The younger a girl is when she begins her monthly period, the more likely she is to struggle with depression later in her teen years, according to a study.

British scientists studied a group of girls ages 10, 13 and 14 years old and examined the relationship between the early onset of menstruation and depressive symptoms, according to a recent study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

Researchers found that girls who started their periods before the age of 11.5 were the most depressed by ages 13 and 14. Girls who began to menstruate at 13.5 years of age were the least likely to suffer the same symptoms.

Why does this happen?

"Early maturing girls may feel isolated, and faced with demands which they are not emotionally prepared for," said lead researcher Dr. Carol Joinson of the School of Social and Community Medicine at Bristol University.

These changes can include hormonal fluctuations, conflicts with friends and parents and sudden attention from the opposite sex.

"Later maturation may be protective against psychological distress," said Joinson.

The study only examines depression in mid-adolescent girls as opposed to whether girls who menstruate early suffer from depression as adults.

If the link between early onset puberty and depression is a real one, additional counseling can help girls who are struggling with the sudden changes.

"If girls who reach puberty early are at greater risk of psychological problems in adolescence, it may be possible to help them with school- and family-based programs aimed at early intervention and prevention," said Joinson.

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It's safe for kids to get their shots. That's the take-away message from medical experts in the wake of a British Medical Journal article about a discredited study linking vaccines and autism.

The study author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, hid the fact that some of the children he wrote about in his research already had developmental problems when they got their vaccines, according to the Journal story.

The doctor had changed the medical histories of the dozen autistic children whose stories were the basis of his 1998 study, reports CNN.com.

The Journal article "pretty clearly shows that vaccines are safe, and there does not seem to be a clear relationship that vaccines are causing autism," said Dr. Robert Melillo, autism expert and author of "Disconnected Kids."

For worried parents, the idea that autism could be prevented by withholding vaccines held a certain appeal since there are no definitively recognized causes for the disorder.

"Some 95% of the research in the past couple of decades has been spent looking for a bad gene or genes," said Melillo. "There has not been a lot of research looking at environmental factors."

When Wakefield's study came out, Melillo said, "It was the smoking gun, and it gave parents the validation they were looking for as a cause for autism."

With the now-retracted study labeled an "elaborate fraud," according to CNN, Melillo advised parents to let go of any vaccine worries. But, he said, they also should be aware of early signs of autism, such as a baby being unable to roll over by the age of 5 months or to breastfeed successfully.


Jenny McCarthy is just one of the Hollywood celebrities who is adamant about the connection between vaccinations and autism. (Rodriguez/Getty)

Parents worried about a baby's development should get in touch with the child's pediatrician right away, he said.

Vaccine fears have taken hold of parents, but they're unfounded, says Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of the division of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Cohen Children's Medical Center of North Shore-LIJ.

"There is an overwhelming abundance of research dismissing any credible link between autism and vaccines," he said.

"One of the many wrong presumptions is that there is a singular cause of autism." Instead, he said, it's likely that there are multiple reasons for a child to have autism.

Despite the BMJ story, not all parents are convinced that Wakefield's research has been disproved. "Vaccine injury is real," said Kim Stagliano, a Connecticut mother of three autistic daughters who said that her older two, now 16 and 14, got autism because of vaccines

She subsequently did not have her youngest, now 10, vaccinated.

"The barrage against Dr. Wakefield is an unvarnished attempt to convince the American public that there is an ‘anti-vaccine' movement, while ignoring that American children are chronically sicker than ever and autism now hobbles at least 1% of American children," said Stagliano, who is the author of the book, "All I Can Handle: I'm No Mother Teresa."

She added that parents have the right to demand vaccine safety and "honest science, without those who have a financial interest controlling the conversation."

The actress Jenny McCarthy, whose son has autism, hadn't issued comment on the BMJ article, according to CNN. However, McCarthy, who founded Generation Rescue, a group that backs the idea of a link between vaccines and autism, had supported Wakefield in the past.

Parents now should have much less anxiety about vaccinating their kids, says Dr. Mary Beth Koslap-Petraco, chairwoman of legislative affairs of the Nurse Practitioner Association of Long Island and a past member of the National Vaccine Advisory Committee.

"The study linking autism with vaccines has decreased the number of children who get vaccinated," she said. "But there was no truth to the study. A mistake was made. The person who did the study has betrayed the public's trust with this, and children have suffered because of it."

Whether previously reluctant parents will now decide to have their kids vaccinated remains to be seen.

New York State requires certain vaccinations before a child can attend school, but a parent can get a religious exemption, Koslap-Petraco said. "It's very difficult to get a medical exemption, and New York City is really strict about what they will allow as a religious exemption."

Not vaccinating kids opens up the possibility of an outbreak of disease, she said. "Unless you have a highly vaccinated population, if you introduce a virus or the bacteria into the community, it puts all children, even the vaccinated ones, at risk," she warned.

