Hashing it out

Are you, like me, asking yourself how long Thanksgiving turkey is safe to eat if refrigerated? Does it matter whether you make sandwiches or soup with it? What if you cook the soup in an autoclave?

Fuse

I feel like the Puritans get the last laugh in our national festival of gluttony. “Sure,” you can hear them say, “go ahead and gorge yourselves…on turkey!” Seriously, have you ever picked up a menu and said to the waiter, “Let’s see, the lobster looks good, but oh, there’s a filet mignon and the poached salmon… Wait, hold the phone, you have turkey?! Yeah, baby! Done! Bring me the fennel-braised turkey with truffle gravy and foraged wild cranberry compote!” Never. Gonna. Happen. On the up side, I do still have some pie.

PIRG-atory

Overworked humorists and features editors everywhere look forward to the annual “Trouble in Toyland” report from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), a sort of volunteer militia version of the Consumer Product Safety Commission whose members probably sport tattoos of Ralph Nader. During the busy holiday season, we know we can recycle their stories about dangerous playthings to spark shock and outrage among readers without having to work too hard. But I’m better than that. Wait, I was thinking of someone else. Here goes!

Every year, PIRG selects one toy as the most dangerous of all. This year’s choice is a soft vinyl version of Captain America’s shield, an object so harmless looking you’d never guess it contains more lead than a truck battery. At least you wouldn’t until you pick it up and wonder why a 9-inch squishy disk weighs 17 pounds. How much lead does it take to make the bright, shiny colors on this toy? Let’s just say that a 5-year-old will lose 5 IQ points just putting it on his Christmas list.

Of course, lead wasn’t the only hazard noted by PIRG. Other toys on their list posed choking risks (the unfortunately named Gobble Gobble Guppies), magnet ingestion risks (the tasty-sounding Sonic Sound Sizzlers), and excessive noise (the Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn, Click 'n Learn Remote). Officials from the real Consumer Product Safety Commission dutifully promised to investigate the toys cited by PIRG, although they looked like they would have preferred to use their Captain America Shield.

Born to trudge

Do you ever wonder how today’s kids would survive our childhood? Would they get tangled in telephone cords? Would they stare endlessly at their palms, poking them and wondering why their texts weren’t going through? Thanks to Grant Tomkinson, Ph.D., of the University of South Australia’s School of Health Sciences, we know one thing for sure: We would have run circles around them, although it wouldn’t have been all that satisfying without any way to post it on YouTube.

Dr. Tomkinson presented data to a meeting of the American Heart Association comparing the results of childhood fitness tests conducted between 1960 and 2010 involving more than 25 million kids in 28 countries. Since the tests were simple (“Run as fast as you can from here to there, then stop.”), they made for an ideal comparison of cardiovascular fitness over the last 50 years. The results suggest that humans are evolving…into tree sloths.

Worldwide, children’s cardiovascular fitness has been declining at a rate of 5% per decade since 1970, but the U.S. beat the spread with a decline of 6%. In other words, our kids are all couch potatoes, but at least in other countries they have the strength to climb up on the sofa.

Dr. Tomkinson estimates that 30%-60% of the decline in fitness stems from increasing obesity, while the remaining portion results from plain old deconditioning. I think we can reverse the trend, but we’ll need to teach today’s kids how to play their favorite games the way we used to: “You want to see Angry Birds, son? Run over to that tree and start climbing!”

Fruits & nuts & fries

From where I live, California looks like a public health utopia. They’ve expanded Medicaid, established a model health insurance exchange, and passed emissions regulations that have directly threatened my retirement savings (I’m strongly considering cashing out to buy a hybrid Porsche; I know, but by the time I retire, I’m sure they’ll be making some very tasty cat food.). And yet, my assumption that West Coast kids eat nothing but tofu burgers wrapped in kale may be a little off base, at least based on a new report from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. I won’t be too disappointed, however, until they report the extinction of the famous California unicorn.

The report is not all negative. Prior-day soda consumption among children aged 2-5 years fell from 40% to just 16% between 2003 and 2009. Fast food, however, remains a dietary staple of young kids in the state, with 60% of kids consuming at least one meal a week from a fast food joint and 10% eating fast food at least three times a week. California, however, has never feared bold initiatives, and I think it’s time for them to blaze another trail for the rest of us. If the only meat those fast food restaurants could serve was turkey…

David L. Hill, M.D., FAAP is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like a Pro (AAP Publishing, 2012). He is also vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, N.C., and  adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He serves as Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and as an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television, and Internet outlets.

