 Karen Switkowski, MS, MPH, PhD If you ask American parents what their baby’s first complementary (“solid”) foods were or should be, many first think of cereals, rice puffs and mild fruits and vegetables such as sweet potato, peas, avocado and banana. Current recommendations also encourage introduction of common allergens such as peanuts, dairy, eggs and soy along with other complementary foods at 4-6 months of age. Many parents feed these foods to their baby as purees, though “baby-led weaning”, or self-feeding of family foods, is gaining more popularity among modern parents (discussed in more detail here and here). Whether babies are fed purees, self-fed family foods, or a combination of the two, introduction to the typical American diet often leaves babies missing out on key nutrients and other whole food components beneficial to their developing bodies, as well as exposure to the rich flavor profile of a varied whole-food diet.
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Children’s physical growth has long been recognized as an indicator of health and wellness. Infancy, a time where substantial growth occurs, is identified as an important period for the development of future disease risk – many studies have shown that excessive weight gain during infancy is associated with an increased risk for subsequent childhood obesity and development of cardiometabolic diseases. Traditionally, infant growth (< 2 years of age) is assessed through weight-for-length, the predominant standard used internationally and currently recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Weight-for-length growth charts however, don’t account for age which means that shorter (but older and therefore heavier) infants could be compared with younger infants of the same length with respect to weight, and with older infants labelled “heavier”, an effect primarily due to age.
An order of Olive Garden chicken parmigiana? 1060 calories. A Double Whopper with cheese? 980 calories. One slice of a large Domino’s pepperoni pizza? 300 calories. With the federal calorie labeling law going into effect for chain restaurants and prepared foods in grocery stores on May 7th, 2018, you’ve likely noticed the calories for your favorite menu items peering back at you from that menu or display board. After 8 years, this calorie-labeling mandate, which was included in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, should be rolled out to a chain restaurant near you, despite complaints from some corporate food retailers, who argue that this law is too expensive and logistically challenging to implement. Due to the myriad of delays and controversies surrounding calorie labeling, we investigated the extent to which food retailers had decided to move forward with labeling even before it was required.
Asthma and eczema are among the most common diseases of childhood; they’re also atopic (allergic) diseases, meaning they’re associated with an overactive immune system. Risk for these conditions is inherited – children whose parents have asthma, eczema, food allergies or hay fever are more likely to develop these conditions themselves -- but there is also evidence that environment, in addition to genetics, influences this risk.
 Wei Perng, PhD, MPH Sitting the month. Most women of Asian or Middle Eastern descent can rattle off a list of things a new mother must not do in the month following delivery. The most common examples include: taking a bath, washing her hair, drinking cold beverages or foods, touching cold water, washing dishes, lifting heavy items (probably an all-around good idea anyway), sitting in front of a fan… and heaven forbid, do not even think about leaving the house. In Mandarin, we call this “sitting the month.” The motivation behind these rules, which have been featured on NPR, is to protect the recuperating mother from environments that may leave her vulnerable to chronic conditions later on. As wacky as these ideas seemed to me as a child, I recently began to wonder whether the postpartum period is, indeed, a sensitive period for a new mother’s future well-being. While there is little scientific research on this topic, the postpartum period is undoubtedly a time of rapid change in hormones, weight, and lifestyle that could set the tone for health down the road.
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