Popular foods marketed to and consumed by kids have been shows to have BPA.
Bisphenol-A (BPA), a chemical that has been linked to a wide array of health issues has been found in canned food directly marketed to young kids.
A new study from the San Francisco-based Breast Cancer Fund found BPA in all six canned foods that it tested that are marketed directly to kids.
• Annie’s Homegrown Cheesy Ravioli
• Campbell’s Disney Princess Cool Shapes, Shaped Pasta with Chicken in Chicken Broth
• Campbell’s Spaghettios with Meatballs
• Campbell’s Toy Story Fun Shapes, Shaped Pasta with Chicken in Chicken Broth
• Chef Boyardee Whole Grain Pasta, Mini ABC’s & 123’s with Meatballs
• Earth’s Best Organic Elmo Noodlemania Soup
BPA disrupts the body’s delicate hormonal systems and has been linked to reproductive abnormalities, cancer, diabetes and heart disease
Every food sample tested positive for BPA, with Campbell’s Disney Princess and Toy Story soups testing the highest.
Social media has changed the way we connect with people and get information. Just look back at technology and the pattern of tech evolution. Typewriters replaced by computers, telephones by cell phones, libraries by the internet… the list goes on and on.
The internet provides information instantaneously. Not only that it’s immediate, that information is available 24 hours a day and on many mobile platforms too.
Now with Social Media such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, blogs, mobile apps – anywhere you go, information can come with you.
Especially Twitter.
Twitter is massive in that it has a viral effect – information can be passed on within seconds. I remember the recent earthquake in August and within seconds we knew that it had been felt from Toronto to Virginia and beyond.
Twitter has no boundaries – geography doesn’t matter in this case. We’re all part of one global village. You can read news, engage with people all over the world and share information universally.
On Twitter, anyone can connect with celebrities, politicians, authors, musicians – there is no class division.
Twitter has become powerful in that it has allowed people to have their own voice. There is an outlet finally that enables an individual to be heard. Twitter has become the people’s voice.
You can build your own brand by sharing informative content – it doesn’t even matter who you are but what content you put out into the web.
But with this power also comes abuse.
I’ve been using Twitter for about two years now. I’d have to say that in the beginning, it was a lot more organic – you’d meet people, you’d really get to know them and have the ability to enjoy conversations without the extra “noise”.
That noise being spam.
Ah yes, spammers have increased tremendously over time and it has become quite ridiculous actually. How do you filter out those spammers altogether? Unfollow everyone and start all over again like Chris Brogan did?
Twitter has also become known for being “clique-y”. Just as in real life, groups of friends connect and share on Twitter, unknowingly making it uncomfortable for others to jump into the conversation. All this in unintentional but it’s there.
The “social” part of this medium has also become saturated with “business”. Once larger brands caught wind that social media would be good for business, the social media atmosphere shifted again.
Alongside Twitter evolving is blogging – which is a whole other post.
What do you think about social media these days? How has it changed for you?
Since the rotavirus vaccine was introduced in 2006, cases of kids going to the hospital with the illness have decreased.
Almost 65,000 fewer American children have been hospitalized and about $278 million in healthcare costs have been saved, according to new research, according to a new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),
The vaccine targets rotavirus, a common and easily transmitted pathogen. The new study found that there were 89 percent fewer rotavirus-specific hospitalizations in children who had gotten the vaccine compared to unvaccinated children.
“Diarrhea causes by rotavirus is one of the most common illnesses in children. It’s usually self-limited and treated at home, but before the vaccine was introduced, the virus was responsible for about 200,000 emergency room visits and 400,000 physician office visits a year,” stated the study’s senior author, Dr. Umesh Parashar, a medical epidemiologist and team leader of the viral gastroenteritis team at the CDC in Atlanta.
Before the routine inoculations, the virus was associated with 20 to 60 deaths a year in children under 5 in the United States.
“Globally, there are about a half a million deaths caused by this pathogen,” Parashar added.
Results of the study are published in the Sept. 22 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Teens face what can often seem like a constant onslaught of choices as they navigate the twists and turns along the path to their futures. It is imperative for teens to recognize the impact that choices, whether considered major or minor, can have in both the short- and long-term.
Big or small?
Regardless of the perceived enormity of the choice at hand, the consequences of a choice can have a powerful effect on the future. Consider, for example, a teen who chooses to post something online using offensive wording because they think it is cool or amusing or will please a particular person or group. This may seem like no big deal, however, what if someone who is offended by the post shares it with the teen’s parent or a teacher?
