Trisha Cluck/Getty Images
Back in the 1970s, researchers in Japan studied child laborers and discovered that, among their many misfortunes, the juvenile workers tended to be abnormally short. Physical labor, the researchers concluded, with its hours of lifting and moving heavy weights, had stunted the children’s growth. Somewhat improbably, from that scientific finding and other similar reports, as well as from anecdotes and accreting myth, many people came to believe “that children and adolescents should not” practice weight training, said Avery Faigenbaum, a professor of exercise science at the College of New Jersey. That idea retains a sturdy hold in the popular imagination. As a recent position paper on the topic of children and resistance training points out, many parents, coaches and pediatricians remain convinced that weight training by children will “result in short stature, epiphyseal plate” — or growth plate — “damage, lack of strength increases due to a lack of testosterone and a variety of safety issues.”
Kids, in other words, many of us believe, won’t get stronger by lifting weights and will probably hurt themselves. But a major new review just published in Pediatrics, together with a growing body of other scientific reports, suggest that, in fact, weight training can be not only safe for young people, it can also be beneficial, even essential.
In the Pediatrics review, researchers with the Institute of Training Science and Sports Informatics in Cologne, Germany, analyzed 60 years’ worth of studies of children and weightlifting. The studies covered boys and girls from age 6 to 18. The researchers found that, almost without exception, children and adolescents benefited from weight training. They grew stronger. Older children, particularly teenagers, tended to add more strength than younger ones, as would be expected, but the difference was not enormous. Over all, strength gains were “linear,” the researchers found. They didn’t spike wildly after puberty for boys or girls, even though boys at that age are awash in testosterone, the sex hormone known to increase muscle mass in adults. That was something of a surprise. On the other hand, a reliable if predictable factor was consistency. Young people of any age who participated in resistance training at least twice a week for a month or more showed greater strength gains than those who worked out only once a week or for shorter periods.
Over all, the researchers concluded, “regardless of maturational age, children generally seem to be capable of increasing muscular strength.”
That finding, which busts one of the most pervasive myths about resistance training for young people — that they won’t actually get stronger — is in accord with the results and opinions of most researchers who have studied the subject. “We’ve worked with kindergartners, having them just use balloons and dowels” as strength training tools, “and found that they developed strength increases,” said Dr. Faigenbaum, a widely acknowledged expert on the topic of youth strength training. (His most recent book is in fact titled “Youth Strength Training.”)
But interestingly, young people do not generally add muscular power in quite the same way as adults. They rarely pack on bulk. Adults, particularly men but also women, typically add muscle mass when they start weight training, a process known as muscular hypertrophy (or, less technically, getting buff). Youths do not add as much or sometimes any obvious muscle mass as a result of strength training, which is one of the reasons many people thought they did not grow stronger. Their strength gains seem generally to involve “neurological” changes, Dr. Faigenbaum said. Their nervous systems and muscles start interacting more efficiently. A few small studies have shown that children develop a significant increase in motor-unit activation within their muscles after weight training. A motor unit consists of a single neuron and all of the muscle cells that it controls. When more motor units fire, a muscle contracts more efficiently. So, in essence, strength training in children seems to liberate the innate strength of the muscle, to activate the power that has been in abeyance, unused.
And that fact, from both a physiological and philosophical standpoint, is perhaps why strength training for children is so important, a growing chorus of experts says. “We are urban dwellers stuck in hunter-gatherer bodies,” said Lyle Micheli, M.D., the director of sports medicine at Children’s Hospital Boston and professor of orthopedic surgery at Harvard University, as well as a co-author, with Dr. Faigenbaum, of the National Strength and Conditioning Association’s 2009 position paper about children and resistance training. “That’s true for children as well as adults. There was a time when children ‘weight trained’ by carrying milk pails and helping around the farm. Now few children, even young athletes, get sufficient activity” to fully strengthen their muscles, tendons and other tissues. “If a kid sits in class or in front of a screen for hours and then you throw them out onto the soccer field or basketball court, they don’t have the tissue strength to withstand the forces involved in their sports. That can contribute to injury.”
Consequently, many experts say, by strength training, young athletes can reduce their risk of injury, not the reverse. “The scientific literature is quite clear that strength training is safe for young people, if it’s properly supervised,” Dr. Faigenbaum says. “It will not stunt growth or lead to growth-plate injuries. That doesn’t mean young people should be allowed to go down into the basement and lift Dad’s weights by themselves. That’s when you see accidents.” The most common, he added, involve injuries to the hands and feet. “Unsupervised kids drop weights on their toes or pinch their fingers in the machines,” he said.
