Adolescent Weight Lifting Myths

There are many myths that exist concerning the safety of children and adolescents lifting weights. It has long been believed that weight training could lead to an increased risk of injury. But, it has been found that when weights are used with caution and age appropriateness, there are positive benefits to strength training. It actually reduced the possibility or injury while playing organized sports. It is also a misconception to believe that weight training can cause more injury to growth plates than any other physical activity. Growth plate injury actually occurs more during participation in organized sports.

Many organizations agree that physical activities that strengthen the muscles are important for overall health.  It is also important for young people to participate in a wide variety of sports. These types of activity should be supervised, especially for beginners, until individuals learn how to operate equipment properly.  Weight raining can be simple, healthy, and effective.

How To Create A Diet Plan For Weight Loss

 One of the biggest challenges when dieting is knowing what a healthy diet looks like, it is best to avoid the urge to cut something completely out of your diet because our bodies require nutrients from multiple sources.  Instead of cutting all those carbohydrates it would be better to focus on improving your diet quality instead.  A healthy diet should focus on increasing your fruit and vegetable intake, exercising portion control, monitoring what you are drinking, and minimize your exposure to scenarios, which cue the urge to eat when you are not hungry. 

What can you do to avoid eating when you are not hungry?  You can train yourself to avoid food cues by exposing yourself to favorite foods and allowing yourself only a taste of the food without eating them.  You will have to follow several steps to remind yourself why you are not eating the food.  This will mean reminding yourself that you are responding to a food cue, resisting the urge to respond to it by using an alternate behavior such as drinking water or going for a walk, and remembering the larger picture of your goal. You will want to develop a plan to get yourself off of the diet rollercoaster.  This involves assessing you diet quality, planning more balanced and nutritious meals, using smaller dishes, smaller portions, changing your food environment and food cues to eat, minimize where you allow yourself to eat, and avoid exposing yourself to foods you do not want to eat by driving or exercising away from those places and recording television programs to allow you to skip those fast food commercials. 

What is a nurse practitioner?

Nurse Practitioners are Registered Nurses who have undertaken further education to Masters Degree level.  In the General Practice setting, the nurse practitioner works closely with your GP to provide care to patients within the surgery.

NP’s are able to provide a wider range of services including the ability to request a range of blood tests, refer for x-rays and some ultrasound scans.  NP’s are also able to issue prescriptions for antibiotics, simple analgesia etc as well as repeat scripts (medications already prescribed by the GP with some exclusions).

The role of the NP includes:  Assessing patients with chronic diseases such as asthma, diabetes and heart disease, creating care plans to assist in providing the best treatment and education, with regular review to achieve better outcomes.

Providing health assessments for the over 75’s, immunisations for children and adults, wound care, triaging of emergency patients, warfarin care, consultations for patients with minor complaints such as viral illness (coughs, colds, sore throats), ear infections, urinary tract infections etc, as well as providing contraceptive advice including insertion and removal of implanon and routine pap smears

Back to school – is your child’s asthma plan ready?

 

The return back to school is a busy time for kids and especially parents. Aside from the usual array of tasks to do, most schools ask that children with medical conditions such as asthma to have some documentation ready.  The asthma action plan is an important document because it provides critical information about your child’s medical needs if they become unwell.  The return to school coincides with an extremely busy time for doctors treating patients with asthma, so much so that it is known as the “February epidemic”.  

An asthma review appointment allows your GP to review the asthma action plan as well as check important things such as asthma inhaler technique and when prescriptions will be due.  If your child needs an asthma review, please let our reception staff know.

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Good Social Relationships Have A Positive Impact Your Physical Health

While we know that diet and exercise play an important role in our physical wellbeing, new research is showing that our social life has a tangible effect as well. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Renmin University in China conducted a study examining the association between a participant’s physical measurements and the quality of their social relationships.  The possible link they found? Stress. 

One of the professors who led the study noted that good social relationships reduce the daily stresses of life. So, cultivating good relationships are one more preventive measure we can take. If you’re a teen or senior it’s good to have a large social group and if you fall in the middle, you’ll opt for smaller close relationships. In the end, however, everyone can do themselves good by cutting down on relationships that cause strain and choosing ones that bring fulfillment.