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June ’17 Newsletter

Every month Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds & Director Susan Orban likes to connect you with current articles, events, and resources to help you keep your family healthy and informed!

Show us your (child’s) favorite playground

And a link to your town’s parks & rec department

Did you have a beloved playground when you were a kid? One with a jungle gym, slide, seesaw, and enough activities that you never got bored? Where you made new friends every time you went?

You probably didn’t know that you were getting lots of exercise and that you were learning how to socialize.

Where are your child’s favorite playgrounds in South County? Take a photo and post it on our Facebook page. We’ll list it on our website, too.

Visit bodiesminds.org to find what your town’s parks department has scheduled for your family this summer.

Post a photo of your favorite playground on the Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds Facebook page. Or one you think needs some loving care.

Six easy ways to keep pills out of your little one’s reach

Put them “up & away”, lock the caps, alert guests, educate your kids

Approximately 60,000 young children are brought to the emergency room each year because they got into medicines that were left within reach.

That’s the daunting statistic from the Up & Away initiative, which offers six easy-to-implement (and commonsense) activities you, as young parents, should begin today.

The easiest and most obvious? Make sure you re-lock the safety cap after each use and put those pills WAY out of reach of innocent but probing hands.

To prepare for an emergency, Up & Away counsels that you add the Poison Help number (800-222-1222) on all your phones, right now.

Read all six ways to protect your young children from accidental medication poisoning; visit the Up & Away website.

Add the Poison Help number – (800) 222-1222 –  to all your phones right now and visit the Poison Help website for other useful information. 

May ’17 Newsletter

Every month Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds & Director Susan Orban likes to connect you with current articles, events, and resources to help you keep your family healthy and informed!

Summer farmers markets are nearly here

How to store veggies so they last longer, taste better
You buy some great lettuce, corn, carrots, tomatoes (no, we can’t wait either) from your local farmers market. Perhaps you bought more than you should have, because, well, it just looked that good. Well, CHOP CHOP advises how to store everything from okra and mushrooms to peaches and eggplant for maximum life and flavor.
We’re pleased to partner with Thundermist Health Center of South County to encourage all our farmers markets to accept WIC and SNAP benefits and more.
Check out CHOP CHOP, not only for this article on storing fresh produce, but for great ideas about exploring food with kids.
Look on our website for a farmers market near you. Here’s a list of all the summer farmers markets in South County, including the benefits they offer to low-income shoppers.

Your adolescent needs more sleep (no matter what they say)

Too little can lead to the equivalent of driving drunk, significant depression

“Why do children wake up early when they are young but want to stay in bed until noon as teenagers?” asks Dr. Perri Klass in the May 26 issue of WELL, an excellent family health section in The New York Times.

It’s biology, she and experts say; we’ve all been there. One problem is, of course, kids spacing out in class until the afternoon. Following the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics, some schools are starting classes at 8:30 am or later for older students.

Of more concern, perhaps, is that one of every four 16-18 year olds reported driving “drowsy” on occasion. Driving with four or fewer hours of sleep is the equivalent of driving drunk.

Depression is another risk, the article reports. Dr. Wendy Troxel points out that “new cases of depression skyrocket when kids become teens…sleep problems and behavioral and mental health problems are linked.”

Read the WELL article on adolescent sleep needs.
View a TED talk on why school should start later for teens.

170 Westerly School Staff Members Trained in Mental Health First Aid

Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) is a groundbreaking 8-hour course designed to take the fear and hesitation out of starting conversations about mental health and substance abuse. The course gives you the tools you need to identify when someone might be struggling with a mental health or substance use problem and connect them with appropriate support and resources when necessary.

Westerly physician, Dr. Robert Harrison, has already helped train more than 170 Westerly School staff members in Mental Health First Aid. Over the next three years, all employees will receive training. Harrison also hopes trainings can be offered to youth sport coaches. Harrison and Healthy Body, Healthy Minds Director Susan Orban have also reached out to the Town Council. To read what the Westerly Sun wrote, click here.

To learn more about Mental Health First Aid and find trainings near you, click here.

April ’17 Newsletter

Every month Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds & Director Susan Orban likes to connect you with current articles, events, and resources to help you keep your family healthy and informed!

Two great weeks in one: May 1-7

Children’s Book Week & Screen Free Week

Here’s a pairing as natural as… well, you decide. Turns out that Children’s Book Week and Screen Free Week both take place the first week of May. One helps you and your family give up your TV, laptop, gaming device, and smartphone for a few hours. The other offers a pretty spectacular option: sitting together with some great books.

Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood offers a wealth of screen-free activities, for your family or for your whole community.

Children’s Book Week, established in 1919, is managed by Every Child A Reader.

Clear your schedule for Saturday, May 6

It’s planting (and eating) time!

