Health Topics
Childhood depression is on the rise
Depression among children is on the rise. And if not identified or treated early on, chances that your child will experience a relapse are very likely, with each episode becoming more severe.
Globally, pre-pandemic levels of anxiety and depression among our youth hovered at 11.6% and 12.9% respectively. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, studies show that the incidence has doubled to 25.2 and 20.5%. Those numbers are reflected in calls to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Helpline. In 2019, the helpline received a total of 656,953. Calls jumped to 833,598 calls in 2020, a 27% increase.
How to Model Healthy Relationships for your Children
As parents, it can be easy to forget that almost everything we say or do has an impact on our children.
“Children are like sponges and more than likely, they will model our behaviors later in life,” said CHI St. Alexius Health Nurse Practitioner Anna Wolf, MSN, APRN, FNP-C. “Modeling healthy relationships with them and the people around us during their formative years to give children the tools they need to practice positive relationships later in life.”
It begins with your family. You should strive to spend quality time together and with each child. Laugh and do fun things together, show acceptance, affection and teach your children to respect each other, and offer help and support to one another. “Having healthy relationships and feeling connected socially also promotes emotional wellbeing and mental health,” Wolf said.
When Heart Fails: 5 Essentials for Heading Off Heart Failure
It has been called a condition of epic proportions. The incidence heart failure is alarmingly rising, affecting at least 6.5 million adults in the U.S. The prevalence of heart failure among adults older than 20 is expected to increase 46% by 2030.1
Also called congestive heart failure, this condition simply means your heart is struggling to pump enough oxygen-rich blood to support your body’s other organs. Your heart still works, just not as well.
Heart failure is a chronic, progressive condition. Without treatment and lifestyle changes, your heart function will continue to worsen. In 2017, heart failure was a contributing cause of 1 in 8 deaths.2
Human trafficking is not a problem you probably hear much about, but it is indeed a real and troubling issue in our society. While it’s difficult to determine exact numbers as so many cases go undetected, more than 40.3 million cases of human trafficking have been reported worldwide and more than 63,000 cases in the United States.*
Human trafficking is described as a form of modern-day slavery that involves illegally exploiting individuals through the use of force, fraud or coercion to trap them into labor or sexual exploitation.
Think Before You Eat to Make Healthy Choices
Four times a day and about 240 hours per year. That’s how often the average person thinks about food, according to a study by One Poll. Whether you’re daydreaming about pizza or a sweet treat, you can use that thinking time to make healthy choices.
If you treat food like it’s fuel for your body, it makes sense to make choices that help you stay healthy. But how to decide? MyPlate from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (myplate.gov) shows how to balance your plate for healthier eating.
Gather Around for the Benefits of Family Dinner
Remember those hectic pre-pandemic days of eating on-the-go in between sports practices and other kid activities? One positive side of slowing down was the reemergence of eating family meals together. There’s even a word for eating together: “commensality.”
Doomsday Drinking: Pulling Back from the Binge
The pandemic was no party, but there was a lot of drinking. It wasn’t just shot-taking young adults and falling down drunks. Binge drinkers include women and men, old and young - and COVID-19 may have played a role in its increased prevalence. With more time at home with not a lot to do, some leaned on alcohol for entertainment. For others struggling to cope, drinking became a band-aid to cover up -- but not heal - anxiety or emotional pain.
Binge drinking is not the same as alcoholism. It’s a specific kind of imbibing defined as when a person’s blood alcohol content (BAC) reaches .08 in a two-hour span of time. That takes roughly five drinks for men and four drinks for women according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).
You’ve felt that burning sensation in your chest after eating certain foods, but what if it’s more than just heartburn you’re experiencing? Heartburn and a heart attack may feel very much alike and it is important to know when to seek help. In fact, severe heartburn accounts for more than half of people seen in the ER in which actual heart problems are ruled out.