It shouldn’t be a surprise but, of course, it still needs to be reported. The kid’s cereals and other packaged marketed to children still contain alarming amounts of glyphosate, the cancer-causing ingredient in Roundup, the herbicide produced by Bayer-Monsanto. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) detected the carcinogen in all 21 oat-based cereal and snack products sampled in their latest testing.

Nearly two dozen popular children’s cereals and other snack products tested and show to contain glyphosate.

Organic oats were not exempt from glyphosate contamination either.

EWG noted that only four products “contained levels of glyphosate higher than what EWG scientists consider protective for children’s health with a sufficient margin of safety.”

The new tests were performed by independent laboratories and they confirm the findings from EWG’s testing in July and October of last year. Honey Nut Cheerios and Medley Crunch showed the two highest levels of glyphosate at between 729 and 833 parts per billion. The EWG “children’s health benchmark” is 160 ppb.

EWG-commissioned independent laboratory tests of oat-based products found glyphosate present in 95 percent of samples made with conventionally grown oats and 31 percent of samples made with organic oats. Conventional products had much higher glyphosate levels than their organic counterparts.

It is common practice for conventional oats to be sprayed with glyphosate prior to harvest, as a desiccant that kills all crops uniformly. Organic oats are not treated that way, but may become contaminated by glyphosate drifting from nearby conventional crops.

How Does EWG Set a ‘Health Benchmark’ for Glyphosate Exposure?

Related: Foods Most Likely to Contain Glyphosate

Products testing positive include:

• Honey Nut Cheerios (147 ppb)
• Cheerios Toasted Whole Grain Oat Cereal (729 ppb)
• Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios (400ppb)
• Cheerios Oat Crunch Cinnamon (283 ppb)
• Honey Nut Cheerios Medley Crunch (833 ppb)
• Multi Grain Cheerios (216 ppb)
• Nature Valley Baked Oat Bites (389 ppb)
• Nature Valley Granola Peanut Butter Creamy & Crunchy (198 ppb)
• Nature Valley Granola Protein Oats n Dark Chocolate (261 ppb)
• Nature Valley Fruit & Nut Chewy Trail Mix Granola Bars, Dark Chocolate & Nut (76 ppb)
• Nature Valley Fruit & Nut Chewy Trail Mix Granola Bars – Dark Chocolate Cherry (275 ppb)
• Nature Valley Sweet & Salty Nut granola bars – Cashew (158 ppb)
• Nature Valley Crunchy granola bars – Oats and Honey (320 ppb)
• Nature Valley Crunchy granola bars – Peanut Butter (312 ppb)
• Nature Valley Crunchy granola bars – Maple Brown Sugar (566 ppb)
• Nature Valley Soft-Baked Oatmeal Squares – Blueberry (206
  ppb)
• Nature Valley Soft-Baked Oatmeal Squares – Cinnamon Brown Sugar (124 ppb)
• Nature Valley Granola Cups – Almond Butter (529 ppb)
• Nature Valley Granola Cups – Peanut Butter Chocolate (297 ppb)
• Nature Valley Biscuits with Almond Butter (194 ppb)
• Fiber One Oatmeal Raisin soft-baked cookies (204 ppb).

Related: How to Eliminate IBS, IBD, Leaky Gut 

EWG purchased products via online retail sites. Approximately 300 grams of each product were packed in our Washington, D.C., office and shipped to Anresco Laboratories in San Francisco. Glyphosate levels were analyzed by a liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method described here.

In New Round of Tests, Monsanto’s Weedkiller Still Contaminates Foods Marketed to Children

A new study from the Lancet Child & Adolescent Health found that higher test scores for United States students aged 8 through 11 came down to three factors: a minimum of 60 minutes of physical activity a day, nine to 11 hours of sleep a night, and no more than two hours a day of recreational screen time. Kids who did all of those things had test scores that were four percent higher. Of the 4520 students examined, only 216, or 5 percent, of them met that criteria.

Recommended: Myth of Moderate Alcohol Benefits Debunked, and How Science Gets Corrupted

Take Advantage of Synergy

All three of these factors amplify each other, making this a compelling study.

