All this week, starting tonight, we will be doing a series on healthy #BackToSchool.
We will start the series with a Top 10 list and dive into some more detail later this week.
So, here we go. What are the Top 10 things to think about when it comes to keeping your family healthy going into the new school year?
1. Good hand hygiene. This is the most important thing. Everyone in your family should practice good hand hygiene at home, work, and school. Teach your child good hand hygiene and hand washing techniques. Encourage good hand washing. Teach your child to wash hands, at very least, before eating, after using toilet, after cough/sneezing/blowing nose, after using public transport, after the playground, after petting animals, after coming home from being out. I did hear the bizarre pseudoscience claim that too much hand washing is bad for your child. Your child’s immune system cannot build up immunity to e.coli (from toilets), salmonella (raw food), pinworm eggs, vomiting bug virus…. Nor does anyone else need your child’s snot smeared on a railing or door handle. Soap and water. It’s that simple.
2. Healthy diet – not supplements**. Your child should also have adequate Vitamin D. Get a recommendation from your registered pharmacist/chemist. Many vitamins sold for children have nothing useful in them or inadequate amounts of vitamin D. Children under 4 should get a supplement containing 5 micrograms/day. Fortified milk is also helpful. If you are worried about your child’s diet, fussy eaters, food sensitivity: a CORU/INDI registered dietitian is the only person qualified to help (and they are great!) Trusted resources include @safefood and INDI website. Consider following some INDI dietitians on social media for great ideas: @What2eat.ie, @solidstart.ie
3. Cough and sneeze etiquette.Teach your child to sneeze/cough into their elbow, not their hand. (you should be doing it too!) Start this from the beginning. Teach them to wipe their runny nose with a tissue, not a hand, and dispose of it properly.
4. Vaccines. Vaccines teach your body to make defenses against serious viruses and some bacteria that can be deadly, disabling, or difficult to treat. Check that your child’s vaccines are up-to-date. If you are considering paying for an optional chicken pox vaccine, the earlier in school year the better. Around October, you can expect the flu vaccine will be rolled out. The pandemic disrupted primary childhood vaccination schedules in many different ways globally, and we are seeing outbreaks of diseases that we shouldn’t see in 2022: polio, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough. #VaccinesWork If you are vaccine hesitant, no problem. Make an appointment with your GP to ask your questions*.
5. What’s your sick day plan? You need one. Start thinking now, because it will happen and your family will need it. It isn’t easy. Really. Virus gonna virus and it’s not going to listen to your arguments. Even if it’s not covid, it can be flu or RSV. Stay home, feel better, and don’t share the germ. Rant about it being the new normal all you want – but if we think it through: going to work sick was never really a good idea anyway, was it? Later this week, we will break down what is normal for the number of viral infections you can expect this year.
6. Daily physical activity supports good health and your immune system is part of that. Did you know that children need 60 minutes a day?
7. Get adequate sleep**. Good sleep hygiene in the home can help and usually includes an evening routine with set bedtime and limit on screens in the bedroom/at bedtime. Aim for:
Infants 4 to 12 months need 12 to 16 hours (including naps), Toddlers 1 to 2 years need 11 to 14 hours (including naps)
Children 3 to 5 years need 10 to 13 hours (including naps)
Children 6 to 12 years need 9 to 12 hours
Teens 13 to 18 years need 8 to 10 hours.
Parents need — well, more than whatever it is you are getting, probably.
8. Manage stress. Relaxation techniques, lavender oil/aromatherapy, mindfulness, meditation, yoga and even counselling if needed. There are many great resources for mental health out there! Stress and anxiety do make us more prone to “picking up bugs”
9. Follow public health advice. Masks are still advised on public transport and healthcare facilties. I know – I don’t see many either. But coming into winter viral season, it really can help reduce the transmission of colds, flus, and other respiratory viruses, like RSV. (This has been a common practice in other parts of the world for years before the Pandemic, and it makes good sense.)
10. The last one is what you don’t need: Immune boosting. I’m really pointing it out this year because our household budgets are under pressure. No one should be misled into spending money on supplements or treatments that they don’t need or are useless. Unfortunately, “immune boosting” is a favourite target of wellness marketing from alternative practitioners to salt rooms to supplements to probiotics to yogurt to tea. This unregulated wellness industry is worth millions of € (estimated to be worth 3 times that of the global pharmaceutical industry. There are no supplements that boost immunity. There are no probiotics that boost immunity. No magic “superfoods” that boost immunity.
**”Healthy diet” and Sleep need huge topics, which we will be doing in a separate post later in this week’s series. It’s worth pointing out that these are easy to say and hard to do. When I help families with these, consultations one-on-one can take as much much as 90 minutes to start. If you need help getting your household healthier from meal planning to managing stress and sleep, you can ask for help from your GP, registered dietitian, or a doc like me.
*Vaccine hesitancy is important, and it’s not surprising that we are seeing more of it in the wake of the infodemic of alternative facts over the last 5 years. My recommended reading list for vaccine hesitant parents that I started in 2019 is on this blog. You can use the Search function to either look by vaccine or May 2019.
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