For San Diego Moms and Moms-To-Be
Back to school means a whole lot of supplies! MYSDMoms wants to help you send the kids back to school feeling like winners! Fill out the form below for your chance to win a $250 Amazon gift card! A $250 Amazon gift card goes a long way to getting geared up for another school year. From backpacks to binders, crayons to clothes… you could be the lucky winner. Nurtured by Kaiser Permanente.
Get signed up below and we’ll choose a winner on September 1st.
By CANDICE CHOI AP Food & Health Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — Coffee bars selling $3 iced lattes are popping up in high schools, helped along by dairy groups scrambling for new ways to get people to drink milk.
It’s one small way the dairy industry is fighting to slow the persistent decline in U.S. milk consumption as eating habits change and rival drinks keep popping up on supermarket shelves.
At a high school in North Dakota, a $5,000 grant from a dairy group helped pay for an espresso machine that makes lattes with about 8 ounces of milk each. The drinks used 530 gallons of milk this year.
“We buy a lot of milk,” said Lynelle Johnson, the food service director for the Williston Public School District.
It’s not clear how much coffee drinks in high schools might help boost milk consumption, or whether the concept will gain traction across the country. But with consumption of milk in the U.S. down 40 percent since 1975, the dairy industry is looking for all the help it can get.
The industry famous for its “Got Milk” advertising campaign is hoping its newer “Undeniably Dairy” slogan will help fend off the almond, oat and soy alternatives that are becoming more popular. And regional dairy groups are encouraging schools to serve milky drinks like smoothies and hot chocolate, as well as iced lattes.
The efforts come as the dairy industry is also trying to adjust to changing views about diet and nutrition.
With fat no longer seen as a dietary evil, skim milk has suffered the sharpest declines in demand in recent years. And it’s difficult for dairy producers to reduce production of skim milk because it is left over after making other products such as butter, cheese and ice cream.
As skim milk becomes especially tough to sell, Organic Valley is even drying some of the surplus and mixing it back into low-fat and fat-free milk to boost the nutrients and make it creamier.
“We’re just exploring everything we can,” said George Siemon, who was CEO of Organic Valley when the plans were developed, but has recently stepped down.
The dairy industry blames rules that limit the fat content of milk in schools for consumption declines, arguing that generations of students are growing up disliking milk because of the watery taste of skim.
In the meantime, it’s hoping lattes can make milk go down easier. In Florida, a dairy group said it paid for coffee carts in 21 high schools this past school year. In the Southwest, a dairy group gave grants to seven schools for coffee programs.
Not all high school coffee bars get grants from dairy groups, and the money may only cover a small portion of costs. School food operators also say lattes offer other benefits, such as giving teens a reason to stay on school grounds. At a national convention for school lunch officials next month, one session will also detail how schools in Orange County, Florida used coffee drinks to get students to buy lunch.
For an extra $2, students can turn the cup of milk served with lunch into a coffee drink at a nearby cart. Without the lunch, it costs $3.
The Orange County schools did not receive industry grants for the coffee bars, but the local dairy council provided chalkboard-style signs and menus.
Cafeteria directors and dairy groups say coffee drinks in schools have to follow nutrition standards, making them healthier than the lattes students would get anyway outside schools.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which sets rules for schools participating in its meal programs, says high schools can sell espresso drinks that are no bigger than 12 ounces, and that are made with fat-free or 1% milk. The drinks have around 150 calories, school food directors say.
But not everyone thinks teens should drink coffee, or that they need milk.
The American Academy of Pediatrics discourages caffeine consumption among children, citing potentially harmful effects on developing bodies. And while dairy is an efficient way to get calcium and vitamin D, it’s not the only way to get such nutrients, said Dr. Natalie Muth, a pediatrician and representative for the American Academy of Pediatrics.
As for lattes, Muth there are ways to encourage students to get the nutrients of milk without promoting caffeine habits that could lead to headaches, agitation and lack of sleep.
“If they’re going to be having that outside of school, that’s one thing. But in schools, the idea is to promote good health and nutrition,” Muth said.
Exactly how schools prepare coffee drinks can vary, but milk is a primary ingredient for lattes. “It’s really milk with some coffee, as far as proportion,” said Julie Ostrow of Midwest Dairy.