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Small wonder that kids are getting larger.

Preschoolers now see three fast-food commercials each day, according to research reported on Msnbc.com.

The TV commercials push the fat-laden cheeseburgers and fries, rather than singing the praises of healthier side dishes like apples.

A third of American kids eat an actual fast-food meal each day -- some clocking in at 1,000 calories each.

The default side dish: French fries.

Healthier side dishes and drinks should be the default options for children when they eat fast food, and fast-food ads should regulated, says Marlene Schwartz, deputy director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University, told Msnbc.com.

Fast-food is "a huge source of meals for kids, and that's why we feel they need to be really looked at more carefully," she says.

The Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity’s list of "worst" and "best" kids' meal combinations at fast-food restaurants lists Taco Bell, Dairy Queen and KFC among the worst nutritionally.

Taco Bell's bean burrito, served with cinnamon twists and a soft drink, has 760 calories, 284 of which come from sugar. KFC's extra crispy chicken drumstick, served with potato wedges, a soft drink and string cheese, contains 680 calories, while Dairy Queen's "original" cheeseburger, served with fries, Mountain Dew and a chocolate dilly bar, comes in at 973 calories, according to the Rudd Center.

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The researchers who visited 250 restaurants found that French fries were automatically served with kids' meals 86% of the time and soft drinks were served 55% of the time. And when the researchers tallied up calories, sugar, sodium and fat in thousands of kids' meal combinations, only 12 met the nutrition standards for preschoolers' school lunches established by the Institute of Medicine.

Wondering where to take your child for a healthy fast-food meal? The Rudd Center's top picks are Subway and Burger King. At Subway, for instance, a Veggie Delite sandwich served with apple juice and apple slices has just 285 calories and 295 milligrams of sodium

One of the worst bets when you’re ordering for your child: KFC's popcorn chicken, with 840 calories and 1,610 milligrams of sodium.


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Teen Disney star Demi Lovato stunned fans when it was announced that the star had dropped out of her Jonas Brothers tour gig to seek help treatment for "emotional and physical issues," according to her representatives.

The "Sonny With a Chance" and the "Camp Rock" star has struggled with eating disorders and cutting herself in the past, according to the Associated Press, although it's unclear if those are the reasons why she left the tour.

But what is cutting? And why might someone - in many cases teens - self mutilate?

There's no one reason.

Often times, the individual is practically bursting with overwhelming feelings and this can be too hard to bear," Dr. Michael Hollander, director of 3East at McLean Hospital affiliated with Harvard Medical School in Belmont, Mass told the News.

Cutting releases opioids into the bloodstream and can actually cause the person to feel suddenly very calm.

"I would say 80% of patients self-injure for emotional regulation," said Hollander.

The release of endorphins is short-lived, however, and the feeling being overwhelmed returns.

Others cut themselves because they feel numb and empty. The rush of endorphins can make the cutter briefly feel alive again.

It isn't easy to tell when someone you care about is cutting or causing themselves injury since many adolescents cut themselves on their bellies or thighs – body parts that aren't easily seen.

"It's hard to tell if you can't see the marks," said Hollander. "A tell-tale sign is when you see someone wearing long sleeves in the summer.

There are many factors in a person's life that can lead them to seek emotional solace from cutting: Bullying, low self-esteem are only a few.

"The kind of person who would exhibit this type of behavior is an extremely sensitive individual," said Hollander. "Their environment hasn't caught up to their emotional needs."

It's important to note that the person who cuts is not necessarily suicidal although the behaviors are linked.

While there is no medication to treat cutting specifically, there are several kinds of cognitive therapies that have proven very effective in helping people deal with their out-of-control emotions.

Disney reportedly supports the Lovato's decision to seek treatment.

The star has been dealing with "emotional and physical issues … for some time," her rep confirmed to People, adding, "Demi has decided to take personal responsibility for her actions and seek help."

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The biggest loser? An obese British mom who has had her eight-year-old daughter on a severely restricted diet - starting at age two.

Aly Gilardoni, a single mom, allows little Corleigh to eat just 700 calories a day (1,000 calories too little, medical experts say). On a typical day, Corleigh gets cereal for breakfast, salad and half a roll for lunch, and a baked potato for dinner, reports the Daily Mail.

While she claims she doesn't want her daughter to turn out like her, tipping the scales at 238 pounds and eating a 3,000 calorie diet of junk food and carbs, experts are appalled by her tactics.

Children of normal weight should never have their calories restricted, Dr. Stephen Turner, chairman of the department of pediatrics at Long Island College Hospital told the News.

"It's clear in this case that it it not the child who has issues, but the mother," Turner says. "It's neglect to restrict calories in a child like this."