Of the three elements identified, more children were getting enough sleep and watched less than two hours of screens a day. Only 18 percent of kids were getting at least 60 minutes of physical activity daily. Many adults are in the same boat, with the CDC reporting that only 23% of adults in the U.S. get enough exercise.

Getting enough exercise or physical movement can also affect sleep in profound ways. A study in the journal Sleep Medicine found that insomniacs got 85 more minutes of sleep a night after working out for four months. Sleep is especially important for young people. Another study recently found that high school students who got less than six hours of sleep a night were twice as likely to report drug use or poor decision-making skills.

One of the most commonly cited reasons for insufficient sleep? Screen time, especially before bed. Screens can delay bedtime. They also make it harder for kids to wind down and disrupt the body’s natural circadian rhythms. Excess screen time for children can lead to issues with cognitive functions, like language ability, memory, and task completion.

Recommended: Foods Most Likely To Contain Glyphosate

In Combination

When you consider how intertwined all of these factors are, it makes sense that kids that get enough sleep, exercise, and avoid excess screens are scoring higher on tests. Our take? Check out their diet, too. While we’re all aware of the effect of too much sugar on kids and bedtime, getting the right nutrition goes way beyond that. This study examines the steps needed to set students up for success, and diet is absolutely the foundation.

Sources:

• Too much screen time, too little horseplay for kids: study – Digital Journal
• Associations between 24 hour movement behaviours and global cognition in US children: a cross-sectional observational study – The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health
• The Sleep and Exercise Connection That Can Change Your Life and Your Workouts – Shape
• Study flags later risks for sleep-deprived kids – Harvard Gazette
• New Study Shows Lack of Sleep in Teens Is Associated with Risky Behavior – Boston Magazine

(NaturalPapa – Derek Markham) Approximately 20 percent of ADHD cases in the United States are misdiagnosed, which leads to many kids being medicated when they do not need it. One reason for these children being misdiagnosed is the age difference within school classes. Children who are in the same grade can be born 364 days apart, so the younger children are bound to have a different level of maturity than the older ones. In many cases, the misdiagnoses are the result of a teacher recommending that the parents have their child tested and doctors treating the symptoms, rather than the underlying cause. This is becoming an epidemic in this country, but there are things that parents can do to eliminate the need for this medication by treating the symptoms naturally.

The Numbers

When you look at the numbers, you cannot help but be somewhat startled by what is happening in the United States. In the last 10 years, the number of ADHD diagnoses has increased by 41 percent. Since 2007, the number of children who are on drugs to treat the symptoms of ADHD has increased by 28 percent. In Louisiana, 9.2 percent of all children are taking ADHD medication, which is leading to a generation of medicated children. Keep in mind that the youngest children in a kindergarten class are 60 percent more likely to receive this diagnosis than the older children in that class, due to the difference in age and maturity.

The Problem with Medication

When a child is diagnosed with ADHD, he or she may be given Ritalin to treat the symptoms. This medication is meant to help the child focus. Unfortunately, there are side effects that many parents might not consider when agreeing to put their child on Ritalin. For example, this drug increases a child’s heart rate by 8.1 beats per minute and blood pressure increases by 6 percent. It can also hinder a child’s growth rates, as children who take this medication are 8.36 pounds lighter and 0.76 inches shorter, on average. This slowed growth rate is not reversible, so it is something that your child will struggle with for the rest of his or her life.

Omega 3 Fatty Acids

Whether your child has ADHD or not, you might want to come up with some natural ways to help him or her focus. For example, omega 3 fatty acids can help with a child’s memory, behavior and focus. These fatty acids are found in olive oil, flax oil and fatty fish, so make sure that your child consumes plenty of these foods. If you cannot get your child to eat fish on a regular basis, try purchasing some supplements, as they are available in tablet form and have been shown to improve children’s attention span and mood.

Overall Nutrition

The foods that your child eats can have an impact on his or her ability to focus. Try eliminating gluten, artificial flavors, sweeteners, refined sugars, food coloring and preservatives from your child’s diet. Limiting the carbs that the child consumes can also help, while allowing him or her to eat an abundance of healthy proteins like eggs, lean meats and chicken.