In fact, the ideal weight-training program for many children need not involve weights at all. “The body doesn’t know the difference between a weight machine, a medicine ball, an elastic band and your own body weight,” Dr. Faigenbaum said. In his own work with local schools, he often leads physical-education class warm-ups that involve passing a medicine ball (usually a “1 kilogram ball for elementary-school-age children” and heavier ones for teenagers) or holding a broomstick to teach lunges safely. He has the kids hop, skip and leap on one leg. They do some push-ups, perhaps one-handed on a medicine ball for older kids. (For specifics about creating strength-training programs for young athletes of various ages, including teenagers, and avoiding injury, visit strongkid.com, a Web site set up by Dr. Faigenbaum, or the Children’s Hospital Boston sports medicine site.)
As for the ideal age to start weight training, Dr. Faigenbaum said: “Any age is a good age. But there does seem to be something special about the time from about age 7 to 12. The nervous system is very plastic. The kids are very eager. It seems to be an ideal time to hard-wire strength gains and movement patterns.” And if you structure a program right, he added, “it can be so much fun that it never occurs to the kids that they’re getting quote-unquote ‘strength training’ at all.”
View the original article here
It is a message that has response in many clinics and hospitals. But there is a busy place where it has not: the dentist's Office.
Not only do most dentists still antiquated X-ray film, require higher amounts of radiation to use, but a new scanning device that emits more radiation than conventional methods are comprehensive dentists and other specialists an investigation by the New York Times has found.
Designed for dental offices, the device offers a cone-beam CT scanner, brilliant 3-d, called pictures of teeth, roots, and even skulls. This technology is a sure way for Orthodontists and oral surgeons to work with greater precision and to identify problems that could otherwise unnoticed go to tell his supporters.
But there is little independent research to verify these claims.Instead was the cone beam's popularity by misinformation about its safety and efficacy, some dentists paid or sponsored by manufacturers, lectures, seminars and training classes type, as well as through industry-sponsored magazines and conferences, according to the records and dozens of interviews with dentists and researchers from partially fueled.
Last month, the allowed Journal of the American Dental Association of a cone beam leader, Imaging Sciences International, a problem entirely dedicated to Cone Beam technology draw.This journal club, 150,000 dentists sent containing a favourable article by an author a cone beam CT with an airport scan identified say hat.In of fact a cone beam hundreds of times more radiation can generate, expert.
Cone beam CT scans can help dentists affecting implants, with complex cases where teeth and other serious problems befassen.Aber many experts in dental radiation alarms about what you, as their indiscriminate use see caused.Get sure that with a few directives or regulations, well-meaning not fully understand a new technology to dentists and other specialists turn that patients at risk, particularly younger.
Some Orthodontists cone beam scans of CT, now use all patients, screen, although a number of dental groups in this country and in Europe question, whether the advantage of routine use warrants the extra risk.
"All these different cone-beam CT-scanner to a world came out, which was unprepared,", said Keith Horner, Professor of oral radiology at the University of Manchester in the UK, study of the cone beam scanner for the European Commission coordinates."You're just pushed out there from manufacturers with the message, a 3D image is always better than a 2-D image, and that not be the case."
A popular new brand of braces has helped sell cone beam, because 3D images, requires doctors get either a cone beam scanner with radiation or a digital camera without it verwenden.Viele of Orthodontists opt for radiation, because it is faster.
The troubled by widening using cone beam technology acknowledge that by itself, the risk of a single scan is relatively small.But patients often get more than a scan, and lifetime risk rises with each Belichtung.Ohne clear benefits say there are at risk.
"To me a question to the mother of a potential orthodontic patients," said Dr. Stuart C. White, former Chairman of oral radiology at UCLA School of dentistry."You want me to use a tool that is quite sure - a camera - record where of your child's teeth or other method that can rarely cause cancer so that we can save time?"
The cone beam business is lukrativ.Eine industry for manufacturers and dentists to estimate were sold more than 3,000 scanners and about 30 different models at prices up to $250,000.
"Dentists who some of which several hundred dollars per scan free benefit by owning their own machines.""More profit per unit of time Chair," Imaging Sciences, cone beam manufacturers promises.
Marketers boost interest in the technology by holding drawings for free cone-beam CT scanner and other Geschenke.Ein State Washington Orthodontists, who a online lecture was sponsored by Imaging Sciences, offers dentists coupons of free scans for your patients as a way to make recommendations to create.
And then there's the "wow" factor, Dr. Terry Sellke said an Orthodontists in Illinois.
"" To see kids love on the 3-d image", Dr. Sellke said in a webcast of Imaging Sciences sponsored.""You can go in our computer and see your skull.""Another Orthodontists discussed skull in green and purple coloring 3-d."He said "Fun for the children".
Dr. Allan G. Farman, President of American Academy of oral and Maxillofacial Radiology, warns doctors not to overly in love, the new technology, citing the example how shoe stores once took to see feet X-rays of the customer if the shoes fit.
