The benefits of family dinners

There is a growing amount of research that shows sitting down for a family meal five or more times a week improves the emotional health and well-being of all family members.

This includes:

· Increased likelihood of eating healthier foods, specifically more fruit and vegetable intake and less fried foods and soft drinks

· Improved school performance

· Decreased rates of anxiety and mood disorders in teens

· Decreased rates of high-risk behaviors in teens, including cigarettes, alcohol and drugs

· Decreased obesity rates

· Increased likelihood to maintain a healthy weight as adults

· Lower rates of disordered eating habits

· Lower rates of depressive symptoms and suicide attempts in adolescents

· Higher levels of self-esteem, self-efficacy, and well-being in adolescents

It is our recommendation that you prioritize this time with your family and set goals of having at least five family meals a week around your dinner table!

Reference: Swick, S. D., & Jellinek, M. S. (2019, August). Family dinners are good medicine. Pediatric News, 144(2), 12–13.

Exercise linked to reduced risk of cancer!

A recent publication by the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that there was a correlation between exercise and a decreased risk of seven cancer types. A collection of nine different studies monitoring more than 750,000 adults over a ten year span was examined to determine if physical activity can be correlated with a decreased risk of any of fifteen different types of cancer. The findings of these study showed that meeting or exceeding the expected guidelines for activity resulted in a decreased risk of seven of the fifteen studied cancer types. Moderate to vigorous exercise was shown to decrease the risk of breast, colon, endometrial, kidney, liver, myeloma, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. For more information about risk reduction based off of activity type with certain cancer types, we encourage you to follow this link to the full publication: https://ascopubs.org/doi/full/10.1200/JCO.19.02407

Reference: https://ascopubs.org/doi/full/10.1200/JCO.19.02407

Happy New Year!

Although 2019 was a great year, we have a lot to look forward to in 2020. We can't wait to share some exciting news with you in the near future! We are very thankful to provide care to your children and are excited to continue doing so in 2020. Thank you for your support and for giving us the opportunity to care for your most loved and cherished blessings, your children. The providers and staff here at Mercy Christian Health would like to wish each and every one of you a happy, healthy, and blessed new year!