Thursday 20 June 2013

[www.keralites.net] Parenting: Too Much TV May Raise Kids’ Future Heart Risk

 

April 20, 2011 -- The eyes are said to be windows to the soul, but a new study suggests they may also provide a glimpse into a child's future risk for heart disease.

Researchers in Australia found that 6- and 7-year-olds who spent the most time in front of TVs or computer screens had narrower eye arteries in the back of their eyes than those children who spent less time.

Also, children who spent the most time in outdoor sporting activities had wider eye arteries compared to those who participated in outdoor sports the least.

Studies in adults suggest that narrowed blood vessels in the eyes indicate increased cardiovascular risk since they are part of the brain's vascular system and respond as other vessels do to stress and disease.

By analyzing digital pictures of the blood vessels of the retina, researcher Tien Wong, PhD, and colleagues from the University of Melbourne were able to predict whether adults would develophigh blood pressure or heart disease.

In the new study, which appears today in the American Heart Association journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, Wong and researchers from the University of Sydney report a link between total screen time and retinal artery width in children.

TV Time and Blood Vessel Width

The study included close to 1,500 6- and 7-year-olds living in Sydney, Australia.

The children's parents completed questionnaires designed to assess how much time the kids spent watching TV or using other electronic equipment and how much time they spent engaging in physical pursuits.

Digital photographs were taken in the back of each child's eyes to determine the width of the retinal blood vessels.

On average, the children spent just under two hours each day watching TV or in front of a computer or gaming device and just 36 minutes engaged in physical activity.

Kids who spent the most time in front of a screen had the narrowest retinal arteries. Those who engaged in the most outdoor physical activity had significantly wider retinal arteries than those who were the least active.

The association remained even after the researchers considered known risk factors for narrowed arteries, including obesity and high blood pressure.

Study researcher Bamini Gopinath, PhD, of the University of Sydney, says a sedentary lifestyle even very early in life appears to affect blood vessel health and increase cardiovascular disease risk.

She adds that the findings are preliminary and further research is needed to confirm them.

"We don't really know what this means, from a clinical standpoint," she tells WebMD. "Certainly it is suggestive of future cardiovascular risk, but we can't say that with certainty."

Message for Parents

Pediatric cardiologist and American Heart Association spokeswoman Dianne L. Atkins, MD, says the preliminary findings add to the evidence suggesting that lifestyle can influence cardiovascular risk even early in childhood.

Atkins is a professor of pediatrics at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine in Iowa City.

"This is another opportunity to send the message to parents that they need to limit the time their children spend in front of a screen, whether it is a TV, computer, or video game," she tells WebMD.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the average child and teen in the U.S. spends seven hours a day watching television or using computers, phones, and other electronic devices.

That's four more hours than the average time children spent watching TV each day in 1999, and five hours more than the two-hour limit recommended by the AAP for children over age 2 (younger children should not watch TV at all, the group says).

"Kids should be encouraged to be more active, and the best way to do that is for parents to lead by example," Atkins says.


www.keralites.net

www.keralites.net

__._,_.___
Recent Activity:
KERALITES - A moderated eGroup exclusively for Keralites...
To subscribe send a mail to Keralites-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
Send your posts to Keralites@yahoogroups.com.
Send your suggestions to Keralites-owner@yahoogroups.com.

To unsubscribe send a mail to Keralites-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Homepage: www.keralites.net
.

__,_._,___

[www.keralites.net] Sweeping Statements - Annoying, Irritating and Insulting

 

Sweeping statement is the term used when you give conclusive or decisive comment about something or someone. You may not know but you give sweeping statements several times a day and if you don't mind let me say that most of the time you are wrong J

Fun & Info @ Keralites.netYou might have said to your colleagues that this manager has no sense of management whereas if someone asks you to give a ten minutes non-stop lecture on management, you may not be able to deliver it because you too may not have real in depth knowledge of the domain. So, instead of saying "no sense of management" you could more precisely say that you don't agree to "this particular aspect of management" of that person and then elaborate your observations. The later approach in this example is not a sweeping statement instead it is a specific focal point of your point of view.

If you are in habit of giving sweeping statements, you may, at some point in time spoil your relationship with someone permanently especially when you give sweeping statement to the person face to face by annoying and irritating severely. Because when you give sweeping statement you are missing a whole lot of detailed aspects of the subject and may emotionally kill the person.

Also when you give sweeping statement it's not about them only, it's about you as well because it indicates the fact that you are not careful in your thinking. Which means you have a zoom-out attitude when it comes to observing people whereas zoom-in (high level) and zoom-out (detailed micro level) approaches are required to be used according to the situation.

Some other examples of sweeping (sometimes insulting) statements:
1- A man argues with his house wife "what exactly you do at home all day long?" (in Urdu, tum sara din kerti kia ho aakhir?)
2- This whole nation or country is arrogant/corrupt.
3- Mom to her child "you never do good work" (Urdu: Tum nay to kabhi koee acha kaam kia hi nahi")
4- when you say to your colleague, "you have no idea about it, so leave it to me"

So the bottom line is that instead of being judgmental and passing the remarks instantly one must strive to understand things fairly prior to giving remarks and then use appropriate words and an effective way of communication to describe ones stance in order to improve the situation, not in order to harm it by any mean.

www.keralites.net

__._,_.___
Recent Activity:
KERALITES - A moderated eGroup exclusively for Keralites...
To subscribe send a mail to Keralites-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
Send your posts to Keralites@yahoogroups.com.
Send your suggestions to Keralites-owner@yahoogroups.com.

To unsubscribe send a mail to Keralites-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Homepage: www.keralites.net
.

__,_._,___

[www.keralites.net] Queen Mary 2 ( The Ship )

A transatlantic journey on the QM2 isn't a cruise, it's a crossing, and many people use the QM2 as their preferred mode of transport between Europe & the United States. The Queen Mary 2 is no mere 'cruise ship', but a real ocean liner built with the extra strength & power to withstand the rigours of the North Atlantic in all weathers. The 2003-built QM2 took over the transatlantic service in 2004 from Cunard's 1967-built Queen Elizabeth2.




Relative sizes of Queen Mary 2, RMSTitanic, a human, a car, a bus and an Airbus A380 airliner

On 10 January 2007, Queen Mary 2 started her first world cruise, circumnavigating the globe in 81 days. On 20 February, she met her fleet-mate, Queen Elizabeth 2, also on her 2007 world cruise, in Sydney harbour. [62] This is the first time two Cunard Queens had been together in Sydney since the original Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth served as troop ships in 1941.[63] Despite the early arrival time of 5:42 am, the Queen Mary 2's presence attracted so many viewers that the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Anzac Bridge were blocked.[64] With 1,600 passengers leaving the ships in Sydney, Cunard estimated the stopovers injected more than $3 million into the local economy.

Inside Queen Mary 2:











Other Photos:






www.keralites.net