Are you, like me, asking yourself how long Thanksgiving turkey is safe to eat if refrigerated? Does it matter whether you make sandwiches or soup with it? What if you cook the soup in an autoclave?

Fuse

I feel like the Puritans get the last laugh in our national festival of gluttony. “Sure,” you can hear them say, “go ahead and gorge yourselves…on turkey!” Seriously, have you ever picked up a menu and said to the waiter, “Let’s see, the lobster looks good, but oh, there’s a filet mignon and the poached salmon… Wait, hold the phone, you have turkey?! Yeah, baby! Done! Bring me the fennel-braised turkey with truffle gravy and foraged wild cranberry compote!” Never. Gonna. Happen. On the up side, I do still have some pie.

PIRG-atory

Overworked humorists and features editors everywhere look forward to the annual “Trouble in Toyland” report from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), a sort of volunteer militia version of the Consumer Product Safety Commission whose members probably sport tattoos of Ralph Nader. During the busy holiday season, we know we can recycle their stories about dangerous playthings to spark shock and outrage among readers without having to work too hard. But I’m better than that. Wait, I was thinking of someone else. Here goes!

Every year, PIRG selects one toy as the most dangerous of all. This year’s choice is a soft vinyl version of Captain America’s shield, an object so harmless looking you’d never guess it contains more lead than a truck battery. At least you wouldn’t until you pick it up and wonder why a 9-inch squishy disk weighs 17 pounds. How much lead does it take to make the bright, shiny colors on this toy? Let’s just say that a 5-year-old will lose 5 IQ points just putting it on his Christmas list.

Of course, lead wasn’t the only hazard noted by PIRG. Other toys on their list posed choking risks (the unfortunately named Gobble Gobble Guppies), magnet ingestion risks (the tasty-sounding Sonic Sound Sizzlers), and excessive noise (the Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn, Click 'n Learn Remote). Officials from the real Consumer Product Safety Commission dutifully promised to investigate the toys cited by PIRG, although they looked like they would have preferred to use their Captain America Shield.

Born to trudge

Do you ever wonder how today’s kids would survive our childhood? Would they get tangled in telephone cords? Would they stare endlessly at their palms, poking them and wondering why their texts weren’t going through? Thanks to Grant Tomkinson, Ph.D., of the University of South Australia’s School of Health Sciences, we know one thing for sure: We would have run circles around them, although it wouldn’t have been all that satisfying without any way to post it on YouTube.

Dr. Tomkinson presented data to a meeting of the American Heart Association comparing the results of childhood fitness tests conducted between 1960 and 2010 involving more than 25 million kids in 28 countries. Since the tests were simple (“Run as fast as you can from here to there, then stop.”), they made for an ideal comparison of cardiovascular fitness over the last 50 years. The results suggest that humans are evolving…into tree sloths.

Worldwide, children’s cardiovascular fitness has been declining at a rate of 5% per decade since 1970, but the U.S. beat the spread with a decline of 6%. In other words, our kids are all couch potatoes, but at least in other countries they have the strength to climb up on the sofa.

Dr. Tomkinson estimates that 30%-60% of the decline in fitness stems from increasing obesity, while the remaining portion results from plain old deconditioning. I think we can reverse the trend, but we’ll need to teach today’s kids how to play their favorite games the way we used to: “You want to see Angry Birds, son? Run over to that tree and start climbing!”

Fruits & nuts & fries

From where I live, California looks like a public health utopia. They’ve expanded Medicaid, established a model health insurance exchange, and passed emissions regulations that have directly threatened my retirement savings (I’m strongly considering cashing out to buy a hybrid Porsche; I know, but by the time I retire, I’m sure they’ll be making some very tasty cat food.). And yet, my assumption that West Coast kids eat nothing but tofu burgers wrapped in kale may be a little off base, at least based on a new report from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. I won’t be too disappointed, however, until they report the extinction of the famous California unicorn.

The report is not all negative. Prior-day soda consumption among children aged 2-5 years fell from 40% to just 16% between 2003 and 2009. Fast food, however, remains a dietary staple of young kids in the state, with 60% of kids consuming at least one meal a week from a fast food joint and 10% eating fast food at least three times a week. California, however, has never feared bold initiatives, and I think it’s time for them to blaze another trail for the rest of us. If the only meat those fast food restaurants could serve was turkey…

David L. Hill, M.D., FAAP is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like a Pro (AAP Publishing, 2012). He is also vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, N.C., and  adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He serves as Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and as an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television, and Internet outlets.

