Junior Vitamins
Kangavites are a new range of children supplements especially designed to taste delicious! The chewable supplements are developed with both parents and children in mind and have a burst in the mouth natural flavour with no artificial flavourings, colours, or sweeteners. Naturally sweetened with fructose and flavoured from real strawberries, apricots, citrus fruits and other whole food concentrates, they come in childproof bottles that are 100% recyclable. Unfortunately all too often research shows that childrenÕs diets are nutrient deficient due to children's picky eating habits and deficient produce from depleted soils. It is very common for children not to receive the recommended daily levels of key vitamins.

However, remember that wherever possible children should get a healthy diet and along with a bottle of Kangavites a booklet entitled 'Does your child need supplements' will be given out with every purchase.

New study links LCps in infant milk with lower blood pressure in children
A study published in the British Medical Journal shows that feeding babies with infant milk containing Long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCPs) is associated with lower blood pressure in later childhood.

The research could have wider implications for the prevention of cardiovascular risk in later life, as blood pressure often tracks from childhood to adulthood and can increase the risk of stroke and heart disease in later life. The milk used in the study was produced by Milupa.

The findings that milk containing LCPs helps to reduce blood pressure add to the growing amount of evidence showing the health benefits of LCPs during infancy and later childhood.

Previous studies have shown that breastfed babies are likely to have lower blood pressure in later life and the BMJ study suggests that the LCPs in breast milk could be responsible for this benefit. In 1992, researchers gave bottlefed babies either infant milk with LCPs (Milupa) or a nutritionally similar infant milk without LCPs and compared their progress with a reference group of breastfed infants. Six years later, they found that the blood pressure of the children who had been fed the LCP-enriched milk was significantly lower than the group without LCPs and was similar to that of breastfed babies.
LCPs play a vital role in healthy brain and visual function in babies and an increasing body of evidence suggests that babies can benefit from LCPs in their diet. However, this is the first time that researchers have associated LCP supplementation with a potential benefit to cardiovascular health.

Milk can cut back cavities
The British Dental Health Foundation urges parents to give their children milk for their development of healthy teeth. On average in the UK ,36% of children aged 9 years have some decay in their permanent teeth and it is thought that most decay is caused by frequently eating sugary foods and drinks. Dr Nigel Carter, Chief Executive of the British Dental Health Foundation said, 'Replacing fizzy or sugary drinks with a glass of milk can help to reduce dental problems. Drinking milk after a meal can also help because it neutralises the acids and helps the teeth to remineralise after eating'

(British Dental Heath Foundation)

School meals: Government must do better
The Government is failing to ensure that children at primary schools are given healthy food that meets its own nutritional standards and more money is spent on prison food than primary school lunches according to a report.

The daily amount spent on each child's school lunch can be as low as 31p, compared with around 60p spent on a prisoner's lunch, according to the Food For Life report. As a result, low quality processed food - such as breaded fish or chicken shapes - dominate school meals which are often high in fat, sugar and salt.

Radical changes are needed, starting with new nutritional standards for school meals which are closely monitored. The report also says that the amount spent on ingredients must double and that healthier meals sourced from organic and local food must be widely available. Government guidelines exist for the type of food that should be served in schools, as well as targets to reduce the amount of unhealthy food eaten, but these do not deliver healthy meals. There is no routine Government monitoring of what children actually eat in primary schools.

Poor diet leads to diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke and coronary heart disease. Obesity in children used to be rare but now nearly 10 per cent of six year olds and 15 per cent of 15 year olds are severely overweight. Diet-related illness is a greater problem than smoking, costing the NHS at least £2.5 billion every year. In Scotland, an extra £63.5 million is being spent over three years to fund a programme of school meal reform and the report says that a similar initiative should be set up in England and Wales and estimates that this would require at least an additional £200 million a year.

Peter Melchett, the Soil Association's policy director said, "All too often, children at primary school are fed muck off a truck. The Government acknowledges there are problems and must as a first step bring back quantified nutritional standards for school meals. Then parents, schools, local authorities, food suppliers, farmers and the Government need to work together to ensure school lunches are made from unprocessed, local and organic food."

Prior to publication, the Soil Association met Charles Clarke, the Secretary of State for Education, who was generally supportive of the practical suggestions that the report offered to schools wishing to increase the amount of sustainable food used in their school meals. The Government has also said that "good practice identified from the Soil Association's Food For Life initiative" should be promoted.

