Citizens Memorial Hospital | Vitality | Summer 2018

4 VITALITY Summer 2018 Be a former smoker: Quit for your kids A lot of things change when you become a parent. And if you smoke, one thing that may be different now is your reason for quitting: your children. Quitting tobacco can help protect your kids’ health as well as yours. For starters, it can help your children: Breathe better air. Secondhand tobacco smoke contains thousands of toxic chemicals (one is arsenic, used in pesticides), including dozens that cause cancer. In addition, babies and children exposed to secondhand smoke have an increased risk of many other health problems, including: » » Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). » » More lung infections, ear infections and illnesses. » » Coughing and breathing problems. » » Increased asthma attacks in kids who already have asthma. Exposure to secondhand smoke may also trigger the lung disease in kids who didn’t have it before. And smoking during pregnancy can cause babies to have birth defects, a low birth weight or to be born prematurely. Grow up to be nonsmokers. Your kids look up to you and may try to emulate you, including when it comes to choices you make about smoking. And it’s not too late to set a good example. Quitting is the best way to do that. Check out Citizens Memorial Hospital’s free smoking cessation classes. Call 417-328-6574 for more information. Sources: American Academy of Pediatrics; American Cancer Society; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Reduce your risk of osteoporosis Osteoporosis —a disease of dangerously fragile bones—can sneak up on you. That’s because you can’t feel your bones growing weaker. Far too frequently, the first sign of osteoporosis is a broken bone, most likely in the hip, spine or wrist. Osteoporosis can strike at any age, but it’s most common in older people, especially older women. The good news: These four steps can help keep your bones healthy at any age. 1 Get plenty of bone-building calcium. Your best sources are foods and drinks. Calcium-rich foods and beverages include low-fat or fat-free milk, yogurt and cheese; leafy green veggies such as kale and collard greens; and calcium-fortified juice or cereal. Ask your doctor if you also need a supplement. 2 Load up on vitamin D too. Very few foods or beverages are naturally high in vitamin D. But it’s available in foods fortified with it, such as cereal, milk and soy milk. As with calcium, ask your doctor if you need a supplement. 3 Work out your bones. Bones, just like muscles, get stronger with exercise. Weight-bearing workouts (such as walking and jogging) and strengthening exercises (such as lifting weights) are especially good for your bones. 4 Don’t light up. Smoking is a triple threat to your bones. It raises osteoporosis risk, it makes bones more likely to break and it hinders healing after a fracture. Sources: National Institutes of Health; National Osteoporosis Foundation Men at risk too Although women are at greatest risk for osteoporosis, men can get the bone disease too. In fact, if you’re a man over 50, you’re more likely to break a bone because of osteoporosis than to get prostate cancer. Source: National Osteoporosis Foundation ORTHOPAEDICS ➜