Back To School - Teens Health Issues & Nutrition
Also read Children's Ailments

The common cold is responsible for an estimated 38 million lost school days a year. In fact, most children have up to eight colds a year, so chances are that your child can be exposed to a lot of germs at school. Many factors, including a poor diet, can affect the amount of friendly flora in your child's intestinal system. These flora are essential to good health, digestion, nutrient absorption and immune strength.

Probiotics: Bifidophilus is perfect for children and adults. The intestinal system is home to millions of 'friendly bacteria' helping to synthesize nutrients from foods and keeping 'unfriendly bacteria' in check. Antibiotic use and poor dietary habits can deplete these 'friendly bacteria".

Despite a nationwide plea from parents for more nutritious school lunches, school cafeteria food or take-out from the nearby fast food joint still leaves a lot to be desired!

Our kids may not know it, and probably would never admit it, but their bodies crave proper nutrition. Vitamins, minerals and other nutrients feed individual cells. Without proper nutrition, kids simply cannot function and perform at optimal levels.

Children's Elderberry Immune
It supports the immune system with elderberry, vitamin C and zinc.

Help Your Child Hit the Books with Focus Attention
The ability to focus on the subject at hand is crucial to your child's academic success. A perfect complement to a healthful diet and proper vitamin and mineral supplementation, Focus Attention provides nutrients (like Ginkgo biloba and DMAE) that are essential for maintaining brain-stimulation levels while supporting blood circulation and neurotransmitters in the brain. This special formulation also helps protect the body from exposure to environmental toxins or stressors. Focus Attention encourages restful, balanced mental activity, and it's available in capsules and a great-tasting powder drink mix.

Build Strong Bones for the Playground with Liquid Calcium
Whether in gym class or recess, your child can benefit greatly from regular exercise and activity. You can help ensure that he or she has strong bones and bone tissue for play. Contrary to popular belief, bones are not solid. They are porous and dependent upon proper nutrition and the availability of certain vitamins and minerals to remain strong. Furthermore, the body must be able to absorb those nutrients in order to use them to build strong bones. Proper attention to bone health is especially important in children and teens, as they experience their major growth in these formative years.

Easily absorbed Liquid Calcium from Nature's Sunshine helps support bone health and replenish minerals and nutrients the body needs, like calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, zinc and manganese. Liquid Calcium is specially formulated with liposomes to increase the minerals' bioavailability. In addition to supporting bone health and the structural integrity of bone tissues, Liquid Calcium also helps to maintain balanced pH levels in the body. Calcium, a naturally alkaline substance, helps to offset the primarily acid-forming foods, meats, cheese and sugar, ever present in our kids' diets. Great-tasting Nature's Sunshine Liquid Calcium is a great choice for your child.

The Link Between Nutrition and Teen Troubles
Reprinted from Sunshine Sharing Vol. 5 No. 11

Stressed or depressed seems to describe many of today's teens.
In addition, teenagers display signs of over activity, giddiness and excitability, along with other unpredictable behaviors. Frequently a teenager's mood can change from one extreme to another within seconds and confuse parents about what is going on with their teenager. How to resolve teen troubles can perplex any parent, so here are a few pointers for the most common complaints of teenagers (and their parents) poor behavior, acne and mood swings.

Sowing Their Wild Oats
One cause of poor behavior and delinquency in teens is too much white sugar in the diet, which produces unstable blood sugar levels. As a result high blood sugar levels can leave a feeling of light-headedness. The pancreas over-reacts and floods the blood stream with insulin.

Consequently, blood sugar drops too low, and hunger (usually craving for more sweets) is the result as the body wants to raise its blood sugar level back to normal. This demand for sugar is evidence of white sugars drug-like effect on the body, which leaves one feeling highly nervous as the heart races similar to a panic attack.

Replacing white sugar or reducing its consumption helps eliminate this chain reaction, although sugar cravings often occur when white sugar is removed from the diet. One way to reduce sugar cravings is to cut out sugar cold turkey for two weeks to allow the body time to normalize.

Sometimes a craving can come from a lack of iron. I-X may help.
For others, it is a shortage of Vitamin C or B-Complex. Others find they need an emphasis on a particular B vitamin like vitamin B6. We recommend this excellent formula "Focus Attention Powder".

One final approach to reducing sugar cravings is chromium and licorice root, which also stabilize blood sugar levels. Nutri-Calm may also be useful here.

Gymnema also helps those with pancreatic weakness to strengthen this gland's ability to make insulin. Another product that is an herbal power-house for blood sugar problems is an Ayurvedic formula from the Far East called Blood Sugar Formula.

One last (and effective) approach to reducing sugar problems is to use white sugar substitutes: unprocessed honey, molasses, maple syrup.

Natural forms of sugar found in some foods, such as fructose, are more beneficial for the body since natural sugar requires less insulin for absorption by body cells. Moreover, using complex carbohydrates (chains of simple sugars) like grains and vegetables instead of sugary foods permit the body more time to digest and use the sugars. Now those teenage refrigerator raids for sweet snacks may be reduced.