Even in an overweight child, Turner says, it's usually not necessary to trim calories out of the meal plan. Instead, he says, he recommends simply omitting fruit juices and offering skim milk instead of whole milk.

"The idea is for an overweight child to not gain weight," Turner explains. "However, the child should not be losing weight."

He also says that when kids are overweight, they should be offered healthy food choices even when these contain the same number of calories as an unhealthier choice. For instance, he says, giving the child a peanut butter sandwich makes more sense than offering a candy bar since it will make him feel full longer.

As for exercise, it's not necessary to put a two-year-old on an exercise regime. (Most parents get out of breath running after their toddler, Turner points out.)

However, he says, a parent should check to see if the environment affords enough opportunities for kids to run around and play. "If there is a baby in the house, a parent may be putting that child in front of the TV since the parent is busy," he explains. "And that will definitely have consequences in terms of weight gain."

Little Corleigh so far is just five pounds underweight, but otherwise healthy. Yet, her mother told the Daily Mail, the little girl is now afraid of being fat.

"She's always looking in mirrors," Gilardoni said. "I feel guilty - but it's how I want her to be."

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As 4-year-old Liam O'Meara participates in the Clarendon Hills Park District's Pee Wee Start Smart Golf program on a recent Thursday afternoon, he swings a club, gets instruction, and has fun. He is just like any other class member.

But underneath his white polo shirt, Liam is not the same. He bears the scars of three surgeries already in his young life.

The Clarendon Hills youth was born in 2006 with half a heart. Stricken with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, Liam had doctors at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin reconfigure his heart to operate with a single ventricle.

From first finding out about Liam's condition at 22 weeks into the pregnancy to his prognosis for the future, Liam's parents, Brian and Bridget O'Meara, didn't get a lot of answers along the way because there are not a lot of answers out there. A lot of what they heard from medical specialists was "We don't know."

"So much of everything was out of our hands," Bridget O'Meara said.

Despite not a lot of clear answers, Bridget couldn't speak highly enough of the staff at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin.

"They held our hands. They gave us a lot of support," she said.

She also said they were blessed to have a lot of family and friend support.

Knowing that everyone does not have such a strong support system, the O'Mearas created the Mend a Heart Foundation to support initiatives that extend and enrich the lives of young heart patients. They said they wanted to create a resource for other parents of heart patients and be a funding mechanism for research.

"We wanted to take back some of the fight and that is how the idea (for the foundation) was born," Brian O'Meara said.

The foundation will have its fourth fund-raiser Saturday, Oct. 16 in the gym at Notre Dame School, 66 Norfolk Ave., Clarendon Hills. The O'Mearas hope to raise as much as $50,000 with the one-night fundraiser.

The first three fund-raisers netted a total of $90,000, much of which has gone to fund heart studies.

Coordinating an annual fund-raiser while raising three boys keeps the Clarendon Hills couple on their toes.

"I don't get much sleep this time of year," Bridget admitted, quickly adding that she has a lot of help from friends in organizing the event.

"You do something four years in a row and you get to know the lay of the land," Brian said.

Through their work with the foundation, the O'Mearas have met many other parents and individuals with family members with heart conditions.

"A lot of people have told us their stories," Brian said. "Someone will tell us 'My cousin has a heart condition.' We now know of kids in town who have heart conditions."

Liam's right ventricle will eventually wear out, making a heart transplant the likely course of action. However, the O'Mearas hope that their fund-raising efforts will pay dividends for their son when that time comes. Whether it be by creation of another ventricle through stem cells or some other process, the O'Mearas hope the research they fund can find an answer for when the atrophy occurs.

Brian O'Meara noted that 20 years ago Liam's condition was almost always fatal. He said the research done since then has helped save his son's life.

"I hope that 20 years from now, doctors and families will be using equipment and procedures identified in the research we are funding," Brian said. "I hope that because of what we are doing now that 20 years from now we will have come along with medical solutions to these problems."

Mend a Heart has funded research into the effect of exercise on heart patients, as well as looking at a drug that could keep heart transplants from being needed. The organization also has helped fund Camp Odayin, a Minnesota summer camp for youth with heart conditions. The camp has a cardiologist in each cabin to monitor youth.

"Our mission statement says we aim to extend and enrich the lives of children," Brian said. "We have worked on extending lives through the research. We wanted to include enrichment and we included the summer camp."

The O'Mearas have a medical board of directors that examines the half-dozen applications the foundation receives for funding annually.

"I like to give individuals hope," Brian said. "People long ago helped save Liam's life through the research that was done. I would like to give someone else that piece of mind."

Bridget noted that doctors have put few rules and regulations on Liam at this point.

"Other than keeping him out of contact sports, he doesn't have many restrictions," Bridget said.

"The doctors said he will be self-regulating," Brian said. "His body will tell him what he needs to know."

