Your old sofa, as comfy as it is, could be a hazard to your children’s health.
Tag » Health and Human Sciences
January 23, 2013
The Hidden Dangers of Flame Retardants
Chemicals may harm brain development in young children
May 27, 2011
Growth Factors
High alcohol consumption inhibits bone healing
Feeding the rats was just the beginning. To get to the bottom of questions about the effects of alcohol consumption on bones, Cyndi Trevisiol learned how to remove the living cells from a femur and a tibia (purchased frozen from a biological supply house). She then removed the minerals — calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc, silicon [...]
July 23, 2010
A World Apart
Jennifer Kue was just a little girl when she began assisting Portland’s Hmong community.
July 17, 2010
Teeny Little Steps
Small changes can pay big dividends for overweight kids
Romping in the backyard at Cozy Corners family childcare home, Avery and Lauryn are boosting their health by doing what kids do naturally – running, jumping and playing.
April 24, 2010
Partners in Rural Vitality
OSU students and faculty team with Wallowa Resources to address rural development
Beautiful landscapes may inspire us, but it takes more than scenery to create community vitality. Wallowa County and rural communities across the country struggle with economic development, a future for their youth and the cultural tensions that arise from changing land ownership. For more than a decade, such issues in Wallowa have been addressed by Wallowa [...]
April 23, 2010
Finding a Balance: Q&A with Stewart Trost
Terra: Sometimes anti-obesity programs are viewed as placing emphasis on children’s weight rather than on their health. Stewart Trost: Yes, that’s true. Some programs have tried sending home BMI (body mass index) report cards to parents. They’ve had a lot of push-back from parents saying, “You’re telling me my child’s fat.” It’s difficult, because on [...]
February 22, 2010
Struggling Toward Health
“Our research suggests that learning to find benefits in even the worst problems, to gain perspective and to avoid distress over minor problems – even chronic ones – can help protect health and promote optimal aging,” says OSU researcher Carolyn Aldwin. Drawing on a lifetime of ups and downs and knowing that overreacting is not [...]
February 22, 2010
The Stress Paradox
Coping with trauma can strengthen us over time
Carolyn Aldwin has been privy to countless untold secrets, heartbreaking stories from war zones, hospital wards and prisoner-of-war camps. People from all walks of life have confided their everyday problems and their worst nightmares to her. “I talked to someone who was a lawyer at the Nuremberg Trials,” she says. “I’ve talked to people who’ve [...]
November 23, 2009
The Littlest Among Us
Research points the way to high-quality childcare
Clutching a book about Clifford the Big Red Dog, 4-year-old Allexis clambers onto a sofa in the Library Corner. Her mom, Tiffani Bowen, jots the child’s name on a sign-in sheet at the Child Development Laboratory in OSU’s Hallie Ford Center and then sits down beside her. Bowen’s sheltering arm, sun-bronzed and tattooed with a [...]
October 24, 2009
Delving into Wellness
Children’s physical well-being is critical to their academic and emotional growth. Yet for an alarming number of preschoolers, too much sitting and too much snacking have led to premature weight problems. OSU researchers are working on ways to intervene. Joanne Sorte, director of the OSU Child Development Center, and her colleague Inge Daeschel, a nutrition [...]
October 24, 2009
A Living Laboratory video
As the song says, “Teach your children well.” In OSU’s Head Start and pre-kindergarten program at the Child Development Laboratory, children learn through Health in Action. watch video
February 24, 2009
Resilience
Three times a week, as dawn breaks over the Willamette Valley, 25 women show up at the Benton Center gym in Corvallis.
January 23, 2009
Lunging for Life
Next year, a class for 90-year-olds
The risk of falling rises as we get older, but researchers and fitness instructors have a prescription: Better Bones and Balance. Even if you’re 88 years old, there’s a class for you.
September 23, 2008
Air Beneath Their Wings
Five undergraduates — five dreams. Blake Kelley sees a bright future for nuclear power and is learning all he can about reactor designs. For Hiromi Omatsu, the future is in technology that enables elderly people to stay in their own homes. Writing is Stephen Summers’ love. He publishes poetry and fiction in OSU’s student literary [...]
May 23, 2008
Sacred Landscape
Tribes confront the cultural risks of contaminant exposure
The traditions of native cultures — making reed baskets, eating wild foods, participating in sweat lodges — sustained people for centuries. Now those cultures are threatened by contamination. Researchers from the Umatilla reservation and OSU show why.
April 23, 2008
Baskets of Concern
Food is only the most obvious way contaminants enter the human body. Poisons also come in through the pores of the skin and the lobes of the lungs. Living in intimate contact with the landscape, as many indigenous peoples do, raises the risks of exposure. Traditional practices of the Umatilla members of the Columbia Basin [...]
July 23, 2007
Caring for the Caregivers
The typical middle-aged woman takes care of everybody in her household except one — herself. The consequences of this benevolent self-neglect can be dire: chronic disease, even death. Even the healthiest lifestyle can’t always prevent disease. Still, millions of wives, mothers and grandmothers could better fend off, or at least slow down, the ravages of [...]
July 22, 2007
Energy Source
Nutrition and exercise feed healthy habits
The mixed messages blare at every grocery checkout: supermodels smiling seductively from magazines that push chocolate-cake recipes and weight-loss tips on the same page. No wonder millions of American females struggle with food and body image, laments OSU Professor Melinda Manore. The health of women across the age and activity spectrums — from teenage Olympic [...]
February 1, 2007
Are We There Yet?
The Twisting Road To Adulthood
By Richard A. Settersten, Jr., professor of Human Development and Family Sciences, member of the MacArthur Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood and Public Policy. “A 30-year-old single mother from Iowa laughed when asked whether she considered herself an adult: ‘I don’t know if I’m an adult yet. I still don’t feel quite grown up. [...]
February 1, 2007
Aptitude For Aging
“As individuals age, they become increasingly like themselves.” Bernice Neugarten, 1964 (founder of the field of personality and aging) In 2006, the first wave of baby boomers turned 60. Even for the bold cultural warriors of the 1960s — the rockers, idealists, protesters and iconoclasts who transformed the nation — the transition to retirement is [...]
April 23, 2006
Sexual Health: Asking the Tough Questions
Using the research tools of social science — questionnaires, focus groups, interviews and data analysis — Marie Harvey, chair of OSU’s Department of Public Health, delves into the most private of human behaviors and the attitudes that shape them.