What if the person or group the teen was trying to impress pay no attention to it or are, in fact, not impressed at all? Additionally, has the teen considered that the use of offensive language could cause others to pass judgment about the type of person the teen is or wants to become? That judgment just may stick – whether it is the truth or not.
While it is easy to worry about the choices teens consider to be “big” – what are they supposed to do after high school; should they be sexually active and if so, with whom; should they try a cigarette or a drug or a sip of alcohol at a party – the impact a seemingly “small” choice can have should not go overlooked. The possible fallout related to decisions linked to these bigger issues is, of course, more obvious.
With the “smaller” issues however, the possible negatives are often a bit more difficult to determine. After all, a simple choice to consume the entire contents of a bag of chips every day may not matter on one particular day, but will eventually build up to result in negative effects on an individual’s physical health; which, in turn, could affect them mentally and potentially cause problems for their friends or family members.
Discuss the importance of choice with your teen. If you can use a story from your own teen years, whether about yourself or someone you knew, it will help your teen to realize that you can truly relate to the issues while also having the perspective of short- and long-term results in that particular situation.
Attitude is everything
Another important aspect of choice is for teens to recognize that choices they make with regard to their overall outlook and point of view toward individuals and daily life can have a drastic and direct impact on their lives. A teen who consistently gets low grades in a certain class and claims the teacher does not like them or is targeting them in some way is choosing to ignore the truth and by so doing, creates a negative situation.
Instead, the teen could choose to speak with the teacher to determine the reason for the low grades and attempt to rectify the issue. This proactive approach would gain respect from the teacher as well as help the teen to feel empowered by taking an active involvement that improves their knowledge or skills and could even help the teacher open their eyes to a difference of opinion they may see as valid. This positive and practical approach can be applied in all areas of difficulty or frustration.
It may seem a cliché, but truly deciding to face each day with positivity and optimism is so important for anyone and this is particularly true for teens who can so often be bogged down with negative thoughts and feelings about their appearance, their abilities, their likes or dislikes, needs, dreams and desires. Instead, by being positive and creatively thinking through problem areas and seeking the assistance and support of others as needed, teens can gain a sense of self-confidence in their ability to make solid decisions.
You can help your teen develop and maintain a positive outlook by first and foremost, demonstrating by example. Your own positivity about yourself, your daily tasks and your coworkers, not to mention your belief in your teen’s abilities and value as an individual will speak volumes to them. You can hardly blame your teen for tossing responsibility for a bad grade from them to their teacher if you forget to process some paperwork and blame it on your boss.
Also, make sure your teen is aware of your willingness to help them work through any problem they may be having or to help them find help or resources to assist them as they try to make a decision.
It’s not about never making a mistake – errors in judgment are inevitable and are always experiences that create a learning opportunity to further grow and gain an enhanced understanding of life’s twists and turns. Rather, by carefully considering possible options and outcomes prior to making a decision, teens can gain confidence in their ability to make wise, positive choices that help them to consciously create success in their relationships, their schooling and employment.
Dawn Lyons is a mother to three boys and a professional freelance writer. She is passionate about empowering teens to create their own success and also helps adults who influence youth development to have a greater understanding of teen culture. Follow her on Twitter and visit her at www.linesbylyons.com.
Fall is here… yay! As much as I love summer for not having to wrangle my kids into coats and hats and boots, I LOVE fall. The smell of leaves burning, a hot mug of chai tea, and a warm snuggly sweater and I’m a happy girl. I bake a lot in the fall, my house smells like cinnamon and nutmeg and yeast, and of course pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pie is one of the few desserts my husband will eat, in fact, he has one for his birthday every year and has since he was five and my mother-in-law gave up trying to present him with a cake, which he never ate.
Almost everyone loves pumpkin pie, but not everyone enjoys baking. So I’ve come up with a no bake recipe that is easy, fast and requires no baking whatsoever. Pumpkin Pie Dip! This dip is great to take to parties or to whip up to snack on by a roaring fire while you watch a movie. I like to dip Nilla Wafers and Graham Crackers in it, but fruit would be yummy too.
Pumpkin Pie Dip
250 g cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup pumpkin pie filling (not puréed pumpkin)
2 tbsp packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 cups cool whip
1. Cream together the cream cheese and pumpkin pie filling.
2. Stir in the sugar, vanilla and spice.
3. Fold in the Cool Whip until everything is incorporated making sure to be gentle so as not to deflate the whipped topping.
Garnish with a sprinkle of pumpkin pie spice and serve with Nilla Wafers or Graham Crackers.
