Your Health

Town Crier File Photo
With statistics revealing that 25% of U.S. schoolchildren experience bullying at some point, creating a sense of belonging can mitigate the negative impacts by promoting a feeling of connection with school, peers, community and family.

School districts have multiple resources and strategies in place to prevent bullying, yet the National Center for Educational Statistics reports that 1 in 4 American children experience bullying at some point during their schooling, and 1 in 2 LGBTQ children. The U.S. Department of Justice revealed that 160,000 children daily skip school for fear of being bullied.

Courtesy of Dreamstime.com
According to Passion Fit’s Reena Vokoun, pumpkins are not only festive, they also are rich in antioxidants and beta-carotene.

Now that Halloween and Thanksgiving are on the horizon, pumpkin season is officially here. While many people simply think of it as a treat to enjoy in pies, ice cream and spiced lattes, or a decoration to carve and put out on the porch, pumpkin, a type of winter squash, is considered a superfood.

Pumpkin has many surprising nutritional and health benefits you may not be aware of. Be sure to check with your doctor for any dietary restrictions, but following are five benefits to take note of that may encourage you to add more pumpkin into your life all year long.

Rita Hitching

Coffee is the most widely used psychoactive substance in the world, with more than 80% of the world’s population drinking coffee daily. Despite reports encouraging people to reduce their coffee intake, multiple studies have reported on the health benefits of caffeine. Statistica reports that coffee remains one of the most popular beverages in the U.S., with 100 million Americans drinking coffee every day.

Americans 60 years old and up typically drink three times as many cups of coffee as those ages 18-24. That’s good news for baby boomers, as coffee has been associated with increased cognitive performance and lower risk of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

Courtesy of Kim Gladfelter
People experiencing knee pain when they squat can work with a specialist to identify what’s going wrong, whether it’s an existing injury, an insufficient warm-up or improper form.

The short answer to the question of whether it’s normal for the knees to hurt while squatting is “no.”

Megan V. Winslow/Town Crier
Landscaping begins at El Camino Hospital’s new Taube Pavilion Oct. 17. The 56,000-square-foot facility, which will house the hospital’s Scrivner Center for Mental Health and Addiction Services, will be open to the public Saturday afternoon.

 

Please note: additional information about philanthropists who made this project possible has been added to the story since its original publication.

 

Michael Fitzgerald’s patience has paid off – much to the benefit of his El Camino Hospital department’s patients.

Fitzgerald, executive director of Mental Health and Addiction Services, walked into his office on his first day on the job Dec. 9, 2002, and was handed a set of blueprints for the new hospital, set for completion in 2011. It was likely at that time that his department would move to the new facility, but he and his staff remained at the old hospital after determining the new space didn’t meet their patients’ needs for a multitude of reasons.

Before I even take a pregnancy test, I know by my sleep patterns that I’m pregnant. I’m an Olympic-level sleeper – when my head hits the pillow, I’m gone – so insomnia was a really frustrating companion to my pregnancies.

In early pregnancy you may feel like nodding off at 6 p.m., and then you’re lying awake enjoying the company of Facebook at 3 a.m. Pregnancy hormones impact every system in the body, causing frequent bathroom trips, leg cramps and those 20-point turns in the third trimester when your hips ache from lying in one position. Insomnia also can get worse with anxiety and the emotional roller coaster of becoming a parent.