It’s why the group is providing a grant for a coffee bar at a fourth high school in the Fort Zumwalt, Missouri district this upcoming year. In exchange, the group gets data on how much milk is used for the lattes, as well as information for personal pizzas, mozzarella sticks and other products with dairy.
But the group might not be happy about one of the newer options: This past year, the coffee bars began offering almond milk for 40 cents extra, said Paul Becker, the district’s food director.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Amber and Sara are trying to help the family beat summer boredom, talking about local destinations – especially the free ones – that will give the family a little break from the ordinary.
By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA Associated Press
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A 29-year-old woman gave birth to six babies in Poland on Monday, in what is believed to be the country’s first-ever case of sextuplets. The mother and newborns are said to be doing well.
The babies, four of whom are girls, were born through cesarean section at University Hospital in Krakow in southern Poland.
The babies were born in the pregnancy’s 29th week and their individual weights range from 890 grams (31.40 ounces) to 1,300 grams (45.90 ounces), hospital spokeswoman Maria Wlodkowska said. The babies are fine but have been placed in incubators to assist their development, she said.
Only one in nearly 5 billion pregnancies leads to sextuplets.
“It is the first time in Poland that sextuplets are born, and it is rare in the world,” said chief of the hospital’s neonatology ward, Prof. Ryszard Lauterbach.
He said it came as a surprise because doctors were expecting five babies.
“We had five teams with five incubators ready waiting, and when all were taken another baby, a girl, appeared,” Lauterbach said on TVN24.
He praised doctors for getting the pregnancy to the 29th week.
There was widespread rejoice across Poland over the news.
President Andrzej Duda congratulated the parents and the doctors on Twitter, while the local football club, Cracovia, has offered life-long tickets and said they were keeping fingers crossed for the babies.
“We don’t know who your parents are rooting for, but we are giving you, kids, permanent subscription to tickets,” Cracovia said in a tweet.
The babies have a 2 ½-year-old brother.
In 2008, quintuplets, all girls, were born in the same hospital in the 26th week of pregnancy, weighing between 570 grams (20.11 ounces) and 800 grams (28.22 ounces.) After three months of hospitalization, part of that time on respirators and drips, they were discharged and they recently paid a courtesy visit to the hospital with their parents.
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE AP Chief Medical Writer
Teens who have obesity surgery lose as much weight as those who have the operation as adults and are more likely to have other health problems such as diabetes and high blood pressure go away, a study finds.
The results suggest there’s a benefit from not waiting to address obesity. Researchers say longer study is still needed to know lifetime effects of this radical surgery and that it’s a personal decision whether and when to try it.
The study was published Thursday by the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the Combating Childhood Obesity conference in Houston. The National Institutes of Health paid for it, and some researchers consult for makers of obesity surgery tools.
The damaging effects of obesity accumulate, and the risk of developing other diseases and dying prematurely rises the longer someone goes. Surgery is usually reserved for people who can’t lose enough weight through other means — diet, exercise and sometimes medicines — and are severely obese.
Researchers led by Dr. Thomas Inge at the University of Colorado wanted to know whether it’s better or safer to have it in mid-life, the most common time now, or sooner before many of those other health problems appear or do much harm.
They compared results from two studies of gastric bypass surgery, which creates a much smaller stomach pouch, in 161 teens and 396 adults who had been obese since they were teens. Five years after their operations, both groups had lost 26% to 29% of their weight.
Diabetes went into remission in 86% of teens and 53% of adults who had that disease before their operations; high blood pressure did the same in 68% of teens and 41% of adults. Some side effects were more common in teens, and they were twice as likely to need a second operation.
One troubling finding: Although about 2 percent of each group died, two of the teens did so from drug overdoses, suggesting substance abuse and self-harm may be a concern.
Overall, the results are consistent with an earlier study comparing teens and adults, Ted Adams of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City wrote in a commentary in the journal.
“Almost 6% of adolescents in the United States are severely obese, and bariatric surgery is now the only successful, long-term treatment option” for them, he wrote.
Most obese teens stay obese as adults, and adults who were obese as teens have worse health than people who started to weigh too much at an older age, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right choice to have surgery earlier than later, he warned.
Marilynn Marchione can be followed at @MMarchioneAP
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
