.

By using common sense and these safety suggestions, holiday shoppers can make informed decisions when purchasing toys for children.

Read more on FamilyEducation:http://fun.familyeducation.com/toy-safety/safety/29700.html#ixzz18zGlTozQ

Flip-Flops, Flat Shoes Relieve Arthritic Knees

Clogs, Stability Shoes Put More Stress on Knees Than Flat, Flexible Shoes and Flip-Flops, Study Finds


By Kathleen Doheny


WebMD Health NewsReviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD

March 29, 2010 -- If you have knee pain from arthritis, wearing flat, flexible shoes may reduce the stress on your joints and keep you more comfortable, according to new research.

In a comparison study that evaluated the force or "load" on arthritic knees while wearing clogs, athletic shoes with stability features, flat walking shoes, flip-flops, and going barefoot, the flat and flexible shoes won out, says study lead author Najia Shakoor, MD, an associate professor of internal medicine at Rush Medical College and an attending physician at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

Her study is published online in Arthritis Care & Research.

''We know barefoot is good for your knee load from previous studies," Shakoor tells WebMD. ''Then we thought, do different shoes have different effects on the knee?" So they compared the four shoe types with going barefoot.

The surprise? "The shoes that we intuitively recommend to our patients [with knee arthritis] and thought might be best -- stability shoes and clogs -- were associated with the highest load."

Best Shoes for Knee Pain: Study

Arthritis of the knee is common and a major source of disability and impaired quality of life, the researchers say. Shakoor's team evaluated 31 men and women who had knee arthritis, evaluating their gait as they wore:

Clogs

An athletic shoe that promises to minimize inward rolling of the foot

Flat walking shoes

Flip-flops

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Shakoor measured what's known as a knee adduction moment, ''which measures the extent of the force upon your knee as you walk."

''Flat walking shoes, barefoot, and flip-flops were essentially the same in load on the knee," she says. "But clogs and stability shoes result in a 15% higher load."

''These are just initial studies, and it's too early to recommend [changes]," she says. "But several studies are suggesting that perhaps flat, flexible footwear may help decrease loads on the knee compared to footwear that is less flexible and has higher heels. Stability shoes have higher heels [than other athletic shoes]."

''We think it's the flatness and the flexibility that may provide the benefit."

And, she cautioned: "We are definitely not advocating flip-flops. A flat walking shoe would be better than a flip-flop for other reasons -- stability and the risk of falling."

Shakoor will continue her research. With Rush University and a podiatrist, she hopes to develop a walking shoe for people with knee arthritis. She says Rush will hold the patent.

Best Shoes for Knee Pain: Other Views

''This finding [about the best shoes for knee pain] came as absolutely a surprise to me," says Jeffrey A. Ross, DPM, MD, a spokesman for the American College of Sports Medicine, associate clinical professor of medicine, and chief of the diabetic foot clinic at Ben Taub Hospital in Houston.
"I would have expected the running shoe to be the best, but it didn't turn out to be," he says.


But Ross says he wishes the researchers had studied more than one type of athletic shoe. Even with the new study results, he says, "I probably would still suggest [people with knee arthritis] wear a low-heel running shoe with a flexible sole."

For people with knee arthritis, the shoe should bend easily, he says, resulting in less stress on the forefoot.

A ''neutral'' athletic shoe -- one that does not offer motion control or stability features, may also work to reduce load on the knee, he says.

Choosing footwear for people with knee arthritis can be a trial-and-error experience, says James Christina, DPM, director of scientific affairs for the American Podiatric Medical Association. "A lot of foot doctors would say a cushioned shoe, rather than a stability shoe or a rigid control category of shoe," he says.

Christina says the APMA does not have shoe guidelines for people with knee arthritis.

The new study is a valid one, he says, but the shoe that works for one person with knee arthritis may not work for another person.

The foot specialists say that flip-flops, although they didn't increase the forces on the knee, aren't the best shoe type, especially for older adults with knee arthritis. As balance declines, flip-flops can be hazardous and increase the risk of falling, they say.

Top 10 Ways to Control Your Blood Pressure

1. Lose weight. Get your BMI (body mass index, a measurement of weight in relation to height) into the range of 18.5-24.9, and you will be doing your heart and blood pressure a favor. Think of it this way: Extra weight you carry around is like bricks in a backpack, putting pressure on every part of your body.




2. Eat plenty of whole grains. Have seven to eight servings per day of grains and grain products (these can include breakfast cereal, whole grain bread, rice, pasta, etc.)



3. Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables. Having at least eight to 10 servings of a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables will ensure you get all the healthy antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and fiber you need.



4. Dairy up. Consuming two to three servings daily of low-fat or nonfat diary foods will also help build strong bones and teeth, and enhance weight loss.



5. Limit meat, fish, and poultry to two servings a day. Move the meat off the center of your plate, and enjoy more grains and produce. When you do have meats, fish, and poultry, always chose lean varieties.



6. Go nuts. Incorporate four to five servings a week of nuts, seeds, and legumes into your diet. They provide plenty of protein and healthful fats.



7. Limit fats and oil to two to three servings per day. Fats are the most concentrated source of calories. Limiting them will help you control your weight.



8. Hold the salt. Limit your sodium intake to approximately 2,400 milligrams a day (a moderate level). This means eating fewer canned and processed foods, and more fresh foods.



9. Get off the couch. Exercising at least 30 minutes per day can significantly reduce blood pressure. Any form of physical activity, done most days of the week, will do the trick.



