A Hurricane is a real happening in many parts of the U.S. The season is here and we need to be prepared.

Some of the measures the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recommends taking before a hurricane hits your area are:

• Put together a kit with emergency supplies and a family communications plan
• Learn community hurricane evacuation routes and how to find higher ground. Determine where you would go and how you would get there if you needed to evacuate.

• Make plans to secure your property in preparation for a hurricane:

• Cover all of your home’s windows. Permanent storm shutters offer the best protection for windows. A second option is to board up windows with 5/8” marine plywood, cut to fit and ready to install. Tape does not prevent windows from breaking.
• Install straps or additional clips to securely fasten your roof to the frame structure. This will reduce roof damage.
• Be sure trees and shrubs around your home are well trimmed so they are more wind resistant.
• Clear loose and clogged rain gutters and downspouts.
• Reinforce your garage doors; if wind enters a garage it can cause dangerous and expensive structural damage.
• Plan to bring in all outdoor furniture, decorations, garbage cans and anything else that is not tied down.
• Determine how and where to secure your boat.
• Install a generator for emergencies.
• If in a high-rise building, be prepared to take shelter on or below the 10th floor.
• Consider building a safe room.

To learn more about your flooding risk and how to protect yourself and your business, visit the Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration (NFIP) Web site,www.floodsmart.gov or call 1-800-427-2419. For more detailed information on how you can protect your property, view NFIP’s printer-friendly handout Avoiding Hurricane Damage.

During a hurricane, FEMA advises you to:

• Listen to the radio or TV for information.
• Secure your home, close storm shutters and secure outdoor objects or bring them indoors.
• Turn off utilities if instructed to do so. Otherwise, turn the refrigerator thermostat to its coldest setting and keep its doors closed.
• Turn off propane tanks
• Avoid using the phone, except for serious emergencies.
• Moor your boat if time permits.
• Ensure a supply of water for sanitary purpose such as cleaning and flushing toilets. Fill the bathtub and other larger containers with water.
• Find out how to keep food safe during and after and emergency.

You should evacuate if you are directed by local authorities to do so. Be sure to follow their instructions for hurricane evacuation.

Source: fema.gov.

Soccer Players

The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons offers these health tips for soccer players:

• Stay in good physical shape, even in the off-season, with regular exercise and strength training.
• Always warm up and stretch before playing.
• Always cool down and stretch after playing.
• Be sure to drink enough water before and during play.
• Always wear proper safety gear, including shin guards and shoes with ribbed soles or molded cleats.
• When the field is wet, use soccer balls made of synthetic, nonabsorbent materials, instead of leather.

Obese Youth and Gallstones

According to health information from the U.S Dept of Health and Human Services obese youth are an eight times higher risk of gallstones than youth who are not obese.

Young people should only rarely have gallstones. But doctors are treating more teens for the buildup of the hardened cholesterol-laden lumps in the gallbladder. Research finds that the risk of gallstones was higher in obese young people.

At Kaiser Permanente Southern California in Pasadena, research scientist Corinna Koebnick looked at medical records of 766 10- to 19-year-olds with gallstones, “Obese youths have a much higher risk – up to 8 times higher – than their normal-weight counterparts.” Koebnick shared that parents and kids should get together on eating right and being moreactive.

This health study in the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Getting a case of Poison Ivy is a misery for your child, and a sure way of losing out on several days of warm weather fun.

It is well worth the time to educate your child about poison ivy, in the hopes that he or she will be able to recognize and avoid it when out in a wooded area or on a camping trip.

The following guest post comes from Carrie Dotson, Summer Nanny Jobs at www.summernannyjobs.com/blog

10 ways to make your children aware of Poison Ivy.

1. Take them to a nature museum: A nature museum may have a pressed specimen of Poison Ivy if they don’t have any on property. Experts at the museum can speak about Poison Ivy, describing what it looks like.
2. Have them color a picture of it: Since the shape of Poison Ivy leaves are the most important thing for identifying it in the wild, coloring a picture should help your child learn what it looks like.
3. Show them a video online: There are visuals of Poison Ivy along with a lot of information about the plant. Check out this video on how to recognize and avoid Poison Ivy: http://www.howcast.com/videos/22122-How-To-Recognize-and-Avoid-Poison-Ivy.
4. Read a book about it: Visit a library and check out a book about Poison Ivy. Ask your local librarian for an age-appropriate recommendation.
5. Show them a live plant: Go on a hike in your area and find some Poison Ivy.  Show your child where Poison Ivy tends to grow and how it grows. Showing your child how Poison Ivy can hide in among many other weeds and that it can be hard to see is an important part of teaching him to avoid it.
6. Make a craft project: Have your child cut out Poison Ivy shaped leaves from green felt. Glue all of the pieces down onto another piece of felt.
7. Let them try to draw the shape in shaving cream: Put some shaving cream down on the table and smooth it out. Illustrate the shape of the Poison Ivy leaves and then have your child copy you.
8. Host a game show: Playing a game where your child answers questions about what you’ve taught him can be a fun way to review.
9. Have a contest: See who can remember the most information about Poison Ivy and then give the most knowledgeable child a prize.

10. Teach someone else: Sometimes teaching someone else can help to solidify a concept in your mind.  If your child has a younger sibling or friend, let him teach the sibling what he has learned about Poison Ivy.

http://www.summernannyjobs.com/blog/

In an effort to quit,many people who smoke, are turning to e-cigarettes to help ease the process of giving up cigarettes entirely. Adolescents are experimenting with e-cigarettes. Yet little is known about the long term effects of using e-cigarettes.

