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Is Your Fussy Eater Getting All the Nutrition They Need? Part 3

 

(Continued from Part 2)

While most cases of vitamin and nutrient deficiency are pretty easy to spot, realize that certain ones such as calcium may not be as obvious. It might also be hard to spot poor nutrition in an older child because their rate of growth will not be tracked on a chart any longer to make sure that they are within normal range.

If you have concerns about whether your child is getting everything they need from their fussy choices, talk with your child’s pediatrician first. They may be able to suggest a multi-vitamin or other option to help you see that your child gets the things their diet is lacking.

Keep in mind that if your child suddenly experiences a lack of interest in foods they once enjoyed, it could be something more serious. It is not uncommon for a child’s eating habits to change when there is a sudden alteration in their lives, such as a new school, new home,  parents have strife, an illness or another significant event.

Also remember that we are now living in a culture that places a great deal of emphasis on personal appearance. There may be nothing wrong with the way your teen looks, but they may develop an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia in order to achieve ‘perfection’ and be starving themselves and damaging their health in the process.

Still other children might be obese, but still not be getting adequate nutrition because they are not eating a balanced diet and are making bad choices.

If you are concerned about your child’s eating patterns or whether they are getting all the vitamins and minerals their body needs, do not hesitate to get help. Your pediatrician can help put you on the right path with tips and suggestions for getting your child the foods they need.

They can also determine if supplements or multi-vitamins are necessary to get your child where they need to be in terms of health, nutrition, and a healthy weight and lifestyle.

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Using the Google Reader 3

Continued from Part 2.

Google reader is handy for an number of other reasons, not just for reading RSS feeds from your favorite blogs.

 

Google Reader, being an intuitive Google product, will also make recommendations based on feeds you’ve already subscribed to.

 

For example, if you subscribe to a large number of environmentally conscious blogs, then your Google Reader may recommend a like-minded blog, and could therefore be saving you hours looking for new blogs. It can also help you find ones you have never seen before.

 

For those who have a large number of blogs and websites they subscribe to, Google Reader offers folders and tags to help organize them.  Now you can keep your news on one page, your sports on another, and your entertainment blogs all on a separate page, rather than jumbled together.

 

You can also make these pages public or private. If you are a person who loves to share information with friends and family, this can be very handy. If you are working in a job which requires you to gather competitive intelligence, the private page feature would be an invaluable tool to help you accumulate lists of resources you would not want to share openly with others.

 

Google Reader offers a number of functions which makes it easy to personalize and customize to fit your needs.  And if you’re already using a reader, you can import your feeds into Google Reader, and therefore save time entering them manually.

 

You can access even access Google Reader on your phone if your phone has mobile and digital capability.

 

Therefore, Google reader helps you save time and energy, and helps you to stay informed and one step ahead of the competition.’

 

You can also use it socially by sharing items with friends, family, and associates.   Best of all, all you need is a Google account, which will come with all of the other benefits of being linked to Google, such as Gmail. You can access dozens of free tools all in a single account. So if you have not already done so, head over to Google now to get organized using their reader. It will certainly simplify your life.

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Is Your Fussy Eater Getting All the Nutrition They Need? Part 2

(Continued from Part 1)

 

Here are some signs your child may be lacking in one or more areas of nutrition, and things to do if he or she is.

-Poor or Slow Growth

One of the reasons children have so many appointments when they are young is to monitor their growth rate. If your doctor notices your child is not growing at a normal rate or suddenly starts slipping away from their prior rate of growth for their current age, they may very well ask you about the child’s dietary habits. From there, they will make a decision as to how to proceed to make certain your child is getting all the nutrients their growing body and mind needs.

 

Developmental Problems

Some children who are not receiving adequate nutrition will start to show slowing or no progress in certain developmental areas to do with their physical and mental abilities. It might be a sign of another underlying illness, or it could just be poor nutrition.

 

Energy Levels below Normal

Deficiencies in iron, found in red meats, spinach, beans and more, can usually be a cause of low or decreased energy levels. If your child seems to be less spry or more sleepy than usual, think about how their diet may have changed. Most problems with lack of iron can be corrected by adding iron rich foods to the diet.  You might have to smuggle the spinach into their diet, through a shake or smoothie, for example (see Mara Michaels’ great smoothie books for more information) but it will be worth it.

 

Others may require a supplement in order to maintain proper levels of iron in the body. Talk with your pediatrician if your child refuses to eat foods with iron, in them or shows signs of listlessness, which could be an iron deficiency.

 

 

Continued in Part 3

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Using the Google Reader, Part 1

Part 1.

When the number of blogs you track becomes too much to manage, it is time to look into installing a reader. One of the best choices too help you manage all of this content is the Google Reader.

A reader is a tool which functions as an aggregator.  It pulls all of your blogs and RSS subscriptions into one single location.  All you have to do is open the reader, and your favorite blogs and websites will be there waiting for you every day, with their most recent content ready for you to read.

A reader is a great time-saving device, eliminating the need to visit site after site to keep up to date, or subscribe to email alerts to help you do the same.  A reader is not only an amazing time saver, it also makes it easy to see at a glance what content is valuable and what isn’t. You can flick through the headlines in the time that it would take you to just go from site to site.