Natural Herbs

It has been suggested that adding certain herbs, such as ginseng, ginkgo, lemon balm, chamomile and bacopa to your child’s diet can help him or her to focus better. The idea is that these herbs can create an antioxidant effect in the brain, which can enhance the brain’s neurotransmitters. While more research is needed on the effectiveness of these herbs, they are certainly worth trying.

Echinacea Extract

Those who suffer from ADHD are more likely to have stress and anxiety, which can make the symptoms of the disorder even worse. Taking Echinacea extract supplements can have an influence on your child’s mood by relieving anxiety and, therefore, improving your child’s ability to concentrate. Echinacea triggers calm feelings in those who take it and does not come with any side effects, making it perfectly safe for children.

(NaturalNews – PF Louis) It’s almost intuitively obvious to most that too much TV viewing is conducive to physical deterioration and not conducive to mental development. But what types of viewing at what ages affects children’s ability to pay attention over amounts of time and assimilate actual learning from experience or studying has been a topic of several studies.

One of those studies even considered background TV as a major distraction. That is leaving the TV on most of the time even when not watching it for a specific purpose while a child is doing homework, or if parents watch a specific TV show while the kids are around doing whatever.

This study has determined that a TV show’s momentary distractions from whatever a child is doing helps promote a poor attention span or a tendency to be easily bored. It’s a sort of “there’s something more important or interesting on the tube” tendency.

The study’s paper was titled “Background television in the homes of American children.”

Background TV is like secondhand cigarette smoke; it pollutes others

The University of Iowa (UI) publication Iowa Now interviewed one of the lead authors of that study, Deborah Linebarger, associate professor in the UI College Education’s Department of Teaching and Learning. Locally, she worked with two UI graduate students in her department and networked with others in different universities.

The other university study contributors were Mathew Lapierre at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication and Jessica Piotrowski of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

Linebarger and her UI grad student associates conducted lengthy telephone surveys, often close to an hour long, among 1,454 households with children just under one year old to eight years old. Here are some of her comments from the Iowa Now interview:

“We discovered that the average American child was exposed to 232.2 minutes of background television on a given day. Using multiple regression analyses, we determined that younger children, children living in single-parent homes, and African-American children were exposed to significantly more background television than their older, multi-parent, and non-African-American peers.”

Linebarger added, “What was really distressing was the fact that the youngest kids, the ones under 2, were exposed to 5.5 hours of background TV per day.”

By calculating expected active TV watching and adding to the background TV, the researchers found that children two years and younger are exposed to six or seven hours of TV media daily.

And if we examine content of what’s going on with TVs that are simply kept on most of the time, there’s a lot of advertising of bad foods and bad medicine or a lot of bad or silly news, all in short visual clips and in sound bites.

This is how kids and are being programmed, and perhaps you were, or are, too. Moderate active viewing can be interesting, exciting or even occasionally uplifting or informative. Even then, too much is simply debilitating at any age. The younger the child, the more impressionable. This includes video gaming as well, which are often violent and addictive into later years.

It disrupts physical playing and social intercourse even within families. The tube has too much influence, which is why researchers recommend less active TV time and no background TV. It’s an enticing consciousness pollutant, and it can be the model of behavior to greater or lesser extent among children.

Regarding parents’ attitudes about background TV, Linebarger, who has four children of her own, explained: “[P]arents tend to leave the TV on all day even when no one is actively watching it. When I come into my house and no one is there, I like to turn on the TV to keep me company. And it’s easy to forget to turn it off… you get up and leave the room with it still there and on in the background.”

Sources for this article include:
http://now.uiowa.edu
http://now.uiowa.edu
http://psychcentral.com

(DrFrankLipman.com – Robyn O’Brien) A report released by the National Cancer Institute showed a 9.4% increase in childhood cancer between 1992 and 2007. And today, cancer is now the leading cause of death by disease in kids under the age of fifteen.

Correlation is not causation, but the escalating rates of conditions like cancer, diabetes and food allergies have a lot of parents paying attention to what is in their food.  Some cancer doctors even call it the “doorknob syndrome.”  A patient is diagnosed with cancer, spends hours in the office being walked through procedure options, then as they turn to go, with a hand on the doorknob, turn back into the office and ask, “Is there anything I could be doing differently with my diet?”