Pumpkin Pie Dip
Amanda Goetz is a WAHM to 3 kids under the age of 5. Her love of cooking was fostered when she was a preschooler helping her grandma in the kitchen. After a year long stint as a sous chef, she left the industry to continue cooking as a hobby before the stress and politics of a professional kitchen killed her love of cooking. Now she creates delicious dinners and delectable desserts for her family and friends and blogs about it at The Best Mom on the Block.
The Toronto International Film Festival is all wrapped up for 2011. Despite a slow start and the sudden change of TIFF 2011’s venues, I must say I am spent and happy.
Day 1
I arrived in Toronto with my entourage of teenagers anxiously ready for a little star stalkingand film. Within two minutes of our arrival, we discover that all Press Conferences are no longer in Yorkville but in the very secluded TIFF Bell Lightbox and surrounding hotels.
Luckily though within ten minutes of our initial disappointment, Bono graced us with his presence and shook our hand! Big smile!
Bono at TIFF
I met a bodyguard/driver, who wanted to be my prince and called himself a “Hunk of Chocolate” and told me to warn my husband about him. Let’s just say it’s been a long time since someone flirted, felt good and kind of eerie at the same time.
I also found out that my tickets to the Descendants were “in the mail” and too bad, so sad, I can’t go to see Clooney without them. Called my son to see if they arrived, no, even bigger frown! Lost in the mail.
While strolling through Yorkville after settling into our hotel at the Sheraton Centre, the girls met Gerard Butler looking pretty hot despite being dressed like a scrub. As I was walking up the street, everyone could hear me say, NOOOOOO!! I miss him to the kids. He turns, smiles at me, and gives me a wave. Heart stops.
Day 2
I wrote up a blog post about how disappointed I was to be missing The Descendants. I received an offer from a higher up to see Violet and Daisy next Friday night; best seats in the house, swag bag, and Gala Party on Monday night. Ok I’ll take it, it’s better than nothing and there are people starving in Africa.
I saw the wonderful Chris Cornell, Viggo Mortenson, Keifer Sutherland, and a glimpse of Paul Giamatti ass shuffling to the other side of the Cadillac to avoid awaiting fans at the Ritz Carleton.
This year the women were very anti-fan except on the Red Carpet. For example Keira Knightly, Kristen Dunst and others avoided our plea for a pic. However, I look at it this way – do they have to cater to every fan at every stop? I don’t know if I’d want to either.
My daughter attended the Killer Elite red carpet. Not only did she not get any photos, she also had a good hair pulling and a punch in the face by a crazed middle age woman. I was ticked, went looking for the crazy b****, and ended up getting some great video of Robert DeNiro and Clive Owen.
I thought I found the woman but I wasn’t sure if it was her as my daughter left to watch the screening Hick (thanks Blackberry). I stood behind the lady and told another gawker that whoever requires to hit and the pull hair of a minor to see a celebrity, needs a whole lot of mental help and Prozac. The woman’s friend kept looking to see if I had left, knew it was her, couldn’t prove it, so I left. I’m a lover not a fighter.
Gerald Butler
I ended up winning Take This Waltz Gala tickets from L’Oreal Canada as I strolled around King Street, picked them up at the Lightbox and went back to hotel to shower and primp up. I took another friend who was bunking with us for the weekend. Great movie, loved it.
I returned to the hotel and slept only to find out the next day that the teens were ready to go home. My daughter said that the film festival isn’t what it was last year and she was interested in the hunt. I was cool with that and agreed that since I’m making no money out of this, hunting down a celeb or getting harassed while standing on the Red Carpet wasn’t my thing either.
Home we went but nowhere near as tired as we were in years past. I think as we approached Milton, I sensed my daughter would have loved to have turned around.
Day 4
I headed down for the Diet Coke Gala and decided to park to see if I could see Madonna, premiering movie W.E, on the Red Carpet. I saw her and took some blurry pictures. Satisfied, I wondered where I was going to get changed. I travelled the Horseshoe, in business casual all day and had my night attire in the car.
I contemplated a hotel bathroom and then decided that the tinted windows in the backseat would work. I dressed, made a French roll, and did my makeup all in the rear-view mirror. If a woman can master that, then they can master any wifely duty.
The Diet Coke party was a dream with its décor, hostesses, and free drinks. Loved it but I was driving. I could have partied like a rock star but ended up meeting some tweeps, chatting, and going for a coffee around 11:30 to wake myself for the drive home.
