Across Santa Cruz County, students have been heading back to school, and while the time can be one of excitement and anticipation, it’s also a time when families can take simple, extra steps to start the year off on the right foot.
It can be quite simple, explained Doctor Sara Faheem, the director of pediatrics at Dominican Hospital and a pediatrician at Dignity Health Pediatrics. An important step is to maintain a balanced diet and minimize sugar and processed food intake.
As the county heads into the school year, kids will be able to make decisions about what they put into their bodies, which can impact their health, said Faheem. “I think it’s just super important to make sure that parents and their children have healthy conversations about how to treat their bodies,” added Faheem, so kids know how to keep themselves healthy.
The best way to integrate these healthy practices is to make sure everyone in the home is also taking healthy steps, explained Faheem. When parents model healthy behaviors for their kids, their kids are more likely to make healthy choices.
Consistency and Support Systems
With consistency and a good support system, these are habits that can stay with them as they get older, and “become a more natural part of their life or their activities of daily living,” said Faheem.
“The United States is, unfortunately, battling an obesity crisis in our pediatric population,” added Faheem. “So it is super important that we’re trying to tackle this, as early as possible.”
The incoming school year is also characterized by illness, from the common cold to the flu, and this is normal as people begin to gather and socialize, Faheem explained.
Preventing Illness and Hygiene
Preventing illness can be as simple as practicing good hygiene, explained Faheem. Keeping surfaces clean, sanitizing shared things, washing hands, and using hand sanitizer help to keep potential illness at bay. But it’s also important to stay up to date on vaccinations, added Faheem, and parents should speak to primary care providers about whether their child is eligible.
If a child has an active fever, it’s important to keep them home until they have been fever-free for about 24 hours before returning to school.
Prioritizing Mental Health
Staying healthy also means paying attention to mental health, said Faheem. Nervousness and anxiety around the transition from summer vacation to school is normal, explained Faheem, but “it’s all just more of a reason to just make sure that your child is able to talk about it with you, whatever they may be feeling.”
Keeping those lines of communication open from caregiver to child is important. As children go through different phases of life, relationships change.
In this case, it’s important to ensure that kids can share their feelings, that those lines of communication are open, and that they feel safe and supported. Additionally, pediatricians and primary care providers are there to support families when concerns become greater.
Maintaining Physical Activity
Keeping hormone levels stable, protein levels balanced, and serotonin levels high with exercise is another way to maintain mental well-being, explained Faheem, adding that it can be easy to integrate into the day; the goal is “just getting that heart rate up.”
It can be “simple things, like walking your dog a couple of times a day.”
Kids, from about 6 to 17, should get an average of at least one hour of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity daily—meaning raising the heart rate to the point of breaking a light sweat—and 20-30 minutes of that hour should be devoted to cardio or muscle strengthening, said Faheem.
These activities can be accompanied by meaningful social interaction with friends or family, which is another way to maintain mental well-being.
