Posts tagged with stress.

Top 5 stresses of back-to-school

Kathy Dobson, September 1, 2009 at 11:18 AM

 

Come September, I have to get five kids out the door, and on time for class. There are three different schools involved, and five different ages and grades.

Despite what that commercial claims, back-to-school isn't the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. At least, not in my household. Here's my top five reasons why:

#5: School lunches

Every Sunday I have to face the School Lunch Assembly Line. Sure, throwing together a sandwich, granola bar, and some fruit or a pudding cup isn't a big deal.

Doing it five times in a row is.

Another problem: there isn't just one prototype lunch for the Assembly Line. One of my kids loves Nutella. Another hates it. Most schools have a ban on peanut butter, and every single one of my kids love it. My 11-year-old likes a baggie of chopped-up carrots for his school snack.

My 13-year-old thinks that's disgusting.

When I pack lunches for my three youngest, everything goes into a lunch bag. But according to my 13-year-old, nobody in grade eight actually uses a lunch bag to carry their lunch. Apparently a plastic grocery bag is acceptable. But all squished up at the bottom of a book bag is even better.

#4: Waking everyone up in the morning

Every summer, my family makes an annual trip to Marine Land. When I wake my kids up the morning of the trip, they're all fully dressed and standing at the door within 3.4 seconds.

Waking them up for school is a completely different story.

Ten minutes after waking everyone up, I'll find a kid staring blankly at the bathroom mirror, half-comatose. In their brain-dead state, eating a bowl of cereal takes twice as long as it should. Sometimes I'll catch one of my kids lapsing back into sleep. With their eyes still open.

I chant the same mantra every morning: "Get dressed, eat breakfast, brush your teeth, pack your bags, HURRY UP THE BUS IS COMING." Really, I should make a tape and just hit "PLAY" every morning.

#3: School outfits

During summer vacation, it doesn't matter what my kids wear. Mis-matched or missing socks, ripped t-shirts, and jeans with a torn knee are fine for their around-the-house wardrobe. Or going to the park with friends.

But once they go back to school, those torn-up sweat pants aren't acceptable. I don't want to send their teachers an "I'm neglected and unloved by my parents" kind of message.

Which adds an extra stage to the Morning Routine: the "Could you put on something a little less unloved-looking" stage.

#2: Wardrobe malfunctions

My two university-aged children go out of their way to try and buy shoes that are unique-looking, and that nobody else is wearing. My elementary school-aged children, on the other hand, try and pick shoes that everybody else is wearing. Unfortunately, there are only three shoe prototypes for all kids between kindergarten and grade six.

It's a recipe for mix-ups.

All of my kids start the school year with new shoes. And inevitably, one of the younger ones come home with a smaller-sized version of their shoes. Then I have to convince them that no, their feet did not grow a size within that day at school.

And another mother, somewhere else, has to convince her kid that their feet didn't shrink a size.

#1: Homework

The only thing worse than helping my eighth-grade son with his French homework? Helping my sixth-grade son with his math homework.

"10 divided by five. Explain."

"12 times seven. Show your work."

"Eight, five, eleven, six, ten. What's the pattern?"

Even worse: it's late Sunday, right before bedtime, when one of my kids suddenly approaches me.

"Uh, tomorrow is Science Fair. I'm not quite finished my project yet, and I might need a little help."

Which actually means they haven't even started their project yet. And I need to help them produce a volcano, some moldy bread, or a home-made battery in the next four hours.

(Editor: Worried about you kids wearing their "I'm unloved" clothes? Get some tips on cool clothes for back-to-school.)

Tagged with stress, back-to-school | Comments (18) |

Does University make you fat?

Kathy Dobson, June 17, 2009 at 11:07 AM

High stress, less sleep, and a cafeteria food diet. For some students, the first year of university is a recipe for weight gain.

My two oldest, who both just completed their first year at the University of Waterloo, lived at home last year. Predictably, their eating habits didn't change much, if at all. Okay, they both seemed to increase their coffee consumption quite a bit. But mostly, I didn't give much thought or concern to what they were eating. Or not eating.

But for those students living away from home for the first time, the demands of university go far beyond academics. Adjusting their study habits from high school are just one of many changes, such as suddenly being responsible for meals. Of course, many parents support their children throughout university, financially and otherwise.

But even just playing at being an adult is demanding.

A study from the October 2007 issue of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence revealed that moving away from home makes female first-year students three times as likely to binge eat.

The researchers found that first-year female students who lived away from home were more likely to report symptoms of binge eating than students still living with their parents.

Erin Barker, the lead researcher of the study, says that when a young person moves away from home, not only are their social networks disrupted, their eating patterns also change if they live in residence.

And those changes in their eating patterns are not for the better.

Barker says those unhealthy eating habits could eventually lead to obesity and even diabetes.

In other words, never mind the 'Freshman 15.' Sending your child into residence might be setting them up for life-long health problems.

Obesity and diabetes are both serious health concerns.

Many first year students live at home, or have already been responsible for their own meals for years, anyway. But other students aren't so lucky. A crash course in nutrition and preparing meals is one of their lessons of first year.

Really, it's a wonder that the 'Freshman 15' isn't the 'Freshman 25.'

Yet according to two University of Guelph dieticians, the Freshman 15 is dropping a few pounds. Those 15 pounds that first-years supposedly pack on? Binge-eating or not, it's actually more like five. Between leaving high school and finishing their first year of university, the first-year female students who were studied gained five pounds, which is two-thirds less than the fabled 15.

So is five pounds still cause for concern? Perhaps not. But the fact that the students in the study increased their waist circumference, body mass index, and body fat is definite cause for concern.

University might not make you fat. But a poor diet and too much stress add up to a toxic mix for too many first-years.

The Freshman 15 might be an exaggeration. But it's not a myth.

Tagged with university, fat, food, stress, obesity, diabetes, binge, freshman, eating, 15 | Comments (20) |