Healthy Begins Here

Healthy Child Healthy World

May is Pregnancy Awareness Month!

Pregnancy Awareness Month (PAM) was established in 2008 by author, holistic lifestyle expert, and Healthy Child Board member Anna Getty and producer and “mompreneur” Alisa Donner. Their mission is to empower, inspire and build a community of support for expectant women and families. Anna explains: (more…)

Photo: Hemera

My youngest daughter has an insatiable sweet tooth. Have you ever seen the movie Elf with Will Ferrell? He drenches every meal in syrup because Christmas elves thrive on sweets. Well my daughter is like Will Ferrell and persistently dramatizes her “need” for sweets. We oblige (in relative moderation) because she eats an incredibly healthy diet in addition to her treats, but I often wonder if she’s still consuming too much.

A recent article in the New York Times, made me seriously rethink things. “Is Sugar Toxic?“  by Gary Taubes dives deep into the issue and highlights the work of Robert Lustig, a specialist on pediatric hormone disorders and a leading expert in childhood obesity at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, who decries sugar as “evil” and a “poison.” (more…)

Healthy Child Healthy World

The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), one of the core chemical regulations in the US, does not adequately protect children and pregnant women from toxic chemicals and needs to be overhauled, according to a new policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) published in the May issue of Pediatrics.

According to Denise Mann at WebMD,  “[t]he group is concerned about the potential health risks associated with a laundry list of environmental pollutants, including heavy metals; phthalates found in toys, personal care products, nail polish, adhesives, and other products; the plastics chemical bisphenol A (BPA); perfluorinated compounds found in nonstick cookware; and flame retardants.” (more…)

Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff is a writer, editor, producer and spokesperson who represents a new vision of eco-friendly living. Currently the Interim Executive Director/CEO of Healthy Child Healthy World, the nation’s leading non-profit defending children’s environmental health, Rachel also publishes the online magazine EcoStiletto.com and MommyGreenest.com, a blog about eco-friendly parenting her three children.

Thank you for reading Healthy Begins Here, which we put together for WebMD. If you’ve been reading it for a while, you may wonder what the heck I’m doing here — after all, Christopher Gavigan, who wrote the  Healthy Child Healthy World: Creating a Cleaner, Greener, Safer Home book and started this blog, is a familiar face around WebMD. I took over from Christopher in January as the new Executive Director/CEO of Healthy Child Healthy World, the national non-profit that’s been igniting the movement that empowers parents to protect children from harmful chemicals for nearly 20 years. (Yes, that mission statement is a mouthful, we know.) So I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you a little bit about myself. (more…)

Healthy Child Healthy World

With the weather warming up, children will once again be digging into backyard sandboxes and flocking to neighborhood parks. So, it’s a good time to refresh your knowledge about keeping your kids safe when they’re outside playing — especially when it comes to safety risks that are not so obvious — as in the case of sand. (more…)

I am a cookbook junkie and I love checking out new ones. But only really good cookbooks make it into my kitchen — and there they take a beating. Two of my tried and true standbys for classic recipes are The Joy of Cooking and The All New Good Housekeeping Cook Book. These guys are battered, stained, and the pages are literally falling out of them. Two of my newest ones have immediately become family favorites. They are both such stellar examples of the philosophy behind Healthy Child’s “Eat Healthy” program, I have to share them with you. (more…)

Ever noticed that everyone gets sick just in time for Spring? The last lingering tendrils of every winter bug seem insistent on one more romp through the family — ear infections, strep, unmentionable digestive disturbances.

We aren’t big over-the-counter medicine users, but we do rely on children’s acetaminophen and ibuprofen. After four years of this “going healthy green thing,” I realized I had totally overlooked the medicine cabinet.  Five minutes of reading labels and I was, well, stunned. (more…)

Healthy Child Healthy World

We often talk about the dangers of dioxins, but rarely put much explanation behind what they really are. Dioxins, which are industrial byproducts created during the production and incineration of some chlorine-based chemicals, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic, and bleached paper and textiles, can be found inside almost every American’s body. Children are exposed to dioxins mainly through meat and dairy products. Dioxins have no known use and are now everywhere in the environment. (more…)

Do you know what your nursing pillows, stroller cushions, and other foam baby products are made of? Did you know many contain flame retardants?

Clearly it’s important to prevent fires, but some of the methods we use to do so are much more effective than others. Recent declines in fire injuries and deaths can be attributed to decreased smoking, adoption of fire-safe cigarettes, and improved fire safety measures like smoke alarms and sprinkler systems.

One of the more ineffective approaches taken is loading products with chemical flame retardants. In fact, foam treated with these chemicals ignites and burns after seconds, giving off high levels of toxic gases and smoke, which are the leading cause of fire injury and death. (more…)

I’m not sure who the marketing whiz is who came up with this, but PAAS has new themed egg dying kits this year including pirates and princesses. If you see the connection, please let me know because I’m clueless as to how these themes make any sense whatsoever.

Bizarre marketing aside, egg-dying is a really fun family activity — regardless of your religious affiliation. This year, try going au naturale using this fantastic recipe from Michelle Stern of What’s Cooking with Kids: (more…)