HACKENSACK, NJ – January 29, 2019 – Hackensack Meridian Health Hackensack University Medical Center Foundation is pleased to announce that Judy Aschner, M.D., chair of pediatrics and physician-in-chief of the Hackensack Meridian Health Joseph M. Sanzari Children’s Hospital and clinical director, Children’s Care Transformation Services at Hackensack Meridian Health has been awarded significant grant funding to pilot HealthySteps, a program of ZERO TO THREE. With the support of collaborating funders, The Burke Foundation, The Nicholson Foundation and the Turrell Fund, the pilot will be implemented in three of the network’s pediatric primary care practices. The total amount to be funded to Hackensack Meridian Health by the three foundations is $ 838,489, while the total projected budget will be nearly $ 1.2 million, including in-kind giving and other funding provided by the collaborating funders to the HealthySteps national office at ZERO TO THREE.
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Hackensack Meridian Health Receives Significant Grant Funding to Pilot HealthySteps, a Program of ZERO TO THREE, in Network’s Pediatric Primary Care Practice
Very Few U.S. Adults Practice Top 5 Recommended Health Behaviors
Chalk it up to whatever you want to—human nature, laziness, busyness, feeling overwhelmed, or powerful distractions—but an almost minuscule percentage of U.S. adults perform the five behaviors that medical experts say are the key to good health.A recent report in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine on the “Healthy Behavior Adherence: The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2005-2016,” states that, at best, 6.3 percent of U.S. adults (the reported range is 4.4 percent to 6.3 percent) incorporate those practices in their daily lives. They are:· Healthy diet· Regular exercise· Completely cutting out smoking· Avoiding excessive alcohol consumption· Maintaining a healthy body mass index (a high BMI of 30 is considered borderline obese)The study’s lead author, Eric M. Hecht, MD, PhD, associate professor in the department of public health sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, said that the 12-year study tracked the lifestyle habits of 26,194 U.S. adults from ages 20 through 79.
There was a bit of a silver lining in the study. Although only 1 in 16 study participants practiced all five healthful behaviors, a substantially larger percentage, 20.2 percent to 22.8 percent, engaged in four of the five behaviors.
Beyond that, the highest percentage of participation, 45.4 percent to 48.3 percent, involved only two or fewer good behaviors. Overall, the average number of good practices performed by study participants was 2.6.
The study’s questionnaire asked a simple yes/no question about smoking, and more specific questions about alcohol use and exercise. For instance, it asked participants how many drinks they consumed on those days over the past 12 months when they took a drink. (The commonly accepted recommendation for daily alcohol intake is one drink for women and two for men because of men’s generally higher body mass.)
Several questions focused on high-intensity exercise, such as basketball or running, that ramps up heartbeat and respiration for 10 or more continuous minutes, and seemed designed to deliver a broad hint to study participants about the form and goals of their regular exercise.
In light of the current corona virus pandemic, Dr. Hecht said that comorbidities brought on by the failure to follow these practices may have contributed in some part to high fatalities among older people whose immune systems had been compromised by prior poor health practices over the years.
The impending U.S. pandemic of type 2 diabetes—an estimated 90 million U.S. adults are prediabetic—will bring the urgent need for these behaviors to the forefront more forcefully than ever.
Sources:
https://www.ajpmonline.org/
article/S0749-3797(20)30129-X/
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Defending champion Nathan Chen falls four times in practice
The first time Nathan Chen fell during his official practice Wednesday at SAP Center, he easily shrugged it off. But when the defending U.S. men’s figure skating champion and favorite to win a Pyeonchang Olympic berth tumbled to the ice three more times during the session, he became concerned.
Practice Testing Protects Memory Against Stress
Learning by taking practice tests, a strategy known as retrieval practice, can protect memory against the negative effects of stress, report scientists from Tufts University in a new study published in Science on Nov. 25.
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