Bridget said Liam's two brothers, Finn, 6; and Seamus, 2, don't treat him any differently because of his condition.

"He is always trying to keep up with his older brother," Bridget said.

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Fashionistas who check into the Cleveland Clinic are in for a sartorial treat: designer duds made by Diane von Furstenberg.

And while the new hospital gowns may not look like the iconic wrap dresses the designer became famous for, they’re certainly a sight for sick eyes: they feature a bold graphic print (along with the Cleveland Clinic logo) and side ties, which get rid of the open-back look, according to the Associated Press.

The fabric, which according to the Plain Dealer was picked to coddle patients who complain of being too warm in the hospital, is lightweight, yet hardy enough to withstand multiple washings and dryings – and having all manner of monitors and drains attached to it.

Patient feedback? Women seem to love the gowns, though some of the guys have protested that the outfit is overly feminine. Thus the design team may come up with an alternate print.

No word yet on whether other masculine touches are planned to cater to fashion-conscious male patients.

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As the chair of pediatrics at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Dr. Lisa Satlin is a kidney specialist who sees patients from birth to age 21. Since starting her career as a pediatric nephrologist in 1982, she has treated children and their families for problems like hypertension.

Who’s at risk

Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is an extremely common health risk familiar to any American over the age of 50. But it can be present in childhood and adolescence as well.

Blood pressure measurements are reported as two numbers: systolic blood pressure (blood pressure when the heart contracts) over diastolic blood pressure (blood pressure when the heart is relaxed). "In a pediatric patient, hypertension is defined as at least three readings showing a blood pressure level above the 95% percentile" higher than 95 out of 100 children of the same age, gender, and height, says Satlin.

"Having a blood pressure below 90% is normal, and between 90% and 95% is considered prehypertension." According to national guidelines, blood pressure measurements should be a routine in office visits for children over age 3.

"For children, we almost never make a diagnosis of hypertension based on a single casual blood pressure measurement, unless it is extremely high. Instead, this diagnosis usually is made only if the blood pressure is above 95% on three separate occasions, because many situations can lead to a single or temporary elevated blood pressure," says Satlin.

"Children may be in pain from an illness or get anxious or frightened going into the doctor’s office, and the blood pressure might be normal at other times."

Checking the blood pressure at home when the child is more relaxed can help determine whether a child has true hypertension or whether it is only high when seeing a doctor — "White Coat Hypertension." Satlin’s team often has a child use a take-home, wearable, "mini"- blood pressure machine to check the pressure during an entire day.

There are two main types of hypertension. "Primary, or essential, hypertension has no identifiable cause and is most common in children beyond puberty," says Satlin. "Often these children have a family history of high blood pressure and are overweight or obese."

"Secondary hypertension is due to an underlying cause like kidney, hormonal or heart disease, or medication," says Satlin. "This is more common in younger children, under the age of 5-10 years."

Elevated blood pressure in secondary hypertension cases tends to be more severe and consistent than in primary hypertension and may require a variety of special diagnostic tests for identification.

Risk factors for pediatric hypertension include obesity and family history. Up to 80% of children with primary hypertension have a family history of the disease.

Gender and ethnicity also can be risk factors. "We have learned from studies of children in their second decade of life that boys are twice as likely to have prehypertension as girls," says Satlin. "Blood pressures tend to be higher in Hispanic and African-American children, compared to Caucasian children."

Signs and symptoms

One of the difficulties of treating childhood hypertension is that it is frequently a silent disease. "Hypertension typically does not present with any major symptoms in children, except perhaps headache," says Satlin. "This is a big problem, because hypertension that begins in childhood and goes untreated can persist into adulthood, increasing the risk of heart disease, stroke and kidney disease." Because pediatric hypertension is often asymptomatic, it’s usually diagnosed through routine screening.

If pediatric hypertension is severe, it can lead to a variety of symptoms and in rare cases cause seizures, kidney disease, eye disease or heart failure.

Traditional treatment

When a child is diagnosed with hypertension, it is important to determine if there is an underlying cause. "The evaluation usually includes a full history and physical exam, blood pressure measurements in both arms and legs, blood and urine tests, and frequently ultrasounds of the heart and kidneys," says Satlin.

In children, secondary hypertension is often the result of kidney, heart or
hormonal conditions. "Depending on what is found, besides a nephrologist, a child might see a pediatric cardiologist or endocrinologist," says Satlin.

For children with primary prehypertension or hypertension, lifestyle modification can be enough to reduce blood pressure. "The key steps are a healthy diet with low salt intake and more fruits and vegetables, avoiding obesity and getting regular exercise," says Satlin. "Children with more severe hypertension also need to do these things, but their doctor might also need to treat the blood pressure with medications until the blood pressure improves or if it does not improve enough."

