Here is how you can improve your child’s immunity to keep sick days to a minimum.

Be an A student!

It’s that time of the year again. The weather is changing and every other person you meet is nursing a cold or a fever. As your child sits in a class of many, he may be vulnerable to contagious diseases, as his immunity is not fully developed yet. These pointers will ensure that your child returns home happy and healthy!

Regarding illnesses:

1. The old adage –‘Starve a cold, feed a fever’ has no medical basis. If your child is ill,giving him home-cooked light and nutritious food is most important for his speedy recovery.

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Researchers from the University of Granada have demonstrated that people who normally practice sport have a better cognitive performance than those with bad physical health.

More specifically, the results of this research indicate that the former have a better sustained attention span (they react more rapidly to an external stimulus introduced randomly while carrying out a monotonous task).

Their autonomic nervous system also appears to work better when dealing with cognitive loads over a longer time period.

In the study, scientists compared the cognitive performance in specific tasks such as sustained attention, time-oriented attention (generating expectations of when an event will occur) and time perception.

The study involved working with a test group made up of 28 young males. Of these, 14 were University of Granada students, aged from 17 to 23 and who showed a low level of physical aptitude (according to regulatory values established by the American College of Sports Medicine). The other 14 subjects were aged from 18 to 29 and had a high level of physical aptitude: 11 belonged to the Andalusian Cycling Federation for Under-23s and the other 3 were students of the Faculty of Physical Activity and Sports Activities of the University of Granada.

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In the fight against childhood obesity, video games are often seen as the enemy.

But a new study by researchers at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS) suggests that certain blood-pumping video games can actually boost energy expenditures among inner city children, who tend to be at the highest risk for becoming overweight.

“A lot of people say screen time is a big factor in the rising tide of childhood obesity,” says lead author Todd Miller, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Exercise Science at SPHHS.

“But if a kid hates playing dodge ball but loves Dance Dance Revolution why not let him work up a sweat playing E-games?”

Miller and his colleagues recruited 104 kids in grades 3 through 8 from a public school in the District of Columbia.

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In a new study, researchers have just discovered the key role played by a protein, the CB1 cannabinoid receptor, during physical exercise.

Physical inactivity is a major public health problem that has both social and neurobiological causes.

According to the results of an Ipsos survey, the French have put “taking up a sport” at the top of their list of good resolutions for 2013.

In their mouse studies, Francis Chaouloff, research director at Inserm’s NeuroCentre Magendie, Sarah Dubreucq, a PhD student and François Georges, a CNRS research leader at the Interdisciplinary Institute for Neuroscience, the researchers demonstrated that the location of this receptor in a part of the brain associated with motivation and reward systems controls the time for which an individual will carry out voluntary physical exercise.

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Adults who engage in at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity each week live longer than inactive adults, a new study has found.

Framing the benefits of exercise in terms of years of life gained may better motivate people than warnings about not exercising, said study author Ian Janssen, Ph.D., of Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada.

Janssen and his team used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the National Health Interview Study mortality linkage, and U.S. Life Tables to estimate and compare the life expectancy at each age for adults who were inactive, somewhat-active and active.

‘Active’ was defined as doing at least 150 minutes of moderate activity per week.

They found that men at age 20 were estimated to gain as much as 2.4 years of life from moderate activity. Women at age 20 gained about 3 additional years from engaging in moderate activity. The biggest benefit from physical activity was seen in non-Hispanic black women, who gained as many as 5.5 potential years of life.

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Say goodbye to ageing and hello to a youthful new you

If wrinkles, memory loss and poor posture just aren’t topping your ‘must-have’ list this year, it’s time to take action against ageing. Give your health a boost and give ageing the elbow with these top tips to look and feel 10 years younger.

Look and feel younger, tip 1: Get active more often

Not only is exercise essential for good heart health and for keeping off the weight gain that many of us experience as we get older, staying active is also important for good posture and skin. Improving your core strength and your body’s flexibility through exercises such as yoga and Pilates can help to improve postural problems and correct spine curvature. Exercise also increases blood flow to the skin, which helps to nourish skin cells.

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Taking a regular break from work to walk around in the office helps to reduce the body`s levels of glucose and insulin after eating, a new study has revealed.

Though the results of the study, which was conducted by Australian researchers, don`t show if this has a lasting health benefit, experiencing large glucose and insulin spikes after a meal is tied to a greater risk of heart disease and diabetes.

Spacing meals for better glycemic control

`When we sit our muscles are in a state of disuse and they`re not contracting and helping our body to regulate many of the body`s metabolic processes,` the Daily Mail quoted David Dunstan, the study leader from Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia as saying.

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A study has found that 10-year-olds today can do fewer sit-ups and are less able to hang from wall bars in a gym. Online pursuits are making children weaker, less muscular and unable to do physical tasks.

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Do you have diabetes? Are you worried about a healthy life? Being physically active helps – get off the bus a few blocks before your stop and walk to your destination or get up to change TV channels instead of using the remote control.

More tips to help you add to your daily activity time