Google Reader is one of the easiest readers to use, and also one of the most popular.  Best of all, it’s free, and easy to install.

To use Google Reader you must use:

* Internet Explorer 6 or above

* Firefox 1.0+ or above

* Safari 1.3+

* Netscape 7.2+

* Mozilla 1.7+

You must also have or create a Google account, which will come with other robust tools like Gmail.  If you already use AdSense, Adwords, Gmail, or any other Google product you already have a Google account, and can access the reader from it.

 

(Continued in Part 2)

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Book Review: Poisoning Our Children

Is your environment healthy? Or are your kids breathing and living in an environment that is toxic and may be causing serious harm to them? What do you really know about the environment in which you live?

In Poisoning our Children, Nancy Green describes her difficult journey to discover the source of her illness and her efforts to make herself and her environment healthy again. In doing so she outlines ways that everyone can eliminate exposures to dangerous chemicals. She particularly addresses how parents can create a safe, non-toxic environment for their children.

Included in this useful book is information on some shocking things that most people are not aware of, including:

-the pesticide residues in food:

-the formaldehyde in furniture, carpeting and clothing;

-the untested chemicals in household cleaning products;

-the number of chemicals in everyday items like soap and shampoo.

 

The how and why these chemicals can make us sick, and what to do about them, is a major part of this ground breaking book.

The author shares how over the course of many months, with trips to several doctors, she suffered debilitating symptoms of an illness that defied diagnosis.

The final diagnoses that was given was astounding and unbelievable: her home was literally making her sick. With the knowledge she gained, Green began to get well, and set out to learn all that she could about the chemical/health disorder known as Environmental Illness (EI).

In the book she makes a convincing case for parents to change from a toxic to non-toxic lifestyle, with a lot of practical “how-tos” included.

While Green’s story may be an extreme example of EI, her cautionary tale is one to be heeded. Parents have serious choices to make when it comes to what is in and around our home.

To be educated is the best way to know what is around our kids that can cause irreversible harm. Poisoning Our Children is the perfect resource to learn about what lurks in the environment that might be harming your family, and how to live a cleaner and greener lifestyle without so many harmful chemicals.

 

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Is Your Fussy Eater Getting All the Nutrition They Need? Part 1

 

As a parent, you want what is best for your child, especially when it comes to their health and the foods they eat every day. It is pretty easy to control when your child is a newborn who relies on you for 100 percent of their meals and snacks.

 

In particular, if you are breastfeeding, you will make certain that you are eating all the things that you and your baby need, and taking vitamins and supplements as needed.

 

If you are giving them formula, you pay attention to the doctor’s recommendations, and buy the best formula your baby can have in order to get all the nutrition they need in their vital early stages of development.

 

At this point in your child’s life, their nutrition should be complete, no matter what feeding choice you make. But once you start on solid foods, this is where the trouble can start to creep in.

 

Once they start to develop their own likes and dislikes when it comes to food, it can be a running battle to get them to eat that is goof for them.

 

Whether have got a fussy toddler or a stubborn teen or pre-teen, once a child has learned to say no, they control what ultimately goes into their stomachs.

 

In this case, it can seem almost impossible to get all the recommended food groups into their diet. So, if like many parents you wonder if your fussy eater is getting all the vitamins and nutrients their body needs, keep reading to find out the signs of a lack of balance in their diet.

 

(Continued in Part 2)

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Using the Google Reader, Part 2

(Continued from Part 1)

 

Now that you have a gmail or other Google account, it is time to get set up with Google Reader.

 

To use Google Reader, you have several options.  When you are browsing online and you come across a site you’re interested in subscribing to, simply click on their subscribe button. It is usually a little orange square, or it might say RSS on it.

 

Most often if you have Google Reader installed, your computer will recognize that, and you’ll be given the option to view the blog feed on your iGoogle Homepage or Google Reader.

 

If you have an iGoogle homepage set up already, then it’s time to decide where you want to view the blogs you are interested in.  Simply choose Google Reader and all the information will start being aggregated there.

 

You can also subscribe to a blog or RSS feed by using the subscribe bookmark function.  Simply drag the link to your bookmarks bar.  You can then click the bookmark to view the content in Google Reader.

 

You can also manually add subscriptions to your Google Reader by using the “add subscriptions” function.  By clicking on the add option while Google Reader is open, you can enter the URL of the blog or website of any content you are interested in, and add it to your list.

 

You can also browse the preloaded feed bundles to discover new blogs and websites or search by keyword.  It will make various suggestions for you to check out to see if they will be of use to you. You can do this every few months or so to see who the new movers and shakers are in the blog world in your area/s of interest.

 

In case you don’t know how to find the RSS subscribe button, it is easy. Any site with the little orange widget which looks like an echo, several curving lines and a dot in the upper right hand corner of the address bar of your browser is one you can subscribe to and read through your reader of choice.  You might occasionally see it on a site in blue as well, but orange is the most common color.

 

Once you see it in your address bar,  ust click on it. If you are not logged in, Google will ask you to do so. It is that easy.

 

(Continued in Part 3)

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