Children with an identifiable cause may need a specific treatment. For instance, children with the kidney disease called nephrotic syndrome, which can cause hypertension, often respond well to temporary use of diuretics or oral corticosteroids. "If we can treat the underlying disease, the blood pressure will usually return to normal" says Satlin, "and since the long-term consequences of hypertension can be very significant, it’s important to identify and treat this early in life."

Research breakthroughs

Scientists have vastly enhanced our understanding of the causes of hypertension in children as well as adults by studying patients with extreme elevations of blood pressure or a family history.

"It has become clear that high blood pressure is the end product of an interaction of genes and environment," says Satlin. "Thanks to major research breakthroughs, we’ve finally uncovered the genetic basis for a number of causes of hypertension."

Questions for your doctor

A good way for some parents to start a conversation with their child’s pediatrician is, "I have high blood pressure. Is my child at risk?"

Parents also may want to ask specifically about their child’s blood pressure percentile. If your child is at risk or already has higher-than-normal blood pressure, ask, "What can I do to lower my child’s blood pressure?" There is a lot that doctors and parents can do to prevent or treat childhood hypertension, so get prepared to ask the right questions.

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More than 70,000 children and teens go to the emergency room each year for injuries and complications from medical devices, and contact lenses are the leading culprit, the first detailed national estimate suggests.

About one-fourth of the problems were things like infections and eye abrasions in contact lens wearers. These are sometimes preventable and can result from wearing contact lenses too long without cleaning them.

Other common problems found by researchers at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration include puncture wounds from hypodermic needles breaking off in the skin while injecting medicine or illegal drugs; infections in young children with ear tubes; and skin tears from pelvic devices used during gynecological exams in teen girls.

Malfunction and misuse are among possible reasons; the researchers are working to determine how and why the injuries occurred and also are examining the prevalence in adults. Those efforts might result in FDA device warnings, depending on what they find, said study co-author Dr. Brock Hefflin.

The most serious problems involved implanted devices such as brain shunts for kids with hydrocephalus (water on the brain); chest catheters for cancer patients receiving chemotherapy at home; and insulin pumps for diabetics. Infections and overdoses are among problems associated with these devices. Only 6 percent of patients overall had to be hospitalized.

Dr. Steven Krug, head of emergency medicine at Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital, said the study highlights a trade-off linked with medical advances that have enabled chronically ill children to be treated at home and live more normal lives.

Home care can be challenging for families; Krug says he has seen children brought in because catheters were damaged or became infected.

"Health care providers need to be aware of these kids and their devices and how to recognize or diagnose" related problems, Krug said. He was not involved in the study.

The study appears in Pediatrics, published online Monday.

Hefflin and lead author Dr. Cunlin Wang work in the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health. They note there has been recent concern about medical device safety in children, particularly since many devices intended for adults are used in children.

The researchers analyzed medical records from ER visits reported in a national injury surveillance system. Based on data from about 100 nationally representative hospitals, they estimated that 144,799 medical device-related complications occurred during 2004 and 2005, or more than 70,000 yearly.

Almost 34,000 problems were linked with contact lenses in the two-year period. The rest were scattered among 12 other categories including general medical devices such as needles and catheters, gynecology devices and heart devices.

Hefflin said the study is the first to evaluate device-related injuries in children only. It did not include device problems in already hospitalized children.

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Community-based programs to halt childhood obesity are gaining popularity as schools, local governments, parents and health clubs work together to help children slim down and eat more healthfully.

First lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign has helped push the issue to the forefront.

But some interventions may be working better than others, according to a study presented this week at the International Congress on Obesity in Stockholm. Researchers studied the success of three three-year community intervention programs, each targeting a different age group of more than 1,000 children — those younger than 5, primary school-age children and teens. Each group had a similar control population that received no intervention.

The interventions targeted healthful eating and physical activity, and included strategies to continue the community programs once after the study.

Children younger than 5 had the best results. This group included 12,000 children in preschools, day care facilities, homes and maternal and child health services. After three years, the prevalence of overweight or obese children was about 3 percent lower than in the control group.

Children in the primary school group didn't see any reductions in overweight or obesity levels, but weight gain rates did slow. After three years, the children gained about 2 pounds less on average than their intervention-less counterparts.

Interventions in the teen group, which were done in Australia, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand, had varying results. Australian teens (who were mostly of European ancestry) lost weight, but those in other countries who were from the Pacific Islands or were of Indian heritage showed mixed outcomes.

"Once you get to high school-aged children, trying to implement an intervention at the whole community level becomes more difficult," Boyd Swinburn, the director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Obesity Prevention at Deakin University in Australia, who presented the study, said in a statement.

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Measuring children's neck circumference could provide a quick, simple way to screen them for weight problems, a new study suggests.

