Cover story, continued ... GET THEM IN THE KITCHEN AND THE STORE When your child helps cook, it introduces them to the process and familiarizes them with new foods. When a child makes their own food, they’re more inclined to want to try it. Letting them help pick some healthy options at the store has a similar effect. While it might be nice to navigate the grocery store without children slowing you down, letting them choose their
vegetables could get your kids excited to eat them. MAKE IT FUN That’s not to say you should celebrate every bite like your child just won Game 7 of the World Series. Making eating fun means creating an environment where your child looks forward to food. If you foster an atmosphere where eating is perceived as a chore, your child will be less likely to pursue new foods. This means not giving your child misconceptions or preconceived notions about the food they are going to eat. To illustrate this, think of it like the last time someone ranted and raved about a movie by saying, “You’re going to love it!”Well, sometimes you don’t love it, and the hype can lead to disappointment. FOOD ALLERGIES For many parents, food allergies are an incredible complication when it comes to expanding their child’s diet. What
may work for some children could prove disastrous for another. That doesn’t mean you child can’t try new things. You just may have to be a little more inventive. Try using sunbutter from sunflower seeds instead of peanut butter, make dairy-free cupcakes, or find other alternatives to common foods. This will help children with allergies feel included when exposed to new foods. The biggest benefit of adventurous eating is the nutritional value of diverse food. While almost every child loves mac and cheese, it doesn’t provide the vital nutrients they need. We often hear how important a well-balanced diet is for adults, but it’s even more critical for kids. As children grow, they need a wide array of nutrients to live a healthy life. Calcium, folate, iron, and vitamins A and C are just a few important components of a healthy diet for children. It can be easy to give in, but by using unique strategies, you can introduce new foods to your child’s diet. All it takes is a little creativity.
What Patients Need to Know Before Getting Knee Surgery It’s Not Your Only Option
Over the last few years, a number of studies have come out questioning the efficacy of surgery for this condition. While it’s true that arthroscopic surgery generally does result in positive outcomes for patients, they’re virtually identical to the outcomes of noninvasive exercises and treatments in the long run. Essentially, this means that expensive, painful, and potentially dangerous surgery, which forces patients off their feet for weeks, may be easily avoided. Issues as widespread as knee osteoarthritis or tears of the meniscus can be corrected in other ways. Still, a substantial number of doctors rush to surgery as the only option for their patients, perhaps because they’re unaware or disagree with these 2017 recommendations. Of course, it’s important to trust your physician and listen carefully to the advice they give, but you should consider every possible alternative. Taking a few months to see if conservative treatment will solve your knee problem can save you thousands of dollars and a lot of pain and struggle.
Knee osteoarthritis is one of the most prevalent causes of disability in the world, affecting an estimated 250 million people across the globe and over 10 percent of Americans at some point in their lives. If you expand this number to include tears of the meniscus, it increases to 1 in 4 people over 50 years of age. Pain from knee osteoarthritis or meniscal tears differ in important ways, but the fact remains that both problems can result in a debilitating condition that will diminish the sufferer’s quality of life. It’s no surprise, then, that somany patients turn to their doctors for advice on treating osteoarthritis or a tear in their meniscus. It often seems that surgery is the only option for a substantial recovery. But an array of new research indicates that surgery is rarely the best course of action for these particular conditions. Just last year, the respected British Medical Journal released new recommendations strongly steering physicians away from advising their patients to undergo arthroscopic surgery for either knee osteoarthritis or meniscal tears. Instead, they suggest noninvasive treatment methods like watchful waiting, weight loss if overweight, and physical therapy.
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