Tag: health

Health Kids

For Healthier Kids, Put Away The Car And Walk To School

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Only a quarter of Canadian kids walk or bike to school and that’s not enough, according to a new “report card on physical activity for children and youth.”

Active Healthy Kids Canada (AHKC) is a Canadian charity that encourages children and their parents to get more exercise.

Their report found that only 24 per cent of five to 17-year-olds in Canada use “active transportation” to get to school.

“Active transportation” means not using cars, trains or buses.

On the other hand, their parents were twice as likely to walk to school when they were children.

Every year in its report card, AHKC focuses on one aspect of healthy living.

This year’s theme, “driving,” looked at how much exercise kids are getting when they travel to and from different places near their homes.

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News

Factory Conditions, Wages Improving In Bangladesh

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Things appear to be changing for the better for people who work in clothing factories in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is a small country in south-east Asia.

About four million people there work in clothing factories, cutting and sewing clothes. A lot of the clothing they make is sold in stores in North America.

Most of the factory workers in Bangladesh earn much less than workers who do similar jobs in North America. Often they work long hours, and many of them work in unsafe conditions.

Recently there was an accident involving workers in a clothing factory near Bangladesh’s capital city, Dhaka. Many workers were injured or killed.

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Kids

Program Provides Help To Angry Teens

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A program to prevent kids from dropping out of school is now available in Canada.

Reconnecting Youth is a U.S. program that helps kids gain self-esteem and cope with their emotions.

The Canadian program adds something more. It helps kids to see how anger can rule their lives.

The Canadian program is taught by social workers, who have training to help kids deal with anger that may be holding them back.

Many teens who are angry may also skip classes, insult teachers and even drop out of school, says Ed Schild, a spokesperson for the Reconnecting Youth program.

Reconnecting Youth has been a pilot project at R.H. King Academy in Toronto for the past two years.

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Health

Many Celeb Chefs’ Recipes Not Healthy: Study

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Celebrity chefs serve up amazing food that tastes great and is good for you, right?

Research shows that most people believe that food created by famous chefs is generally healthy.

Well, maybe not.

Some researchers at Coventry University in Britain took a look at 904 recipes written by 26 celebrity chefs.

A celebrity chef is a chef who has become famous and popular—often because of they’re on a TV show or own a famous restaurant.

More than 85 per cent of the recipes the researchers tested “fell substantially short of the UK government’s healthy eating recommendations,” according to a media release on the Coventry University website. Most of the recipes called for ingredients that are known to contribute to health problems like obesity and heart disease.

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Health

Chain Restaurants Needs Calorie And Sodium Numbers On Their Menus: Public Health

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Chain restaurants in Toronto should have calorie and sodium (salt) counts on their menus, according to the city’s Medical Officer of Health, Dr. David McKeown.

According to a news release from the City of Toronto’s public health department, nearly half (46 per cent) of adults in the city are overweight. Nearly one-quarter (24 per cent) of adults in Toronto have high blood pressure.

McKeown wants that to change.

In the news release he said that, “diners underestimate the calories and sodium in their restaurant meals.”

Having the calorie and sodium figures right on the menu will help people make healthier choices when they order their food.

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News

Montreal To Put A New Spin On “Street Food”

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Montreal is known for its fine and unique culture. Visitors flock to the city for its art galleries, high fashion and excellent cuisine.

Now, people in Montreal have a special treat in store for them.

The city’s mayor, Michael Applebaum, recently announced that the ban on food trucks has been lifted. That means that people may now be able to sample the city’s unparalleled cuisine from special food trucks on the street.

In many big cities, street vendors offer hot dogs and sausages from food trucks.

In typical Montreal style, the food trucks in that city will be a little different. The “street food” in Montreal will be “of a quality that is going to be highly respected and renowned,” the mayor said at a news conference, according to the Globe and Mail newspaper.

After the announcement, the mayor approached a food vendor called Grumman 78, which served him a Vietnamese-style taco and tomato salad with cornbread croutons.

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Health Science

Calgary Student Wins National Science Prize For Cancer Therapy Research

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A high school student from Calgary has won the Sanofi BioGENEius Challenge Canada competition for his research into an experimental cancer therapy.

Arjun Nair, 16, is a grade 11 student at Webber Academy. His winning experiment involved photothermal therapy (PTT), which is used to treat cancer.

With PTT, a patient is injected with gold nanoparticles. A nanoparticle is a microscopic particle of a substance, less than one-millionth the size of a grain of sand.

The gold nanoparticles collect in the patient’s cancerous tumours. When the tumours are bathed with laser light, the nanoparticles heat up and kill the cancer cells.

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Health

Toronto Kids Need More Exercise

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Ninety-nine percent of children living in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) don’t get enough exercise, according to a new study.

Researchers from the University of Toronto and Dalhousie University tracked the physical activity of 856 grade five and six students in the GTA for one week.

The students wore accelerometers – tiny devices that are similar to pedometers, but which measure all types of motion – for about 16 and a half hours a day.

The information recorded by the devices showed that, on average, boys got about 35 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per day. Girls got about 24 minutes of activity per day.

Experts* recommend that children aged five to 17 should get 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity each day.

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Health

Eating Like They Do In The Mediterranean Is Good For Your Heart

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Eat like they do in the Mediterranean and you’ll live to a ripe, old age. Or at least a little longer than you might otherwise have done.

A new study has found that people who eat a Mediterranean diet are less likely to suffer heart-related problems like a heart attack or a stroke.

The Mediterranean region comprises the 18 countries, plus Portugal, that border the Mediterranean Sea. It includes Spain, Greece, Italy, France, Egypt, Israel and Turkey.

People there eat lots of extra-virgin olive oil and nuts as well as fruit, fish, chicken, wine, beans and salads. They tend not to eat a lot of baked goods or pastries.

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Health

McDonald’s Answers Canadians’ Questions

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Have you ever wondered exactly what’s in a McDonald’s hamburger?

Or why the food at McDonald’s doesn’t look the same in the advertising as it does in the store?

Or whether McDonald’s food is good for you?

If so, you’re not alone.

McDonald’s has a website that posts questions answered by Canadians—and answers from McDonald’s staff.

Over the years the restaurant chain has taken a lot of heat for its food which tends to be fast, cheap and not necessarily always good for you.

However, it is everywhere. There’s hardly a city in North America—or the world—in which you can’t find a McDonald’s restaurant.

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