Such screening is recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an influential panel sponsored by the government's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, starting at the age of 6. Right now, doctors usually use body mass index, or BMI, to gauge whether a child (or adult) is overweight or obese. But BMI, which is a ratio of weight to height, is not a good indicator of how much body fat a person has.

Because pounds due to excess body fat -- rather than larger bones or greater muscle mass -- are the health concern, researchers have been looking for more precise ways to gauge fat levels. One way is to measure waist circumference, which studies suggest is better than BMI alone in assessing abdominal fat and health risks, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease, in adults.

Another tactic is to measure neck circumference -- which, although less studied, seems to be a potential marker of obesity and health risks in adults.

The new study, published in the journal Pediatrics, looked at whether measuring neck circumference has any value in screening children for excess pounds and obesity.

Since BMI is not a precise indicator of body fat, adding a neck circumference measurement could improve childhood obesity screening, lead researcher Dr. Olubukola Nafiu, of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, told Reuters Health.

And compared with waistline measurements, measuring the neck would also be quicker and more comfortable for children, Nafiu said, since they can keep all their clothes on for the latter.

Neck circumference is also more consistent in comparison to waist size -- which can swell after a big lunch, for instance.

For their study, Nafiu and his colleagues measured weight, height, waist circumference and neck circumference in 1,102 children and teenagers ages 6 to 18 who were undergoing surgery at their center.

They found that neck circumference correlated well with both BMI and waist size in boys and girls, as well as younger children and teenagers.

The researchers also pinpointed "optimal" cutoff points for neck circumference that identified a majority of kids with a high BMI. For example, a 6-year-old boy with a neck circumference of greater than 28.5 centimeters - about 11.2 inches -- was nearly four times more likely to be overweight or obese, based on BMI, as a 6-year-old boy with a smaller neck circumference.

In addition to helping screen for obesity, the researchers note, neck measurements might also be useful for spotting kids at risk of sleep apnea, a disorder in which tissues at the back the throat temporarily collapse during sleep to create repeated stops and starts in breathing. Obesity, particularly excess weight in the upper body, is a risk factor.

Nafiu said that in earlier studies, he and his colleagues found that children with a high BMI were at relatively greater risk of certain post-surgery problems; they tend, for instance, to take longer to wake up from anesthesia because the drugs concentrate in body fat.

In the future, Nafiu said, the researchers want to look at whether measuring neck circumference before surgery can identify children at greater risk of such problems.
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It's no secret that childhood obesity is a major issue in the United States. First Lady Michelle Obama has even devoted part of her agenda to fighting it. At the core of the problem is the fact that less than one third of all children ages 6 to 17 get regular vigorous exercise, defined as at least 20 minutes of physical activity that makes them sweat and breathe hard, according to a new joint report from the American Heart Association and the National Association for Sport and Physical Education. That's in stark contrast to what the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommended in its recently released Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans: at least 60 minutes of moderate or vigorous exercise daily.
Click here to find out more!

[Read: 3 Ways Parents Can Use Michelle Obama's Experience to Fight Child Obesity.]

So what should parents do to get their kids moving more often? First, don't assume your child gets sufficient exercise in school through physical education classes, experts say. Most, but not all states require P.E., according to the new report. That means parents should incorporate physical activity into family time at home. Here are 5 tips to get started:

Encourage a little bit at a time. Minutes spent playing kickball with friends during recess count toward the hourlong daily goal, as does climbing trees in the backyard after school. "It doesn't have to be all at once," says Nancy Brown, CEO of the AHA. "Kids should be doing things appropriate for their age, so that [exercise] becomes a behavior and a natural part of what they do."

[Read: 4 Reasons More Recess Helps Kids Do Better in School.]

Advocate for well-maintained, safe sidewalks and bike paths in your neighborhood, and volunteer to supervise the use of school facilities after hours. Children are more likely to want to play outside—and you'll feel more comfortable with them doing it—if it's safe, so attend neighborhood association or city council meetings to request proper upkeep of nearby sidewalks and paths. Also, consider gyms and tracks at local schools as options for physical activity after hours and on weekends. Often, schools are willing to make gyms and equipment available on the weekends but simply need parents to volunteer to supervise, Brown says.

[Read: 10 Reasons Play Can Make You Healthy, Happy, and More Productive.]

Practice what you preach. "We think that parents and other adult role models need to set an example by being active themselves," Brown says. And it's not hard to find activities the whole family can do together, such as a daily walk or bike ride in the neighborhood. Other simple but fun options: hide-and-seek, jump rope, tag, or a game of basketball in the driveway. Mowing the lawn, raking leaves, and shoveling snow count, too.

[Read: Smart Fitness for Grown-Ups: A 10-Week Workout Routine.]

