Preschoolers can be turned off of television

It is possible to wean preschoolers from television.

An anti-obesity campaign to get low-income families to turn off the tube met with success.

Before the program began, a survey of families in the WIC nutrition program found 64 percent had little kids who watched two hours of TV a day or less. Six months later, the figure was 70 percent.

At the program's start, 65 percent of the survey participants said they never watched television during meals. Six months later, that number had risen to 69 percent.

Pediatricians recommend that children age 2 and older watch no more than one to two hours of television a day. But research shows that 26 percent of 1-year-olds served by WIC - the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children - watch more than two hours a day. By the time the children are 4, more than half of them sit in front of the TV for more than two hours every day.

The study looked at 10,455 staff members and clients who visited a Washington state WIC clinic before the program began and 9,188 staff members and clients who came into the clinics six months later. The program included a "less TV" message.

The researchers found ethnicity made a difference: 82 percent of white WIC staff members said they watched two or more hours of television a day or less, while 59 percent of the nonwhite staff said they watched that amount.

The study appeared in the American Journal of Health Promotion.

Get fit with expert at exclusive resort

If your idea of the perfect vacation is working out with a top-notch trainer at a fabulous resort, here's a ticket to paradise.

Fitness expert Tom Holland has teamed with the exclusive Las Alamandas Resort in Mexico to offer a retreat Aug. 22 to Aug. 28 featuring a variety of workouts, wellness lectures and healthy gourmet cuisine.

Holland, an ironman triathlete and creator of the popular real-time fitness DVDs, Tom Holland's Total Body Workout, Total Body Workout II and Total Abs Workout, will lead daily sessions including sunrise power walks, bike-then- run, and circuit training on the beach.

Las Alamandas, a luxury oceanfront hideaway halfway between Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo, sits on 1,500 tropical acres. The resort can accommodate only 28 guests.

For more information about the retreat, e-mail Mike Hiles at mhiles@mphpr.com or call 310-234- 3200. For more info about Las Alamandas, go to www.lasalamandas.com.

Smoke? You're influencing your kids

Attention, parents who smoke: You're much more likely to end up with kids who smoke - no matter how much you tell them not to.

A smoking prevention study of 418 families also found that pre-teens from families that spent little time talking or doing things together were most likely to have positive beliefs about smoking.

Seattle researchers found that while most of the 10 to 12-year-olds had negative attitudes about smoking, nearly one-third of them thought they could puff away without becoming addicted.

The families in the study were chosen at random from participants in a large smoking prevention program in the Pacific Northwest. Families received a parent handbook, a videotape about youth smoking, pens, stickers and a comic book with antismoking messages, regular outreach from counselors and smoking prevention messages from their doctors.

Among the 281 children who had some positive feelings about tobacco at the start of the study, 43 percent reported fewer positive feelings and 28 percent had more positive feelings about tobacco 20 months later.

The key to thinking good thoughts about lighting up? Having parents who smoked. Parental attitudes about smoking had no impact, researchers found.

The findings appeared in the July/August issue of American Journal of Health Promotion.

Screenings increasing for women over 40

More women over 40 are having breast-cancer screening than ever before, and the rate is now rising with age.

A national survey of 93,657 women found 76 percent of women who are over 40 had mammograms within the two previous years. That surpasses the government goal, which calls for a mammography rate of 70 percent by the year 2010.

Previous studies showed that mammograms declined with age, but this study found the opposite.

Other findings: Black women were slightly more likely than white women to have had mammograms within the past two years. The least likely group to be screened: women without health insurance, personal doctors and basic preventive care.

The study was in the July/August issue of American Journal of Health Promotion.

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