10. Drink in moderation. If you do it at all limit yourself to two drinks per day.

New Study to Link Chemicals to Autism

Leading medical experts are increasingly confident that autism and other ailments are, in part, the result of the impact of environmental chemicals on the developing brain.

Chemicals and Our Endangered Children

Larry Eason, Chair of the Board of Directors

If prevention is, in fact, the best medicine, then we need to pay much closer attention to the role chemicals in the environment play in the rise of disease, related health care costs, and human suffering.

In yesterday's New York Times, Nicholas Kristof highlights the issue in his column "Do Toxins Cause Autism?"

As a new parent I can tell you: that is an attention grabbing headline. But if you read the column, you will see that scientists and the medical community are paying attention to this area of inquiry for very real reasons. Policy makers and parents need to be paying attention, too -- parents because children are particularly vulnerable to toxic chemicals -- and policy makers because evidence that harmful chemicals are contributing to disease suggests prevention imperatives that need to be a part of the health care debate.

Policy makers and parents need to be paying attention, and soon they will be.

Right now the growth in awareness and concern about the connections between environmental toxins and childhood disease is steady but relatively incremental. But a convergence of factors is about to change that and supercharge the level of attention to the issue -- Kristof touches on a couple in his article.

The dramatic increase in incidents of diseases, like Autism, with no known cause has parents (and people thinking about becoming parents) exceptionally anxious and desperately searching for answers. For today's parent there is a new layer to responding to a child's unusual behavioral episodes: we wonder, "is this just normal behavior, or should I be concerned?" I hear a lot of that. I've thought it.

But parents aren't just worrying, they are also connecting -- online. Online readers know that the new reality is that new information -- accurate or not, sensational or measured, and responsible -- can get to just about everyone we know overnight. That's particularly true for parents.

And it is the new information that we are starting to get, and that we are about to get a lot more of, that, in combination with hyper-concern and hyper-connectivity will cause an explosion in awareness and hopefully bring action.

Kristof's piece refers to an article by Dr. Philip Landrigan, professor of pediatrics at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and chair of the school's department of preventive medicine. Kristof writes:

The article cites "historically important, proof-of-concept studies that specifically link autism to environmental exposures experienced prenatally." It adds that the "likelihood is high" that many chemicals "have potential to cause injury to the developing brain and to produce neurodevelopmental disorders."

While his article is full of cautionary language, Dr. Landrigan told me that he is increasingly confident that autism and other ailments are, in part, the result of the impact of environmental chemicals on the brain as it is being formed.

"The crux of this is brain development" he said. "If babies are exposed in the womb or shortly after birth to chemicals that interfere with brain development, the consequences last a lifetime."

For parents, the questions and uncertainty are frustrating. But thanks to the National Children's Study we're about to get a lot more information in the next couple of years. Articles like Dr. Landrigan's suggest that suspicions about connections are going to turn into clear connections that require action. Here's a little information on the National Children's Study:

The National Children's Study will examine the effects of environmental influences on the health and development of 100,000 children across the United States, following them from before birth until age 21. The goal of the Study is to improve the health and well-being of children.


... The Study defines "environment" broadly, taking a number of natural and man-made environmental, biological, genetic, and psychosocial factors into account. By studying children through their different phases of growth and development, researchers will be better able to understand the role these factors have on health and disease. Findings from the Study will be made available as the research progresses, making potential benefits known to the public as soon as possible.

After I read Kristof's piece I reached out to Dr. Landrigan, a champion of the National Children's Study, to find out when we can expect to get useful, actionable information from the study. His response was two to three years.

As Kristof points out in his column, there's a lot of potential for sensationalizing the information -- that will be particularly true of information we learn about chemicals actually in the blood and tissue of our children that are found to contribute to disease.

Our goal at Healthy Child Healthy World will be to provide parents with concrete, realistic steps they can take to protect their children, born and unborn. That's our specialty.

In the meantime Kristof's final thoughts make a good deal of sense: Apply the precautionary principle to avoid unnecessary products that contain potentially harmful toxins.

And pay attention to and support the National Children's Study.



Larry Eason is Chair of the Board of Healthy Child Healthy World and Dr. Landrigan is a Founding Board Member and Co-Chair of the organization's Science Advisory Board. Healthy Child is working to inspire parents to protect young children from harmful chemicals.

Read more: http://healthychild.org/blog/comments/chemicals_and_our_endangered_children/#ixzz0hMy5uQ4S

 
 
What is the National Children's Study?

The National Children’s Study will examine the effects of environmental influences on the health and development of 100,000 children across the United States, following them from before birth until age 21. The goal of the Study is to improve the health and well-being of children.

Watch this video and learn more about the Study.

The Study defines “environment” broadly, taking a number of natural and man-made environmental, biological, genetic, and psychosocial factors into account. By studying children through their different phases of growth and development, researchers will be better able to understand the role these factors have on health and disease. Findings from the Study will be made available as the research progresses, making potential benefits known to the public as soon as possible.

Ultimately, the National Children’s Study will be one of the richest research efforts geared towards studying children’s health and development and will form the basis of child health guidance, interventions, and policy for generations to come. For more details on the Study, see the Study Overview.

The National Children’s Study is led by a consortium of federal partners: the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (including the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Massive Recall of Over 60 Million Over-The-Counter Drugs

Follow the link for a complete list of items that are being recalled. The list covers both children and adult products and includes the package size, product type, lot number and UPC codes:

http://www.mcneilproductrecall.com/