Underground Connections
Skin conditions frequently start beneath the skin. Pimples, for example, are caused by adolescent hormone changes and can be aggravated by poor diet and lack of skin and body cleansing. Toxins in the blood that have overloaded the blood stream can also contribute to acne since these impurities are finally absorbed by the skin.
An easy solution for some is to take the homeopathic remedy simply called Acnetone. But general body cleansing (especially colon and liver) and building the digestive system in addition to adequate skin care is also needed

When you are looking for solutions to skin problems, the first thing to consider is the condition of the digestive system. The digestive system, which is very sensitive to the nervous stress teenagers encounter, benefits from HCl (or try PDA), Food Enzymes and other digestive aids (cleanse first - using Tiao He Cleanse Chinese Herbal formula is a good idea - and then build).
Another common source of acne is the toxins that have built up in the blood stream, which can lead to pimples that may turn into scar-forming boils. For many teens, acne caused by toxins is a sign of liver imbalance. Blood purifiers, such as Burdock, Pau D'Arco, BP-X or Blood Stimulator may help.

Meanwhile, keep the skin clean while the blood purifiers do their job. Washing the face three times a day with a gentle cleanser, using Pau d'Arco Lotion and vitamin E externally (helps prevent scarring and speed healing) promotes a clearer complexion. A poultice of comfrey and vitamin E also works well.

In addition to general body cleansing, open the pores by taking a hot bath, or place warm cloth packs on the skin over an application of Pascalite clay to help draw toxic material from beneath the skins surface. However, avoid squeezing pimples that may surface since this practice spreads the bacteria.

Final tips for treating acne include a generous application of tea tree oil to help control the spread of acne. Additionally, try crushing a zinc tablet and apply it as a paste for quicker healing of blemishes. Soon after, don't forget to apply vitamin E to help prevent scaring and to encourage skin tissue repair. In addition, Aloe Vera Gel can be dabbed on affected areas to provide soothing relief. Finally, Vitamin A & D is important for all skin problems, as well as generous amounts of B-complex (especially niacin) and vitamin C.


The Moody Blues
Changes from one mood to its extreme opposite can be triggered by food allergies, food preservatives, artificial food colors and sweeteners (especially soda pop), or even drugs like Valium and birth control pills. Eliminating these substances is the first step.

Another solution, and perhaps the easiest, is exercise. Exercise will increase oxygen to the body cells, clear out the mental cobwebs and stimulate the production of endorphins, which can make a teenager feel great. The Chinese formulation Mood Elevator is helpful in treating mood swings.

For blood sugar problems that create mood swings, such as reactive hypoglycemia, dietary changes are a must, like it or not. No more flooding the body with simple sugars, or clogging the system with greasy foods. Supplements like Focus Attention Powder is a good beginning. Herbal formulations like Blood Sugar Formula, PBS, and the mineral chromium GTF are also essential in treating blood sugar problems.

Single herbs for a stressed or depressed nervous system include rosemary, gotu kola, parsley, and sage. Consider also the thyroid gland as the culprit behind mood swings and long-term depression. TS II w/Hops, kelp or black walnut may help treat this condition. Low blood pressure from low thyroid has also been associated with chronic depression.

Sometimes just correcting one's diet will gradually resolve teenage troubles like poor behavior, acne and mood swings, even without psychiatric counseling or powerful drugs (like Prozac). Good nutrition, nutritional supplements, exercising and giving lots of emotional support to your teenager is a great beginning. It might be all you need for a good ending, too.


Teenagers Pharmacy
Never judge a book by its cover. However, remember outward appearance often influences those first impressions that are left behind. To parents, a teenager that primps in front of a mirror or takes over the bathroom can signal a teen that has become preoccupied with personal appearance.

To help your teen leave a good impression, Mother Nature offers effective answers to common teenage hygiene problems. Here are some suggestions for cleansing and other products for body care to help prevent hair, skin and odor problems that can deflate a teenagers ego:

Hair that has lost its luster can regain its natural glow with an organic herbal shampoo, which helps prevent hair damage and scalp irritation from harsh chemicals commonly found in commercial shampoo products. Jojoba oil can also help moisturize and condition the hair. Use right after regular shampooing.

Skin also benefits from the affects of jojoba oil moisturizing and conditioning as well. However, cleansing is sometimes a must before moisturizing the skin. And for teens that are sun baked, try Aloe Vera Gel for painful sunburn.

Body odor, a condition more common than sunburn for most teens, may follow mental and emotional stress, not just a physical workout. When body odor strikes, use the 10-day Tiao He Cleanse to stamp out the source of noxious flatulence, bad breath and underarm odor. Add to that this easy and inexpensive deodorant: a pinch or two of baking soda applied under the arms, or sprinkled in the shoes, etc.

Another source of body odor, bad breath, can be treated using Liquid Chlorophyll as a mouthwash (its also works as a body deodorant), and then follow this with Xylibrite Toothpaste to be sure the teeth are white instead of green (do not rinse right away.. keep the toothpaste in the mouth for a minute or two)!

As a dietary supplement to fight body odor, zinc is well known to help prevent all kinds of body odor while it also boosts the immune system and helps repair damaged body tissue. And as a final guide to good grooming, apply a little Tei Fu Oil or Pau d'Arco Lotion a nice way for either gender to smell wonderful before a date.

Sources Allergy is More Than Hives, Hay Fever and Asthma in Prevention, March 1990. Food, Teens and Behavior by Barbara Reed, Ph.D.. (Manitowoc, Wisconsin: Natural Press, 1983).