Are you, like me, asking yourself how long Thanksgiving turkey is safe to eat if refrigerated? Does it matter whether you make sandwiches or soup with it? What if you cook the soup in an autoclave?

Fuse

I feel like the Puritans get the last laugh in our national festival of gluttony. “Sure,” you can hear them say, “go ahead and gorge yourselves…on turkey!” Seriously, have you ever picked up a menu and said to the waiter, “Let’s see, the lobster looks good, but oh, there’s a filet mignon and the poached salmon… Wait, hold the phone, you have turkey?! Yeah, baby! Done! Bring me the fennel-braised turkey with truffle gravy and foraged wild cranberry compote!” Never. Gonna. Happen. On the up side, I do still have some pie.

PIRG-atory

Overworked humorists and features editors everywhere look forward to the annual “Trouble in Toyland” report from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), a sort of volunteer militia version of the Consumer Product Safety Commission whose members probably sport tattoos of Ralph Nader. During the busy holiday season, we know we can recycle their stories about dangerous playthings to spark shock and outrage among readers without having to work too hard. But I’m better than that. Wait, I was thinking of someone else. Here goes!

Every year, PIRG selects one toy as the most dangerous of all. This year’s choice is a soft vinyl version of Captain America’s shield, an object so harmless looking you’d never guess it contains more lead than a truck battery. At least you wouldn’t until you pick it up and wonder why a 9-inch squishy disk weighs 17 pounds. How much lead does it take to make the bright, shiny colors on this toy? Let’s just say that a 5-year-old will lose 5 IQ points just putting it on his Christmas list.

Of course, lead wasn’t the only hazard noted by PIRG. Other toys on their list posed choking risks (the unfortunately named Gobble Gobble Guppies), magnet ingestion risks (the tasty-sounding Sonic Sound Sizzlers), and excessive noise (the Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn, Click 'n Learn Remote). Officials from the real Consumer Product Safety Commission dutifully promised to investigate the toys cited by PIRG, although they looked like they would have preferred to use their Captain America Shield.

Born to trudge

Do you ever wonder how today’s kids would survive our childhood? Would they get tangled in telephone cords? Would they stare endlessly at their palms, poking them and wondering why their texts weren’t going through? Thanks to Grant Tomkinson, Ph.D., of the University of South Australia’s School of Health Sciences, we know one thing for sure: We would have run circles around them, although it wouldn’t have been all that satisfying without any way to post it on YouTube.

Dr. Tomkinson presented data to a meeting of the American Heart Association comparing the results of childhood fitness tests conducted between 1960 and 2010 involving more than 25 million kids in 28 countries. Since the tests were simple (“Run as fast as you can from here to there, then stop.”), they made for an ideal comparison of cardiovascular fitness over the last 50 years. The results suggest that humans are evolving…into tree sloths.

Worldwide, children’s cardiovascular fitness has been declining at a rate of 5% per decade since 1970, but the U.S. beat the spread with a decline of 6%. In other words, our kids are all couch potatoes, but at least in other countries they have the strength to climb up on the sofa.

Dr. Tomkinson estimates that 30%-60% of the decline in fitness stems from increasing obesity, while the remaining portion results from plain old deconditioning. I think we can reverse the trend, but we’ll need to teach today’s kids how to play their favorite games the way we used to: “You want to see Angry Birds, son? Run over to that tree and start climbing!”

Fruits & nuts & fries

From where I live, California looks like a public health utopia. They’ve expanded Medicaid, established a model health insurance exchange, and passed emissions regulations that have directly threatened my retirement savings (I’m strongly considering cashing out to buy a hybrid Porsche; I know, but by the time I retire, I’m sure they’ll be making some very tasty cat food.). And yet, my assumption that West Coast kids eat nothing but tofu burgers wrapped in kale may be a little off base, at least based on a new report from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. I won’t be too disappointed, however, until they report the extinction of the famous California unicorn.

The report is not all negative. Prior-day soda consumption among children aged 2-5 years fell from 40% to just 16% between 2003 and 2009. Fast food, however, remains a dietary staple of young kids in the state, with 60% of kids consuming at least one meal a week from a fast food joint and 10% eating fast food at least three times a week. California, however, has never feared bold initiatives, and I think it’s time for them to blaze another trail for the rest of us. If the only meat those fast food restaurants could serve was turkey…

David L. Hill, M.D., FAAP is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like a Pro (AAP Publishing, 2012). He is also vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, N.C., and  adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He serves as Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and as an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television, and Internet outlets.