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Strollerderby
The AFP reported today that baby formula manufactured in China by Synutra International has led babies to “prematurely develop breasts,” as a result of hormones found in the milk powder. Not young girls – babies. Chinese state media confirmed that in babies who were fed the formula, “the levels of hormones in three girls, ranging in age from 15 months to four years, exceeded those of the average adult woman.” So far there is no word as to how the formula has affected baby boys.
To say that this sickens me is a gross understatement.
We all know about how many Chinese-made children’s products have been recalled in the US, but the citizens of China don’t have the same kind of protections we do here. Doctors have suggested that the powder be analysed to discover why it’s causing infants to experience puberty symptoms (hello?!), but local food safety authorities refused. Worse yet, the formula is still being sold, and at discount prices to boot, meaning (as usual) that the poorest people are more likely to suffer the most negative health affects.
Synutra insists its products are safe, saying, “No man-made ‘hormones’ or any illegal substances were added during production” of the formula. There are no regulations against using hormones in Chinese livestock, so it’s likely that estradiol and prolactin (the hormones found in the systems of the girls who were tested), “entered the food chain when farmers reared the cattle,” according to the former chairman of the dairy association in Guangdong province.
AFP notes that, “Chinese dairy products were recalled worldwide in 2008 after it was revealed that melamine, a toxic chemical used to make plastics, was widely and illegally added to the products to give the appearance of higher protein.” Synutra has since recovered financially from what they’ve so glibly dubbed “the melamine incident.” If you’d like a reason to feel enraged, take a look at this chart from their investor relations packet: Continue reading »
Last week, The Baby Website released the results of a survey in which parents of grown children were asked to name the age at which their kids were most difficult to parent. Not surprisingly, the teen years beat out the so-called terrible twos when it came to parental challenges. While the survey respondents reported that their formerly sweet boys became moody, sullen and uncommunicative at age 15, girls were said to hit the wall at the age of 14.
Parents of those sulky 15-year-old boys mostly chalked up their bad behavior up to hormones caused by puberty, an admission that these poor guys are just victims of their own bodies and doing the best they can during a difficult time of life. Girls, however, weren’t given such a pass. Parents reported feeling that the main issue with their teen girls was that while they were “turning into women overnight,” their behavior was regressing to that of a toddler, complete with meltdowns and temper tantrums. Continue reading »
Kids grow up — it’s a fact of life. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, what with college and starting a career and grandkids and all. But along the way, there are going to be rough spots and the biggest of these, for parents, at least, may very well be puberty. One way to handle the issue is to ignore it, of course, leaving your child’s education up to the schools and the schoolyard, but that’s generally not considered ideal. Talking to one’s children about sex, however, has got to be pretty high up there on the list of Things Parents Don’t Want To Do.
There are a lot of reasons to make sure your kids aren’t overweight — general health, acceptance among their peers, ability to participate in sports — not to mention it simply costs less to feed kids less. For girls, “it’s pretty well established in girls that puberty starts earlier” if they are obese during their early years, says Dr. Jennifer Helmcamp, a pediatrician specializing in obesity with Scott & White Healthcare. But what about boys?
When I was a preteen back in the early 1980s, Judy Blume was a Big Deal. Her books dealt honestly with the concerns of adolesence — sexual curiosity, figuring out friendships, first love, and first period. The 1970s being the era of the “problem novel” in young adult fiction, there was no shortage of books that addressed all the pitfalls teenagers can fall into — read Lizzie Skurnick’s great writing on YA fiction — but I liked her books because the kids in them seemed so average, like me and my friends.
According to my much younger Strollerderby colleagues, Judy Blume books have remained iconic for girls, and probably some boys, for decades to come. I know my daughter is getting a copy of “Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret” when she hits about fifth grade, and my son will get “Then Again, Maybe I Won’t.”
My first thought when I read that little girls were getting Brazilian waxes was what exactly is being waxed off?
Then I read a little deeper – these are girls of ten and eleven. So again, I’ve got to ask: what is being waxed off? Continue reading »
Lori Garcia 
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
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