This week is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, a time to recognize how deeply food and body image issues impact people, especially teenage girls. Eating disorders are increasingly common among children and teens and can have devastating effects that last a lifetime. Eating disorders are the third most prevalent type of chronic illness in teen girls – as many as 5% of girls will suffer from an eating disorder before their 18th birthday. While adolescent girls are the most likely to...

Topics: eating disorder

Do you remember the first time you felt proud of something you did as a child? For kids between one and eight years of age, positive influences on self-esteem are a vital source of social feedback and mental stability. Self-esteem in practice means liking yourself, having confidence in your abilities, and feeling assured that others will perceive you well. Self-esteem fuels children’s ability to solve problems, tackle challenges, think critically, and try new things.

Topics: self-esteem

Topics: Domestic Violence, Dating Violence

As the coronavirus pandemic drags on and on, experts have started to talk about a resulting trend: a mental health pandemic. Children are increasingly suffering from depression, anxiety, and negative feelings as their family life, social interactions, and activities have been altered or paused to account for yet another spike in cases. Winter can already be a challenging time emotionally – the days are shorter, darker, and colder, and it is more difficult to do the things kids enjoy doing...

Topics: Pandemic, Anxiety

Topics: Bullying

Birth defects affect a person at every stage of life, from infancy to adulthood. This January, join us in observing National Birth Defects Prevention Month, a time to acknowledge the complexity of birth and to create space to educate families about the best ways to make healthy choices to ensure their baby’s wellness.

Topics: Birth Defects

Topics: Domestic Violence

New year, new you – right? Starting a new year can feel invigorating and refreshing and brings with it the temptation to hit reset on the parts of life that are not entirely satisfying. Who doesn’t want to set positive intentions, make healthy changes, and approach the New Year with a sense of hope? At the same time, resolutions that crop up at the beginning of a new year are difficult to maintain. It can become tiring or tedious to hold strict rules, and in some cases, a resolution that feels...

New Year’s Eve is a beautiful time to celebrate new beginnings and to ring in a new year in the company of friends and family. New Year’s Eve can be a lot of fun and an ideal way to close out the many celebrations of the holiday season. At the same time, this holiday is notorious for exposing children to hazards. Here are some things to pay attention to so that everyone in your family can enjoy a safe celebration:

Topics: Christmas safety

Cyberbullying is a sneaky, complex form of harassment that can be difficult for adults to spot and even more difficult for children to navigate. Cyberbullying occurs when someone willfully inflicts harm through the use of computers, cell phones, or other devices. This behavior is pre-planned and deliberate; it is not an attempt to be funny, and it does not occur by accident. Cyberbullies tend to repeat their harm-inducing behaviors; they are not typically isolated incidents. Cyberbullying can...

Topics: Bullying, Cyber Bullying