Doctors Urge Indoor Tanning Ban for Minors, Smoking Linked to Infant Heart Defects named “Best/Worst News for Prevention"

"Best and Worst News for Prevention” is based on a purposive sample consisting of expert staff members who each week choose to share their opinions on the best and worst news for prevention.

BEST

Doctors Urge Indoor Tanning Ban for Minors

U.S. tanning salons should close their doors to minors to protect them from skin cancer, a group of 60,000 pediatricians said Monday in a new policy statement. With the move, the American Academy of Pediatrics joins the World Health Organization (WHO), the American Academy of Dermatology and other groups that are already pushing for a ban. Since 2009, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a part of the WHO, has classified tanning beds as cancer-causing. Research shows people who start going to tanning salons before age 35 have a 75-percent increase in their chances of developing melanoma, the deadliest type of skin cancer.

WORST

Smoking Linked to Infant Heart Defects

A pregnant woman who smokes in her first trimester is much more likely to have an infant with a congenital heart defect, U.S. health officials say.  A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta found tobacco exposure is associated with a 20 percent to 70 percent increased risk of certain types of defects such as those that obstruct the flow of blood from the right side of the heart into the lungs and openings between the upper chambers of the heart.


The “Best and Worst” awards are announced each week in “Prevention Matters,” the blog of Partnership for Prevention. "Best and Worst News for Prevention” is based on a purposive sample of expert staff members who each week choose to share their opinions on the best and worst news for prevention. More information is available at http://www.prevent.org/.

Breastfeeding Boosts Babies’ Immune Systems, Cartoon Characters Selling Unhealthy Foods Named "Best, Worst Prevention Ideas of the Week"

A new study showing that babies who were breast-fed had a lower risk of infections was named the “Best Prevention Idea of the Week,” while children finding foods tastier when their package displays a cartoon was named the “Worst Prevention Idea of the Week."

The “Best/Worst” awards are announced each week in “Prevention Matters,” the blog of Partnership for Prevention. Nominees are submitted by Partnership staff as well as the general public, and are voted on by the staff. Partnership for Prevention is a nonpartisan organization of business, nonprofit and government leaders who are working to make evidence-based disease prevention and health promotion a national priority. More information is available at http://www.prevent.org/.

BEST

Breast Milk Reduces Infections in Babies

Breast-feeding seems to provide an immune system boost to infants, helping to prevent respiratory and gastrointestinal illnesses in babies, according to new research.

Babies who were breast-fed exclusively for 4 months, and then partially until they were 6 months old, had a reduced risk of respiratory and gastrointestinal infections compared to babies who had never been breast-fed, the Dutch team found. "Exclusive breast-feeding reduces respiratory and gastrointestinal infections in infancy," said the study's senior author, Dr. Henriette Moll, a professor of pediatrics at Erasmus Medical Center's Sophia's Children's Hospital in Rotterdam.

WORST

Cartoon Characters Sell Kids on Unhealthy Foods

Popular cartoon characters are influencing the taste preferences of very young children, and not in a positive way, a new study suggests. Researchers found that the branding of American food product packaging with characters such as Dora the Explorer drives preschoolers to choose higher-calorie, less healthful foods over more nutritious options.

"The bottom line is that when kids are presented with a choice of graham crackers, fruit snacks or carrots, and the only difference is that one package has a licensed character on it, they actually think that the food with the character tastes better," said study author Christina Roberto, a doctoral student working at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.

The findings, reported online June 21 in Pediatrics, reflect on the food preferences of 4- to 6-year-old boys and girls who found foods tastier when the packaging bore the likenesses of beloved TV and movie characters.

Why Are U.S. Babies Being Born Lighter?

While concern continues to mount over childhood obesity, it turns out that mothers in the U.S. are giving birth to lighter babies, and no one is quite sure why. The data, published Thursday in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, showed a 1% increase in the number of the lowest-weight babies and suggested the birth-weight decline didn't stop in 2005. The trend is potentially troubling, since low-birth-weight babies are at higher risk for a host of health problems.

At the same time, researchers also found a 2% decrease in the number of babies considered large—those over the 90th percentile of weight for gestational age. That's considered positive, since large babies can experience more birth trauma and cause more birth injury to the mother.