What follows is a press release that speaks to the concerns of The  American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) with regard to e-cigarettes.

 Press release... The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), in a joint letter responding to a proposal by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to extend its regulatory authority over tobacco products, today urged the agency to regulate electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes), cigars, and all other tobacco products and to strengthen the proposed regulations for newly deemed products.

“There is no safe form of tobacco use,” said Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc), chief executive officer of the AACR. “Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable deaths in the United States, and among its dire health consequences are 18 different types of cancer. It is imperative that the FDA takes action to regulate all tobacco products. The future health of the American people, in particular our nation’s children, depends on it.”

The AACR and ASCO applauded the FDA’s proposal to regulate e-cigarettes. “We believe it is vitally important for the FDA to begin regulating these products,especially because we don’t know much about the health effects of e-cigarette use. We are also quite concerned that e-cigarettes may increase the likelihood that nonsmokers or former smokers will use combustible tobacco products or that they will discourage smokers from quitting,” said Peter P. Yu, MD, FASCO, president of ASCO.

“There are insufficient data on the long-term health consequences of e-cigarettes, their value as tobacco cessation aids, or their effects on the use of conventional cigarettes. Any benefits of e-cigarettes are most likely to be realized in a regulated environment in which appropriate safeguards can be implemented,” said Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, chair of the AACR Tobacco and Cancer Subcommittee and chief of medical oncology at Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The AACR and ASCO support many of the FDA’s proposals for regulating e-cigarettes and other products, but urge the agency to do more. Specifically, preventing children from using tobacco products is crucial and can be achieved by efforts such as banning youth-oriented advertising and marketing, self -service product displays, and tobacco company sponsorship of youth-oriented events, in addition to restricting sales to minors and implementing age-verification procedures for internet sales.

Expressing grave concern about the proliferation of flavored e-cigarettes, the AACR and ASCO encouraged the agency to ban e-cigarette flavors or flavor names that are brand names of candy, cookies, soda, and other such products, and to prohibit e-cigarettes containing candy and other youth-friendly flavors, unless there is evidence demonstrating that they do not encourage young people to use these products.

The AACR and ASCO strongly discouraged the FDA from exempting “premium” cigars from regulation, an option the agency is considering. “All cigars pose serious health risks,” said Graham Warren, MD, PhD, chair of ASCO’s Tobacco Cessation and Control Subcommittee. “As the FDA itself noted in the proposed rule, even cigar smokers who do not inhale have a seven to 10 times higher overall risk of mouth and throat cancer compared with individuals who have never smoked.Exempting these dangerous products from FDA regulation is clearly not in the best interest of public health.”

Noting that both large and small cigars are of increasing interest to youth and adult users, the AACR and ASCO underscored that the continued availability of premium cigars in an unregulated market, compounded with the ability of the tobacco industry to strategically market its products to youths and young adults, could reverse the progress made in reducing youth tobacco use.

Finally, the AACR and ASCO urged the FDA to drop the “consumer surplus” discount used to assess the net impact of the proposed deeming rule. This discount allows the FDA to only consider 30 percent of the benefits achieved via tobacco cessation due to the costs associated with this proposed regulation, including the “lost pleasure” of smoking. The AACR and ASCO stressed that addiction is an unwelcome burden for many tobacco users and that many consumers are not making rational and fully informed choices when initiating and continuing their use of tobacco products.

Amusement Park and Carnival Safety

An article by Globe Life on summer safety reminds us that amusement parks and carnivals can be great fun or they can result in a trip to the emergency room. What makes the difference? For one, parents may incorrectly assume that a ride is appropriate for their child. Secondly, children may not pay attention to or observe the safety regulations for a specific ride.

The National Safe Kids Campaign advises parents to remember that height guidelines are not always reliable.

Parents need to be sure of their child’s ability to obey ride instructions for their own safety. Alan Korn, Director of Public Policy, and General Counsel for Safe Kids USA advises parents to reinforce the authority of the ride operator. “If the ride operator tells children to keep their hands and feet inside the car or to hold the handrail, explain to your children that there is a good reason for the rule.”

Officials estimate that thousands of children, each year between the ages 14 and under are injured because they used poor judgment or behaved improperly on the rides.

Playground Safety

Safe Kids USA encourages parents and caregivers to make sure playground equipment is appropriate for a child’s age. Each year, more than 200,000 preschool and elementary school age children are injured from falling while using playground equipment.

When their imaginations run wild, children sometimes believe they have superpowers that enable them to do remarkable physical feats on the playground equipment at the cost of their own personal safety. This puts children at risk of becoming seriously injured.

Most playground injuries are related to the climbing equipment, such as monkey bars.

In fact, the amount of injuries that result from children playing on monkey bars is significant enough that many experts want them removed from playgrounds. Since falls cannot always be prevented, parents can make sure that the playground surface is loosely filled with wood chips, mulch, sand, gravel, shredded rubber, or rubber like surfacing materials.

During the summer months, playground equipment, such as slides and monkey bars, can get hotter than 140 degrees, causing burns on children’s hands, legs and other uncovered body parts. It may be wiser to avoid the playground entirely during heat waves.

Source: Globe Life, Safe Kids USA