We are quickly learning that our food is full of a lot of non-food ingredients.

About 15 million pounds of petroleum-based dyes are used in food each year.  And a certain kind of red food coloring, known as “Red 3,” is a known carcinogen that the FDA banned from our medicines and makeup in 1990, but it’s still used in our foods.

But instead of making the long overdue move to do something serious about getting rid of toxic food dyes so ubiquitous in our food supply, dyes derived from synthetic chemicals that studies have linked to cancer, the FDA, upon learning this, fell back on two simple words: “more research.”

In kitchens across this country, eight dyes, currently being used by manufacturers, can be found in everything from packaged macaroni and cheese to breakfast cereal to practically every piece of candy your child has ever put in his or her mouth. Links are being found to hyperactivity in kids (ADHD), cancer and serious food allergies.

But here is the truly amazing thing, and for those of us who have fed our kids these color-laden foods, perhaps the toughest thing to stomach: Kraft, Coca Cola and Wal-Mart have already removed these artificial food colors and dyes from the same products that they distribute in other countries. Skittles?  Don’t have them.  M&Ms?  Don’t have them either.  Neither do cereals, fruit snacks and just about any food you’d think to put in a kids mouth. They did it in response to consumer demand and an extraordinary study called the Southampton Study.

The Southampton Study was unusual in that it tested children on a combination of two ingredients: tartrazine (yellow #5) and sodium benzoate. The study’s designers knew that a child very rarely has occasion to ingest just a synthetic color or just a preservative; rather, a child who is gobbling up multicolored candies is probably taking in several colors and at least one preservative.

What’s amazing is that in the U.K., the federal food safety agency actually funded the Southampton Study that led to even U.S. corporations eliminating synthetic colors and sodium benzoate from their U.K. products.

And in response, a whole host of companies, including the U.K. branches of Wal-Mart, Kraft, Coca Cola and the Mars candy company (who make M&Ms), have voluntarily removed artificial colors, the preservative sodium benzoate, and even aspartame from their products. Particularly those marketed to kids. Take a close look at the ingredient list for the product below.

Our American companies had removed these harmful ingredients from their products overseas — but not here.

Kraft, Coca Cola and Wal-Mart are living proof that it is possible for giant corporations to make and sell kid-friendly, family-friendly, and healthy processed food without necessarily exposing them to a chemical cocktail that might also give them allergic reactions, brain tumors, or leukemia, or the symptoms of ADHD, as the Center for Science in the Public Interest recently highlighted in their report Rainbow of Risks.

Is it too much to ask the FDA and the processed food companies for the same value to be placed on the lives of the American kids in their cost-benefit analyses that has been placed on the lives of kids in the UK?

We can create that same change here. There are apparently 51 million moms waking up to the dangers that toxins present to the health of our kids, that number is the equivalent to the entire population of Spain. And if what is happening in this food movement or the changing landscape of childhood health is any indication, it is time to get down to business, level the playing field for our kids, and send a message to these companies. We can navigate the grocery store a little bit differently, share information with friends and family or even reach out online to our favorite food companies asking them to support this change.  Because while the American children only represent 30% of our population, they are 100% of our future. So while the FDA may not value their lives accordingly, we can.

When I was growing up, the health of the environment was far from top of mind. The world I knew and played in every day was taken for granted. When I had my own children, I became a little more environmentally astute. I started with recycling, hoping that engaging my children in that practice, might have an impact. As my awareness evolved, I realized the important role parents play in educating their children on ways to preserve their future and their world.

Environmental educator David Sobel said, “One transcendent experience in nature is worth a thousand nature facts.” Studies have shown that when children are connected to nature between the ages of 5 and 10, they’re more likely to develop more compassion about their environment, a compassion they’ll likely carry throughout their lives. So what can you do to help your child develop an interest in environmental preservation? The following steps show how easy it can be!