Going to my car, I had to go through the Thompson hotel. In the elevator, was invited to attend the AMC party. I contemplated, looked at my goofy Diet Coke swag bag, and mournfully declined. Thought to myself, what sexual offering did I have to do in order to get my country mouse hubby to move to Toronto.
Day 5/6
Back in Cambridge and work. Amber Mac offered me tix through Twitter to attend the 140 Conference. I accepted.
Day 7
I attended the 140 Conference at the Tannery in Kitchener Ontario. Heather Hamilton, Zack’s mom, rocks! Impressed with most of the speakers, and not so impressed with others. Thanked Amber Mac personally for the opportunity. She’s a cutie.
Clive Owen signing autographs
Day 8
I returned to Toronto and was very saddened to see few TIFF Cadillac’s driving around. TIFF is drawing to a close. My daughter and I dined at Jack Astor’s, did a little shopping, and I found fat lady heaven at the Bay on Yonge Street. Again, I changed, and walked to the Ryerson Theatre to watch Geoffrey Fletcher’s Violet and Daisy.
As I scrolled the theatre, recalled that Diet Coke promised “Beat Seat in the House, close to the talent”. This was a second screening and there was no talent in sight. I asked myself if anyone can truly be honest anymore? Again, reminded myself that there are people starving in Africa and this was just little stuff. We loved the movie and returned home.
All in all, I am very appreciative for everything I won and experienced during the festival. Most of all, it’s a weekend, whether we spot a celebrity or not, to spend time with my daughter and enjoy the time we have left together before she heads off on her own.
Trina Stewart, from Cambridge Ontario, is a successful Sales and Marketing Consultant by day, and a Canadian Lifestyle Blogger by night. To see full TIFF coverage, visit her at http://www.lifesablog.ca.
The email shines in my inbox like a spotlight on a Broadway marquee. The email is from an editor I began discussions with months before about potentially contributing to her book of mothers and daughters.
In beautiful words, she welcomes me to include my essay “Motherless Mothers.” Tears spring to my eyes before I realize they are there. Through a need to get my stories out for my daughters, I began writing when my girls were mere babies.
I do not know much about my mother before she died. I am almost the age where she last celebrated a birthday.
Slowly after I started submitting guest post to parenting websites, publishers accepted. That feeling that my writing was worthy kept me going with a passion. It’s when the comments left on those posts and other motherless moms connecting to me made the years of isolation melt away.
I dared myself to submit and felt so honored that she included my very personal story in with the other authors. Being in print is such a rarity for this writer who started from scratch and a raw need to write.
The book that is now out is called “Wisdom Has a Voice: Every Daughter’s Memories of Mother.” It contains 25 personal stories from daughters and mothers from all over North America.
“It has been twenty-six years since my mom died and I still miss her, especially at
The holidays. I remember her sitting in the black vinyl chair, cane at her side, smiling at
us enjoying the Christmas presents. Each day is hard, and easy, all at once. I give myself
permission to embrace my grief that my children did not have their grandma and I feel
lighter. By letting go, I can begin to tell my daughters my stories of when I was a kid.”
That is just a small quote from my essay. The beauty of anthologies is that there is at least one story that a reader can connect to while reading.
A gift for my daughters turned out to be a gift to my mother. Writing about how much I miss her, I feel closer to her.
Danielle Christopher is a stay-at-home mom of two daughters, ages one and three. She blogs for The Momoir Project and writes book reviews for Women’s Post. Her teen story is in the collection “Parent/Teen Stories: Without Judgement”. She lives with her husband of seventeen years and her girls in Langley, B.C.. Follow her on Twitter.
