Do you worry that your children are eating too many fast food meals? Concerned that they aren’t getting all the vitamins and minerals they need? You are not alone. Obesity has quickly become an epidemic among teenagers and children. Diabetes is turning up more often among younger adults. Fitness levels are low. One of the most frightening results may be that this generation will have an average life-span that is lower than that of their parents.
Even though most fast food restaurants make it difficult to find out what is actually in their meals you can get this information online. One site that has an extensive online database of nutritional content for a variety of foods, not just fast foods, is HealthAssist.net.
The site has a database with over 400 fast food meals listed and provides the calorie count and a detailed breakdown of what nutrients are in the food. There’s also a fun low calorie food chart, lists of food categorized by nutrient and numerous health tips and facts.
To get a good idea of what your last fast food meal consisted of start by going to the Common Fast Food Calorie Content Database then explore other areas of the site based on your specific interests.
If done right, a web application can be a great tool for helping children to learn. There’s a great site that has a well designed interactive program that young children will love. The website uses a child’s room as its main interface. You can click on the toys in the room and discover what they can do.
Here are a few examples:
- Put jigsaw puzzles together
- Explore a coral reef in a submarine
- Use a telescope to learn about constellations
- Compose your own music
- Conduct a chorus of singers
- Learn the alphabet in French, English and Spanish
- Practice counting
Just be aware that there are no instructions. This is meant to be an exploratory environment. The idea of the site is to try things, figure out what needs to be done and have hours of enjoyment discovering what you can do.
Give the site a try by going to Poisson Rouge.
Do you know of any other sites that are great for children? Share your experience by leaving a comment.
A Guide To Choosing Safe Toys For Your Children
This last year has focused a lot of attention on toy safety, particularly lead paint problems in children’s toys. Recall after recall has created great concerns and confusion among parents. Which toys are safe? How can I tell? Which toys have been recalled?
There’s a useful website that has done a lot of the work for you and organized the information to help you answer these questions. Healthy Toys has tested over 1200 toys and categorized the results. Tests were performed on a variety of substances including lead, chlorine, cadmium, arsenic and mercury. A description of the possible health effects is included.
You can search the database by toy name, by brand ( the database covers over 200 companies including Baby Einstein, Disney, Crayola, Fisher-Price, Mega Bloks and Tonka ) or by type (ie. dolls, bath toys, jewelry, squeeze toys, trains, etc.).
Inform yourself on this critical issue relating to child safety by going to the Healthy Toys website.
Tips to keep your holiday spending under control
Many people dread the arrival of January because that’s when all the holiday bills need to be paid. With a little care and planning you can stay within a budget and keep your holiday spending under control.
Here are a few tips to help you manage your holiday expenses and still have a great time:
- Set a budget for everyone on your holiday list and stick to it.
- Buy gift items in bulk to maximize savings.
- Ask people what they want to avoid getting something they won’t appreciate.
- Instead of individual gifts, bring a gift for the whole family.
- Anticipate incidental spending needs for food, entertainment and decorations that are bound to come up.
- Organize a gift exchange instead of giving individual presents.
These tips and a few more can be found on The Digerati Life website.