"At least the shoe merchants were ignorant about the effects of radiation," said Dr. Farman.
Sarah E. Fitzpatrick and Kristina Rebelo contributed reporting.
View the original article here
Johnson & Johnson says packages 4 million "shortcomings ... in the production process "cherry and grape-flavored-children's Benadryl pills recalled800, 000 bottles of PARKINSONISM-strength Motrin, 71, 000 packaging of Rolaids recalledNot a" revocation consumer-level "so consumers not to take action
(CNN)--healthcare product giant Johnson & Johnson issued a massive recall children's medicines, over-the-counter on Tuesday, according to the company spokeswoman Bonnie Jacobs.
Packets of four million units Benadryl cherry-and grape-flavored children's Motrin 800 bottles of PARKINSONISM-force was recalled after "inadequacies in manufacturing process development" discovered in wholesale and retail level, according to a statement of the company.
"This is not a withdrawal for consumer-level so consumers should not take any action," Jacobs said CNN. "The recall involves problems during the manufacturing process, quality product. "
Medicinal products set up a production facility in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, the statement said.
The company also recalled some 71, 000 packets cherry-flavored Rolaids tablets after complaints from consumers that describe "unusual consistency or texture, traced to crystalline sugar product."
The company issued a separate revocation of over-the-counter medicine kids in April, suspending production and question a congressional investigation into withdrawal.
The products mentioned in the announcement of the third recognized as cherry-and grape-flavored Benadryl Allergy Fastmelt tablets, caplets Motrin Junior strength and Extra Strength Rolaids cherry flavored Softchews.
View the original article here
Understanding of the other intention is an important skill for lawyers, and perhaps politicians and businessmen as well, but according to new research, it is one skill that have even young children.
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for evolutionary anthropology in Germany reported that children are as young as 3 less likely to help a person after you have seen someone else damage – tears in this case's adult actors or other adults to break drawing or clay bird.
More fascinating is that intent a children of a person's beurteilt.Wenn person tried someone else to damage, but was unsuccessful, were young people of less likely that this person at a later time to help.
But if you a person who accidentally observed other damage, they were more willing to help him.
"" For a long time it was thought that it was in a later age only to the age 5 or 6, that children of others intentions to be aware ", said Amrisha Vaish Institute one of the authors of the study and a developmental psychologist at the Max Planck."A very demanding skill is actually to help those to help the others."
It is a form of cooperation that is intended to enable creation and maintenance of human society as it is today is, she said.
The research appears in the journal of Child Development.
View the original article here
All children who live with domestic violence are affected by the experience. The nature and extent of the effects vary greatly.
Children are not just eyewitnesses to battering. They are actively involved in trying to understand the abuse, predict when it will happen, protect themselves, their parents or their siblings and worrying about the consequences. Fear and secrecy dominate family relationships, and survival becomes the primary goal of non-abusing family members. The focus on making it through each day may leave little room for fun and relaxation, meeting basic needs or planning for the future. They grow up in a climate of anxiety, vigilance, helplessness and unpredictability rather than one of structure, nurture and emotional and physical safety.
Children are exposed to domestic violence in many different ways:
n Seeing mother threatened, demeaned or battered.
n Being in the middle of an assault by accident, because the abuser intends it, or because the child tries to intervene.
n Overhearing conflict and battering.
n Seeing the aftermath, such as mother's injuries and trauma reactions.
n Living in a household dominated by tension and fear.
n Being raised by parents whose ability to care for them is compromised by domestic violence.
n Being used and manipulated by the abuser to hurt the battered parent.
n Suffering the consequences of economic abuse.
Effects of exposure to domestic violence can include:
n Believing the abuse is their fault
n Turning against mother or father or having ambivalent feelings about both parents.
n Feeling that they are alone, that there is no one who understands them.
n Being afraid to talk about the abuse or express their feelings.
n Developing negative core beliefs about themselves and others.
n Developing unhealthy coping and survival reactions, such as mental health or behavior problems.
n Being isolated from people who might find out about the abuse or offer help.
Children also learn lessons such as:
n Violence and coercion are normal and justifiable.
n Abusive tactics are effective ways of getting what you want.
n There are two ways to solve problems: aggression and passivity.
n Victims are responsible for what happens to them.
n People who hurt others don't face consequences for their actions.
n It's OK to blame problems on someone else.
n People who are supposed to take care of you cannot always be trusted.
Long-term effects of exposure to domestic violence include a higher risk for alcohol and drug abuse, sexual acting out, running away, and suicide. Boys who grow up with domestic abuse are more likely to abuse their intimate partners, and girls are less likely to seek help if they become victims in their adult relationships.
View the original article here