You can’t get your food any fresher than from a local farmer…or your own garden plot. The URI Spring Festival on Saturday, May 6 offers you help with both, plus lots more. The packed morning (9 am-1 pm) will include:

  • the annual plant sale (not just vegetables)
  • the South Kingstown Farmer’s Market (SNAP & WIC benefits accepted, thanks to a Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds/Thundermist Health Center partnership)
  • free soil pH testing
  • gardening demonstrations
  • “e-waste” recycling, and
  • live music and food

Visit URI’s website for all the details, including all the participating farmers and what the heck “e-waste” is.And parking and admission are free!

March ’17 Newsletter

Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds is a vigorous, collaborative, long-term effort to transform community health in South County. Our initial focus: Childhood obesity and children’s mental health.

A website just for South County…

Full of fun facts, news, resources and more, on all matters health and mental wellness

South County Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds has a brand new website (bodiesminds.org) just for you: lots of short, “edible”, mostly entertaining pieces on four topics you care about.

  • Eat Right, Eat Smart, what parents want to know about good food for their children, from directions to local farmers markets to links to the best children’s cooking sites
  • Get Your Body Moving, fun and engaging advice to get both you and kids off the sofa and away from the screen onto your feet and bicycles, and into your swimsuits, and into the parks, lakes, and lanes
  • Mental Wellness reassures South County parents with quizzes, resources and activities, so you can create a nurturing, empowering environment for your young one
  • Your Thriving Child presents the best of what we know in child development, from where to get advice on breastfeeding in South County to remarkably easy ways to entertain your baby.

There’s a LOT more, including what South County Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds is up to. So visit today and often; we’ll be updating the content and calendar regularly.

Surf the new South County Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds website at bodiesminds.org.

Bad experiences can last a lifetime

Even the brains of babies and toddlers can be affected forever when their environments are threatened

The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University lists this finding as the first of “8 things to remember about child development”.

Here’s the full text for #1:
    ” Adverse fetal and early childhood experiences can lead to physical and chemical disruptions in the brain that can last a lifetime. The biological changes associated with these experiences can affect multiple organ systems and increase the risk not only for impairments in future learning capacity and behavior, but also for poor physical and mental health outcomes.”

February ’17 Newsletter

Every month Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds & Director Susan Orban likes to connect you with current articles, events, and resources to help you keep your family healthy and informed!

Do you love quizzes?

Here are 14 that offer an “emotional checkup”

Our friends at the Greater Good Science Center (University of California, Berkeley) have put together these 14 quizzes, all based on scientific research, so you can learn more about yourself, your emotional makeup, and how you relate to others.

Several, like the Empathy Quiz, lend themselves to an opportunity to take the test with your child (of a certain age) to start a lively and thoughtful conversation.

Other quizzes ask you about your capacity for forgiveness, gratitude, and compassion. Sounds like fun, yes?

The Greater Good Science Center researches issues surrounding “well-being” and teaches skills to “foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society”. Its website is chockful of easy-to-read but provocative studies, like this month’s “Why We Like Evil”.

Take a pic of your healthy snack

We’re celebrating March as Nutrition Month with a “Snack Swap” photo campaign

The American Heart Association has a sneaky way to get you to replace those sugary drinks and salty, oily chips: it will make you Facebook famous with photos of you making better choices.

The AHA encourages you to

  1.  Swap those nasty foods with better choices. Push away sugary drinks and drink infused (or regular) water instead. Not salted pretzels or potato chips; carrot and celery sticks. Crave ice cream? Try low-fat yogurt, perhaps frozen in an ice cube tray.
  2. Follow Southern New England’s AHA at www.facebook.com/sneheart and www.twitter.com/sneheart.
  3. Post a photo there showing yourself with your healthy snack swap. Be creative. Take photos of vending machines with good snacks. A photo of you tossing junk food in the trash. The family all drinking healthy water.

If you have questions, contact Candace Pierce, Regional Campaign Team Lead.

Park Rx Outdoor “Prescription” Program Gets Moving at Glacier Park, Westerly

The Westerly and South Kingstown Land Trusts have created guided trail walks called “Healthy Hikes” as a part of Park Rx. These will take place on the first Saturday of every month at 10am.

Park Rx is an innovative program by which doctors promote the health benefits of outdoor activity. Click here to see Executive Director of the Westerly Land Trust, Kelly Presley, talk more about Glacier Park during the February Healthy Hike.

Storytimes at South County Libraries

You can be with other caregivers and your children can visit with other kids. Nearly all the public libraries in South County offer story times. Put yours on a weekly schedule.

Nearly all these libraries offer regular programs for young children – including the wonderful opportunity that is storytelling. “Like” your local library on Facebook, check in once a week, get on a mailing list…whatever it takes to introduce your child to the joys of reading and the local library.