Don't underestimate the value of some video games. The AHA and Nintendo recently teamed up to promote the use of the Wii Fit to help Americans meet recommended physical activity guidelines. The goal of the partnership is to teach people how so-called "active-play" video games encourage regular exercise. If you're having a tough time getting your child to play outside, consider buying a video game that requires the child to get moving, Brown suggests.

[Read: 7 Tips From Uncle Sam's New Fitness Guidelines.]

Don't let other activities or physical disabilities limit your child. Thirty-two states allow students to waive P.E. because of health issues, physical disabilities, religious beliefs, early graduation, or participation in other activities, such as cheerleading or marching band. But those kids—even those with physical disabilities or health problems—still need to get an hour or more of exercise per day, says Charlene Burgeson, executive director of the NASPE. "Not being physically active isn't the way to go. If students have health issues or disabilities, there may be a way to modify the [physical] activity" to accommodate them, she says. "By not giving them that activity, we're really doing them an injustice." Solving this problem may mean approaching the school or gym teacher to ask how the class can be modified to accommodate your child.

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Eat your heart out. Teenage boys routinely pack in 2,000 calories at lunch when given the chance, without any fat-producing effects, according to a study.

Given the chance, 14- to 17-year old guys eat more than girls their age and turn those calories into height and muscle mass.

Researchers from the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development studied 204 kids between the ages of 8 and 17, according to Reuters. The kids were told to eat as much as they would normally. The typical noontime pig-out for the boys weighed in at close to 2,000 calories in late puberty - a fact that won’t surprise parents of boys who routinely eat them out of house and home.

The eating pattern makes perfect sense since boys have a later growth spurt than girls, according to researcher Dr. Jack A. Yanovski.

“There’s a lot of folk wisdom that says boys can eat prodigious amounts, but we haven’t had much data,” he told Reuters. Yanovski’s study was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

In the study, girls didn’t prove to be quite as ravenous. They demonstrated the largest appetites between the ages of 10 and 13, averaging nearly 1,300 calories at lunch. The figure increased just slightly among older teenage girls, which was consistent with their development.

Unlike guys, girls have their biggest growth spurt in early to mid-puberty. After that, as women know all to well, 2,000-calorie feasts no longer morph into height or muscle mass.

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Ouch! A British teenager labored for nearly three weeks before she delivered a tiny preemie.

Thankfully, Daniel Barwell, who weighed just 1 pound and 3 ounces at birth, recently celebrated his first birthday at a robust 17 pounds, according to the Daily Mail.

His mom, Amy Buck, was three and one-half months away from her due date when she began what’s believed to be the slowest labor ever.

“Thinking back, I don’t know how it was possible for me to be in labor for the best part of 20 days and Daniel to survive despite being born so small,” she told the Daily Mail.

Buck was admitted to the hospital May 4, 2009, with contractions. She’d already experienced labor pains earlier in the pregnancy and thought she might be miscarrying. This time, she said, the contractions grew worse and she spent her time staying in bed or walking around. At the hospital, where doctors tried to stop the labor because the baby was so premature, Buck spent five days taking medications to delay labor and antibiotics for an infection.

When Daniel finally emerged into the world - feet first - his mom said, “Oh, my God, he’s kicking!”

Given just a 15% chance of survival by doctors, baby Daniel was treated for lung problems and had laser eye treatments. Last October, his mom, who lives with Daniel’s dad, 20-year-old car dealer Martin Barwell, took him home.

“He’s only different in that he’s smaller than other kids,” Buck said. “And he’s only got two teeth.”

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Here's mud in your eye, or at least vodka.

The latest ridiculous (and health-endangering) drinking stunt to gain popularity among college students is called "vodka eyeballing," where buzz-seeking partiers tip back their heads and have a shot of vodka poured directly on the eye.

The trend is believed to have originated at Las Vegas nightclubs, as waitresses, hungry for tips, performed this cheap trick. Since building momentum in the U.S., vodka eyeballing has gained a foothold in the U.K. and Scotland, reports the Daily Mail’s Barbara Davies.

YouTube features more than 800 clips of vodka eyeballing. There’s even a Facebook page devoted to the craze — and it has over 100 fans.

Vodka eyeballers claim to experience an instant high and deeper inebriation. Their medical rationale: The alcohol passes easily through the mucous membrane and enters the bloodstream through veins at the back of the eye for a quicker buzz than drinking.

While doctors have dismissed this reasoning, they are deeply concerned about long-term damage, like permanent scarring and deteriorating vision.

"In the past, vodka has been used as a disinfectant," Prof. Robin Touquet, a consultant in emergency medicine at St. Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, U.K., told the Daily Mail. "At 40% proof, imagine what it can do to an area as sensitive as the eye? It is highly toxic."

But, immune to sensible thinking and urged by peers to compete, students act recklessly and with disregard to the consequences.