Create a Nature Trip

Go for a nature walk, picking up cans, bottles, paper along the way, all of which can be recycled. This exercise will raise awareness about the damage from littering and encourage personal responsibility for keeping the earth clean. A nature field trip is also a great way to motivate children to ask questions about flowers, birds, trees, and more. The more children know about the life cycle, the more interested they will become in preserving it.

Start a Garden

Getting kids involved in the food that comes into the house naturally improves their food choices, thus reducing the risk of obesity. Further, teaching kids to garden and allowing them to choose what vegetables they would like to grow, encourages healthy eating habits and a dedication to locally grown, seasonal foods.

Visit a Recycling Plant

Try taking your children to a recycling plant where they can witness the recycling process from garbage to product. Many plants offer tours, so check your local community.  Kids will find it fascinating, and they will better understand the importance of recycling.

Create a Compost Bin

Composting is an ideal way to instill a sense of environmental advocacy in children. No matter where you live, you can compost. Plus, kids love it! Composting is such a great exercise for kids because they can witness the entire cycle of the food off their plate (that would normally go into a landfill) into useful soil that is garden ready. By composting, children will learn to value organic wastes as a resource instead of thinking it is useless garbage. Composting is a great way to empower your children by helping them understand how their actions can have a positive effect on the environment.

Turn Off Lights and Preserve Water

Kids are notorious for leaving lights on, and as they advance into the junior high years, showers go on forever. The best way to teach children the value of saving resources is to make a game of it. For example, every time a light is left on or a shower goes beyond a certain limit, they have to put 5 cents in a jar for each slip-up. Conversely, if they haven’t left any lights on and have honored the water limitation, 5 cents goes in to the family jar. At the end of the month, the family can select a fun way to spend the money, maybe even donate it to an environmental effort.

Remember, children want to help. And if they can do something that grownups do, they’re in.  Not only will you be teaching by example, you’ll be allowing them to get involved and connected to Mother Earth. They’re never too young or too old to for you to teach them about the value of preserving their planet for their future.

Approximately 200 synthetic industrial chemicals interact with our cells every single day.

Autism now affects one in 50 children.

Cancer is the leading cause of death (after accidents) in children younger than 15 years in the United States.

In the last twenty years, the rates of asthma, allergies, and ADHD are on the rise:

• 400 percent increase in allergies
• 300 percent increase in asthma
• 400 percent increase in ADHD

$2.6 trillion of the GDP is spent on treating disease every year.

These are facts. Unacceptable facts.

And Ed Brown wants to do something about it.

Moved by his wife’s two unexplained miscarriages and a nasty tasting glass of water at work, Ed (now father of two healthy children) was determined to uncover the possible cause of these and other health issues. With camera in hand, he traveled the country seeking insight from the top minds in the fields of science, advocacy, and law.

The result: an award-winning documentary, Unacceptable Levels.

The film poses challenges to our companies, our government, and our society to do something about a nearly unseen threat with the inspired knowledge that small changes can generate a massive impact.

You don’t have to take on the world to change it. Just pick one thing in your life. Water, food, regulations—it doesn’t matter. Just pick something. Become curious about it and start asking questions. Find the answers just like I did.

“And know that of all the people out there, you finally found someone that can truly make a difference. That person is—and always has been—you.” ~ Ed Brown

His documentary dissects the ways chemicals saturate our homes and environment amid a backdrop of a glaring lack of regulation. It chronicles the results of the post-WWII chemical boom and details common avenues of exposure, from food to fluoride to toxic sludge. The film brings together 47 non-profit organizations and 91 companies to support the overwhelming need for chemical reform in the United States.

Unacceptable Levels opens the door to conversations about the chemical burden our bodies carry so that we can make informed decisions now and in the future.

Screening in San Francisco July 11th and Chicago July 24th (with special guest actress/eco activist Mariel Hemingway), the film will hopefully reach beyond the typical environmentally conscious audience… and empower all viewers to make better decisions for their children and themselves.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/PVB6XSyBTVE

Please help spread the word about the film by sharing this post and liking their facebook page here. You can also follow them on twitter @UnacceptableLev.

If you live near San Francisco or Chicago, please come out for the screening! Both will be followed by a panel discussion led by Ed Brown. I’ll be attending the Chicago event and hope to see you there!