The report says that catering and food companies must recognise the responsibility they have to the well-being of the children who, usually without having any choice in the matter, are their customers. The Soil Association has written to 50 major food companies that supply food to schools asking them to agree to a code of conduct stipulating, for example, that potentially harmful food additives are not included in food destined for schools.

A small number of pioneering schools and local authorities around the country are making their own changes by sourcing food from local farms and preparing meals from fresh ingredients in school kitchens. Others are working with contractors to ensure that healthier food is supplied. As a result, uptake of meals in these schools has increased dramatically: nationally fewer than half of primary school children eat school lunch but at schools that are taking action up to 90 per cent of children now choose to eat a hot meal each day. The cost to parents for these better school meals remains much the same as it was. Schools find that better quality ingredients can be bought at the same, or better prices, from local farmers than through a catering service and some overheads can be eradicated.

Launched during Organic Week, the report is published by the Soil Association, the UK's leading promoter of organic food and farming. It is believed to be the most substantial on this issue and investigates the current state of school meals and the reasons behind declining quality. The report draws on the experience of the Food for Life project, founded by Lizzie Vann, managing director of organic children's food company, Organix, and the Soil Association, which is working with five primary schools to improve the food served.

Lizzie Vann said: "The declining quality of school meals is creating a public health time bomb. We need large-scale reform to change the way school meals are sourced and served to ensure we give children the safest, most nutritious and sustainable food possible. The Food for Life project demonstrates that by working together the current downward spiral can be halted and radical change can be achieved."

Jeanette Orrey, catering manager at one of the Food for Life schools (St Peter's Primary School, East Bridgford, Nottinghamshire) said: "What we are doing at St Peter's shows what is possible if everyone is committed to offering good food for our children. We are providing a model for school catering that can offer children decent fresh food and the opportunity not only to be healthier but to know what is good for them."

Further information about school meals is available from www.soilassociation.org/foodforlife and www.foodforlifeuk.org. An action pack has been published showing parents and teachers how they can start to make changes to the food that is served in their schools and education materials, linked with the national curriculum are also available. The Food For Life report costs £12 and the action pack costs £5 and a 50% discount is available to members of the Soil Association. To order copies, call the Soil Association on 0117 929 0661 or email sass@soilassociation.org. The report, action pack and educational material are available free of charge on-line.
Organic Week is supported by Organix, Doves Farm and Highland Spring. The Food For Life report is supported by Organix and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Impetigo warning
Impetigo is often found among young children when they start school.
Highly contagious for most children it does not interfere too badly with their life but if the child is also an eczema sufferer then it changes matters.

Children and adults with eczemous skin are much more prone to infection like the herpes (cold sore) virus if their skin has open sores and in some cases this can be fatal.
You have to try and prevent contact between the child with eczema and a child or adult with impetigo or cold sores.

Asthma - are swimming pools to blame?
Childhood asthma is on the rise and researchers believe that it could have something to do with chlorine in swimming pools. The likeliest suspect is nitrogen trichloride, a by-product of the chlorine, which is a powerful irritant.

Belgian researchers found high levels of lung-specific proteins - a marker of lung permeability - in children who regularly visited indoor swimming pools, and had done so since early childhood. These proteins suggest that the lung's epithelial barrier was being constantly and chronically disturbed and which, in turn, was allowing allergens to enter the lungs.

It's an early indicator and more research is needed say the researchers. Nevertheless, people who run swimming pools should already be looking at non-chlorine based disinfectant, something to ask next time you attend the local swimming pool.
(Source: WDDTY news- Occupational Environmental Medicine, 2003; 60: 385-94)

Childhood fruit consumption can reduce the risk of adult cancer
Study published in J. Epidemiol Community Health

Taking up kiwi fruit in daily nutrition offers the body more than immediate help in fighting carcinogens. If you are wise enough to take up this good habit right from childhood, you will reap the fruits in the long run.

At the end of the thirties a research team made an overview of the eating habits of about 4,000 children in British households. The subjects were monitored for over 60 years to eventually be able to establish a link between childhood nutrition patterns and the risk of cancer as an adult. The conclusions of this study are impressive: children that had eaten the most fruit, statistically had almost 40% less chance to develop cancer than their peers who had taken up the lowest amount of fruit in their diet.
By continued research scientists want to further confirm the health benefits of fruit in the long run.