Melissa Fontaine, a former university student and prolific vodka eyeballer, is troubled by a constantly watering eye and worries about future side effects.

“I'm in constant pain because of what I did,” Fontaine told the Daily Mail. “I'm terrified that it will get worse. I wish I could turn the clock back and change things. But I can't.”

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Three years ago, doctors caring for a British girl facing surgery made an amazing discovery: she’d actually grown two new kidneys to replace the failed ones that had caused the health problems she’d suffered since birth.

Surgeons at Sheffield Children’s Hospital in England found that Angel Burton's new kidneys had started doing the work of the diseased ones, according to Sky News Online. The youngster, now 8, is no longer facing kidney failure.

The doctors apparently did not see the new kidneys that were perched above the originals. On scans, which had been done for five years, they appeared as one kidney.

"It’s a real miracle," Claire Burton, Angel’s mother, told Sky News Online. "We’re just so grateful to have Angel back to her happy, healthy self."

The little girl had a rare condition called duplex kidney that causes the organs to be fused in the center. Even rarer, in Angel’s case, was to have both organs be duplex, which means she actually had four kidneys and four ureters.

From the time she was born, Angel’s health got worse. Doctors diagnosed her with bilateral reflux, meaning that urine was leaking into her kidneys and infecting them. Tests showed that the kidneys had been severely affected.

During an operation to craft an artificial valve in October 2007, the extra kidneys were discovered. Nearly three years later, Angel’s looking at a bright future and is on track to recover fully.

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New York mothers could learn a thing or two about child rearing from Thomas Balmes' 'Babies'

Bayarjargal, who lives in Mongolia with his family, is one of four babies followed from birth to first steps in Thomas Balmès' 'Babies.'

In the movie "Babies" (which opened on Friday), a fly-on-the-wall documentary about four infants growing up in four very different countries, 6-month-old Hattie attends a "developmental movement" class in her native San Francisco.

"The Earth is our mother," chants the group of moms and dads, bumping their kids off their knees. Seems like fun.

Except Hattie's father doesn't look as if he's enjoying himself one bit. He seems terrified that Hattie is not responding properly to the "sensory stimulation."

By contrast, every time they appear in the film, the parents of Bayar, a little boy raised in rural Mongolia, are the picture of calm. They don't bat an eyelid when he eats dirt or licks the cat. When a rooster strolls across his crib and a yak drinks out of his bathtub, it's no big deal.

Watching "Babies," I sensed that frazzled Western moms like me have a lot to learn from families like Bayar's.

"The Mongolian children have the freedom to move around, play with animals and explore the space around them," says the movie's director, Thomas Balmes. "The parents are never far away ... and they do not worry."

Balmes selected the babies who appear in the film pretty much at random - his only criterion was choosing families who welcomed their new arrivals "with love." While he insists that the documentary isn't meant to be judgmental, he raises questions about the approach to child care by various cultures. So it's a shame that the cameras didn't follow a baby from New York. There would have been plenty of material here.

In the big city, we are way too busy going to "Mommy and Me" sessions, worrying that our precious bundle isn't "getting" the infant sign language course; that the $40 we spent on "Opera Tots" is wasted money.

For instance, at my daughter's music class recently, a mother threw a tantrum because there weren't enough tambourines to go around. Later, she complained they hadn't sterilized the percussion instruments properly. God forbid her son caught a cold from a plastic rattle.

That manic Manhattan moment played out 7,000 miles from Namibia, Africa, where Ponijao, another child featured in "Babies," lives with her mom and eight sibings. There's no plastic rattles in her village. Instead, Ponijao plays with beads and stray dogs.

Nobody's advocating we trade our apartments for mud huts with no running water. That we flee to a poverty-stricken continent with a high infant mortality rate. But it's certainly time we relaxed the schedule and start to chill out.

In San Francisco, Hattie's permanently hassled-looking mom pores over a self-help book called "Becoming the Parent You Want to Be." Similarly, there is a chic Tokyo couple in the film. They own every baby gadget under the sun.

Meanwhile, back in Mongolia, there's a scene where Bayar's mom rides home from the hospital perched on the back of a scooter, her newborn in her arms. Earlier, a hospital nurse swaddles him in a blanket, fixing it tight with a length of string.

Here in New York, that would be unheard of. Instead, we obsess about car seat specifications and the latest product recall for "unsafe" baby slings. We fret over germs in the sandbox.

Sunday, a mom friend of mine announced she has stopped making chili. Her family practically lives on the stuff, but she's hung up about BPA (bisphenol A, a chemical found in plastic bottles, soda cans and food containers) in canned tomatoes.

So I'm buying her a ticket to see "Babies." Like me, she'll pick up some child-rearing tips from Namibia and Mongolia. You never know, she might even cancel her toddler's French pastry-making classes.

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