Let me play or I’ll scream.

A study of 11,000 third graders by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine recently concluded that recess actually improves behavioral problems in children.  Look like the old punishing troublemakers by taking away recess isn’t such a good idea after all.  According to Dr. Romina Barros, pediatrician and assistant professor at Albert Einstein College, “Our brains can concentrate and pay attention for 45 to 60 minutes, and in kids it’s even less. For [children] to be able to acquire all the academic skills we want them to learn, they need a break…”  Seems obvious to me.

Shouldn’t play be a priority?

Sad to say that this study also found that found that one in three children receive fewer than 15 minutes of recess during the day.  Perhaps this is something schools should take a closer look at.

For more information about this study, see the “School Recess and Group Classroom Behavior” published in Pediatrics or this nice summary article “School Recess Improves Behavior” by Tara Parker-Pope of the New York Times.  For more information about physical activity, try playing our Playnormous health game Bubble Trouble.  Happy recessing!

Somethin’ smells fishy.

This is one of my favorite monsters, and he’s just so cute in his little fish bowl.  I hope that he makes it into one of our Playnormous health games at some point.  He would have been a perfect fit in our underwater exercise game Bubble Trouble, but I’m afraid he didn’t make the cut.  Maybe next time little guy!

And the biggest losers are…

Last year I posted the Worst Foods in America for 2008.  It’s that time of year again, and the nutritionists have spoken.  The 2009 worst food list is up!  Did your favorite food item make the list?  Here are some of the more interesting ones.

• Worst Salad – TGI Fridays Pecan Crusted Chicken Salad
  • 1350 calories, fat and sodium unknown because the company REFUSES TO DISCLOSE!!
  • All I can say is…what’s wrong with this picture?  The company won’t disclose the nutritional content of what they’re serving customers?  Outrageous!!
• Worst “Healthy” Sandwich – Blimpie Veggie Supreme
  • 1106 calories, 56 g fat, 2831 mg sodium, 96 g carbs
  • Good night nurse!  That’s a healthy sandwich?  I hate to see their normal ones.
• Worst Burger – Chili’s Smokehouse Bacon Triple-The-Cheese Big Mouth Burger with Jalapeno Ranch Dressing
  • 2040 calories, 150 g fat, 4900 mg sodium
  • Quite a mouthful of a name and only 2 1/2 days worth of fat.
• Worst Mexican Entree – Chili’s Buffalo Chicken Fajitas with the Works
  • 1730 calories, 117 g fat, 5690 mg sodium
  • You could eat 3 1/2 lbs of salted peanuts to get the same amount of sodium.  That’s a lot of salt!
• Worst Pasta – Macaroni Grill Spaghetti and Meatballs with Meat Sauce
  • 2430 calories, 128 g fat, 207 g carbs, 5290 mg sodium
  • Who knew this old favorite could be so bad for you?  Eat this dish and get three times the recommended daily amount of saturated fat.  Mama would be proud!

Drum roll please…

And the worst food of 2009 is….Baskin Robbins Large Chocolate Oreo Shake.  At 2600 calories, 135 g fat, 59 g saturated fat, 2.5 g trans fat, 263 g sugar, 1700 mg sodium, this puppy is a heart attack in a cup.  The commentary the authors of this story wrote was so funny I just had to share it with you:

We didn’t think anything could be worse than Baskin Robbins’ 2008 bombshell, the Heath Bar Shake. After all, it had more sugar (266 grams) than 20 bowls of Froot Loops, more calories (2,310) than 11 actual Heath Bars, and more ingredients (73) than you’ll find in most chemist labs.

Rather than coming to their senses and removing it from the menu, they did themselves one worse and introduced this caloric catastrophe. It¹s soiled with more than a day’s worth of calories and three days worth of saturated fat, and, worst of all, usually takes less than 10 minutes to sip through a straw.

Now that’s some amazing commentary.  Congratulations Chili’s for having the greatest number of unhealthy foods on the list, and of course, congratulations to Baskin Robbins for snagging first place…or should I say last.  May I suggest a Playnormous health game like Food Fury?  Maybe the execs at these eateries should learn the “Go, Slow, Whoa” method.

Killer sandwich!

For whatever reason, I’ve been seeing articles pop up quite a bit about the same topic: “How involved should teachers be in the lives of their students?”  This includes topics like becoming friends with students on Facebook, seeing threatening tweets on Twitter from parents about their children and to assigning physical activity as homework.

One particular article caught my eye by Sarah Ebner of the SchoolGate, a blog about the British Education System.  The title is “Are certain foods banned from your child’s lunchbox?” She talks about a friend that sent her child to school with a Nutella sandwich (that’s a chocolate spread for those of you who are unfamiliar), as a birthday lunch treat.  Nutella-eating son was later sent home with a letter from his teacher which stated “It is our school’s policy to encourage healthy eating…We would prefer it if your son would bring a nutritious, healthy sandwich for his lunch.”  As expected, the parent was very angry.

Where should teachers draw the line?

With childhood obesity on the rise and adults in even worse shape than kids, this situation begs the question–Should teachers be more involved in the health of their students?  At what point does helping become interferring?

Monday, Monday, so good to me.

I have several monster profiles left so I decided that Monday would be our Featured Monster day. After all, most people feel like a monster on Mondays, right?  Monster #7 is especially appropriate to start off Monster Mondays since he’s a little gloomy himself.  Find this monster on the Playnormous Health Games homepage animation where you can light him up by clicking on him.