This year has flown by and yet we have been graced with many new movie releases but there are still many more to come. There are so many that it is hard to mention all of the fall/winter releases for 2011 but I have created a small list of movies that either interest me or have a lot of hype building around them. With only four short months left we are in for a treat right at the perfect time when we want to hide from the cold and enjoy one of these (in order by release date):
Drive (Sept 16)
Action/Drama
Director: Nicholas Winding Refn
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan
Pearl Jam Twenty (Sept 20)
Documentary
Director: Cameron Crowe
Starring: Eddie Vedder, Kurt Cobain, Neil Young
Abduction (Sept 23)
Action/Drama/Mystery
Director: John Singleton
Starring: Taylor Lautner, Lily Collins, Alfred Molina
Moneyball (Sept 23)
Biography/Drama
Director: Bennet Miller
Starring: Brad Pitt, Bobin Wright, Jonah Hill
50/50 (Sept 30)
Comedy/Drama
Director: Jonathan Levine
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick
The Ides of March (Oct 7)
Drama
Director: George Clooney
Starring: George Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman
The Three Musketeers (Oct 21)
Action/Adventure
Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Starring: Logan Lerman, Matthew Macfadyen, Ray Stevenson, Orlando Bloom, Christoph Waltz
Puss in Boots (Nov 4)
Animation/Adeventure
Director: Chris Miller
Starring: Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Zach Galifianakis
A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas (Nov 4)
Comedy
Director: Todd Strauss-Schulson
Starring: Kal Penn, John Cho, Neil Patrick Harris
Immortals (Nov 11)
Action/Drama/Fantasy
Director: Tarsem Singh
Starring: Henry Cavill, Mikey Rourke, John Hurt
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (Nov 18)
Adventure/Drama/Fantasy
Director: Bill Condon
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner
Happy Feet Two (Nov 18)
Animation/Comedy
Director: George Miller
Starring: Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Pink
The Muppets (Nov 23)
Comedy/Family
Director: James Bobin
Starring: Amy Adams, Jason Segel, Chris Cooper
A Dangerous Method (Nov 23)
Drama/Thriller
Director: David Cronenberg
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (Dec 16)
Action/Adventure/Crime
Director: Guy Ritchie
Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law, Jared Harris
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Dec 21)
Drama/Thriller
Director: David Fincher
Starring: Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Stellan Skarsgård
Tin Tin (Dec 23)
Adventure/Family
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Crai
What movie are you looking forward to seeing this fall?
Shannon Lintott works in production at a professional theatre company in Toronto. A recent graduate of the Ryerson Performance Production BFA program, she spends her free time exploring the internet, taking photographs, reading or writing on one of her numerous and addictive websites. The majority of her time is spent watching movies and reviewing them on her movie review blog I Like (good) Movies. Follow Shannon on Twitter.
Is SpongeBob turning young children’s minds to mush?
According to a study, watching a little bit of a SpongeBob cartoon negatively affected four-year-olds’ attention spans.
The study, published online Monday by the journal Pediatrics, found this to be true.
Sixty children were randomly assigned to either watch SpongeBob, or the slower-paced PBS cartoon Caillou or assigned to draw pictures instead of watching television for nine minutes.
Right after, the kids took mental function tests; those who had watched SpongeBob did measurably worse than the others.
“What executive function basically measures is your ability to stay on task, to not be distracted and to persist on task,” Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician at Seattle Children’s Hospital, wrote in a commentary accompanying the study performed by researchers.
The PBS and picture-drawing groups performed equally well on the tests; the SpongeBob group scored significantly worse. Watching a full half-hour fast-paced cartoon show could be even more detrimental, the study authors write.
“Most parents worry too much about how much TV their children watch and not enough about what they watch,” he says. “It’s not about turning the TV off. It’s about changing the channel.”
Although the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that kids under age two not watch any television, the group says a limited amount is okay for older children as long as it’s no more than one to two hours a day of educational programs.
SpongeBob show’s more rapid pace and fantastic characters might be too much for preschoolers’ brains to take in.
“It confirms something that parents have observed for some time,” Christakis says of the study. “They put their kids in front of television, particularly fast-paced programming, to quiet them down, but when the TV goes off, the kids are more amped up than they were before.”
But the blame shouldn’t be put on SpongeBob, Nickelodeon spokesman David Bittler says. “SpongeBob is produced for 6- to 11-year-olds. Four-year-olds are clearly not the intended demographic for this show.”
The Family to Family Sale and Business Showcase combines the best of both shopping worlds, just in time for the holidays!
This event is great for families who want to make some cash, $ave some cash, help the environment and support a good cause: part of the admission proceeds goes to The Family Place in Mount Albert, Ontario.
Family to Family Sale:
Find top quality, name brands at substantial savings, usually 50-90% off retail prices! Families selling their outgrown, like-new maternity and children’s merchandise keep ALL monies earned.
Business Showcase:
Take this opportunity to launch your fall and holiday lines of product while you showcase your family-focused business to a whole host of new shoppers within the York and Durham Regions. SUNDAY OCTOBER 23, 2011
Mt. Albert Lions Community Centre
5057 Mount Albert Road
Mount Albert, ON
11:30am – 5:30pm
Public admission is $2. A portion of the proceeds goes to The Family Place
Cash ONLY event.
Goody filled Swag Bags for the first 75 shoppers so come early!
To be a Family to Family or Business Showcase vendor, or to find out more information, visit:
