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How to know when a child is having an allergic reaction to food

Food allergies can be a scary thing. If you have a child who suffers from food allergies, you know just what I mean. If you’re wiping your brow and muttering a silent thank-you that you don’t have to deal with food allergies in your household, wait just a minute. It’s true that the majority of food allergies are diagnosed in early childhood, but what you may not know is that about 1 in 4 severe reactions that happen in schools involve children with no known history of food allergy.

How do you choose which hospital is best equipped to care for your family?

All it takes is a drive down Interstate 4 to get a glimpse of the healthcare landscape in Central Florida. You’ll see a variety of billboards that boast the expertise of different hospitals, urgent care facilities and medical practices. Sometimes it feels like everywhere you look somebody is trying to sell you some kind of health-related product or service.

Is your child with autism spectrum disorder entitled to music therapy services?

If you have a child with autism, you may find they are especially in tune with certain elements of music like rhythm, harmony, melody, and pitch. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often demonstrate exceptional skills in music. In fact, many musical skills that are rare within the general population are more common in those with ASD. Examples include incredible accuracy in singing or playing musical notes, the ability to recall melodies with great accuracy, and the ability to name musical notes without any reference to a musical instrument.

How to Ensure Your Family Is Eating Well While You Travel

Summer is here, and many of us will soon be off on a vacation of some kind. Whether you are traveling by train, plane or automobile, packing healthy travel snacks is a must for children and teens. The last thing a family wants to do is stop at a gas station or a local convenience store while rushing to get to their destination. Not only does it waste valuable travel time (and money), but it also makes it difficult to make healthy choices.

Lead poisoning: How the Flint water crisis is bringing an old problem back into view

You may have seen the ongoing news coverage of the crisis in Flint, Michigan where the city’s water supply has exposed potentially tens of thousands of people to toxic levels of lead. Children are especially vulnerable to lead exposure, and in fact it was a pediatrician, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, who was one of the first to publicly call for city and state officials to address water safety concerns after finding high levels of lead in several children. 

Should you give your kids dessert before dinner is done? A dietitian’s answer might surprise you.

Like me, many children are fixated on that sweet treat after dinner. It can be that package of fruit snack gummies, chocolate chip cookie or that double fudge caramel brownie, pretty much anything sweet that catches their attention. During dinner, many kids wait impatiently for dessert to be available to the family, even when they feel full from dinner. Many kids have caught on to the idea of skipping dinner just because they know dessert is coming next. This is often when parents start making “dinner deals” with their kids, just so they can eat something on their plate. These deals can range anywhere from “you can have dessert if you eat your vegetables” or “if you do not try every food on your plate, you will not get a cookie”. When these “dinner deals” begin, it often gives kids the wrong impression – dinner is a punishment and dessert is the reward. 

Healthy skin habits: Dr. Davis explains why it's important to teach kids at an early age

With our recent cold snap finally over, summer and warmer temperatures are just around the corner. As we spend more time outdoors in short sleeves and shorts, we need to remember how important it is to protect our skin! Although everyone loves “a tan” for the summer, this is actually a sign of skin damage. Protecting our skin by using sunscreen and other forms of sun block is the first (and most important step) in keeping our skin healthy and preventing the most deadly form of skin cancer, melanoma. Did you know that most of our sun exposure and skin damage from the sun happens before the age of 18? Developing healthy skin habits as children and maintaining these habits through adulthood is essential to keeping our skin healthy over our lifetime!

How does the sun damage our skin?

What about melanin in our skin?

So how do we protect our skin from the sun?

How one physical therapist overcame scoliosis and now helps children do the same

My Story

When Healthy Eating Isn't Enough for Severely Obese Teenagers

As the obesity epidemic in the United States continues to rise, a small number of teenagers are finding that traditional methods of weight loss just won’t cut it. For those adolescents with severe obesity, weight loss surgery — or bariatric surgery — may be an option. While healthy eating and exercise are recommended first when trying to lose weight, this surgery could be a life-changing (or even life-saving) choice for some obese teens.

Is my child constipated?

Like many other parents, I tend to fuss over my children’s GI tracts – what goes in, and what comes out. Has my son pooped already today? Is the poop too soft or too hard? What did I feed my daughter that made her poop look like that? Are my kids pooping too much or too little?