Are Corn Pops and Cocoa Pebbles Really a Public Health Menace?

With about a third of children in the U.S. considered overweight or obese, researchers increasingly point to the way kid’s cereal is marketed to our children – through TV advertising and even online game sites – as a key part of the problem. But the bigger problem may well be the fact that what kids don’t know about their food may actually hurt them.
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Note to the Obamas – Time to Plan Your Garden?

If Michelle and Barack Obama are anything like most gardeners, they may use the downtime of the winter months to plan this year’s garden. In the spirit of non-partisanship — and to help them manage their obviously valuable time — we want to take this opportunity to offer a few planting tips…
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Life Unexpected: Aging Out of Fostercare

When Life Unexpected debuted on The CW in mid-January, network TV had its first drama about an American teenager trapped in foster care. Desperate to leave a life of bouncing from one set of foster parents to another, 15-year-old Lux, played by rising young star Brittany Robertson (Cara Burns in Dan In Real Life, Samantha in Swingtown, and Trixie Stone in The Tenth Circle), reunites with her birth parents.

Too bad things aren’t always that easy for many foster kids.

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Girls in Juvenile Detention: Our Problem or Theirs?

Almost without noticing, girls have become a major component of the juvenile justice system – but once inside the walls, they are jammed into a system designed for men and boys. And the problem is getting worse, not better, with the dramatic cutback in state funding for projects like the award-winning Girl’s Advocacy Project (GAP), one of the only comprehensive projects in the state of Florida serving girls since 1999 while they are in detention.
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Childhood Obesity: Lessons from Mexico

As Americans, we tend to focus on “our own problems.” Fair enough. But many of the problems we struggle with – as individuals, as parents and as a country – are shared by other countries. Take Mexico, for example. Rising affluence, the proliferation of fast food and more working parents have lead to a rise in childhood obesity there as well. And maybe there’s something there for all of us to learn.

One big lesson? The cure starts at home.

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Is Dolly Parton a Member of The Junior League?

While the singer-songwriter, author, actress and philanthropist is not a member of The Junior League, she is playing a vital role in an important project by the Junior League of Birmingham to foster literacy through an innovative program that puts books in the hands of kids and their parents at what many educators say is the best time: before they go to school and before they even attempt to learn how to read.

The JLB Imagination Library, in partnership with the Dollywood Foundation, has made the 60-volume Dolly Parton Imagination Library available to all children under the age of 5 in Jefferson County, Alabama. Each month, from birth to age 5, every child registered will receive a high-quality, age appropriate book in the mail free of charge.

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What Happens When You’re Too Old for Santa Claus…and Foster Care?

There are approximately 500,000 young Americans in foster care around the country, according to the most recent federal AFCARS data. While most returned to their birth families, went to live with other family members or were adopted, the 14% who age out or otherwise drop out of foster care may find that the biggest challenge in leaving the system is survival.

“Statistics prove that the physical, emotional and social outcomes for ‘aged-out’ foster kids is often bad—bad for the kids and bad for the community that often has no way of dealing with them,” said Debbie Robinson, President of The Association of Junior Leagues International, which represents 292 individual Junior Leagues in four countries. “For all of the money, time and effort we devote to keeping kids in foster care, unfortunately they are too often left on their own when they ‘graduate.’”

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Happy Birthday, Big Bird!

For many, it’s hard to remember a time when Big Bird—the eight-foot, two-inch bright yellow bird who skates, dances and sings—wasn’t a daily feature of Sesame Street. But we do.

Before Sesame Street aired for the first time on November 10, 1969, TV programming for kids was a joke without a punch line. Howdy Doody was better than most commercial efforts, but it never claimed to be educational. Then came Big Bird.

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