Would you name your baby Brooklyn to get free pizza?

There are many different reasons why parents name a new-born baby the way they do, but pizza shouldn’t be one of them… should it?

In celebration of a style of pizza, Domino’s Pizza will throw a pizza party for every family that names their child Brooklyn this Friday, 29th February 2008.In addition, the family of the first child named Brooklyn born in the continental U.S. on Leap Day will receive $1,000 in pizza gift certificates.

Apparently, any spelling of the name will qualify — let’s just hope parents don’t go the whole hog in celebration of the company’s pizza and name their child BRKLYN.

“Leap Year babies beat the odds by being born on February 29, a day that rolls around only once every four years,” said Jenny Fouracre, Domino’s Pizza spokesperson. “We think they are very special and deserve a memorable birthday with a good story about how they were named. What a lucky group - they will be 10 when most people born the day before or after them are 40.”

Well, it takes all sorts. I’ve nothing against the name Brookyln itself, but surely there are other reasons to name your child than in an effort to score some free pizza?

What do you think?

Baking: the latest craze for kids?

According to a recent press release, there’s a foolproof way to keep their kids away from the computer and TV over Christmas.

Baking.

Sure, it’s an advert for “Whimsical Decoratifs”, a fancy brand name for American sprinkles, but statistics show that sales of baking ingredients — flour, icing sugar, decorative sprinkles, and baking powder — grew by 25% in the UK over the past year.

The press release is also keen to point out the educational benefits of baking, as well as pointing to celebrity chefs, including Tana Ramsey and Nigella Lawson, who extol the virtues of home baking.

Baking is not just a fun activity, but it can also be educational. Reading recipes aloud, and choosing and weighing ingredients help to develop reading and mathematical skills. Younger children can learn to tell the time to find out when the food is ready, and all children learn about patience in waiting for their cake or biscuits to bake in the oven. Most important of all, the act of cooking with a child bonds the family together and gives a powerful boost to your child’s self-confidence. Even very young children can get involved with baking, mixing ingredients or greasing trays.

So there you have it. Put away the Playstation and get baking. It’s what parents and kids have been doing for years.

Malnourished children could be saved with locally-made peanut butter food

A recent report by the United Nations aid agencies said that hundreds of thousands of badly malnourished children who don’t have access to hospital care could be saved with something as simple as locally-made peanut butter based food.

The appalling statistic is that around one million children die from malnutrition each year - that’s one child every thirty seconds.

Twenty million children under the age of 5 suffer from acute malnutrition.

The high-energy food, a paste-like composition of peanuts, milk, sugar and vegetable oil, costs as little as $3 per kg when produced locally. It requires no refrigeration or added water.

“When implemented on a large scale, and properly combined with hospital treatment for children with complications, community-based management of severe acute malnutrition could prevent the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children each year,” the U.N. aid agencies said.

(Yahoo News)

Little Helper Fun Pod: food, fun, and safety for toddlers in the kitchen

There are over 42,500 toddlers under the age of 5 who are taken to UK hospitals because of kitchen related accidents every year, and that number doesn’t take into account the thousands of minor accidents that are remedied by a cuddle and a bit of TLC.

The Little Helper Fun Pod™ is an innovative new product that not only keeps toddlers out of harm’s way but also encourages them to get involved in the kitchen.The Fun Pod provides the toddler with a safely constructed platform, enabling them to see what’s happening in the kitchen, being able to interact with their parents, but without any danger of toppling over. Read more

Early learning of good eating habits requires good parental role model

Though it’s not groundbreaking news, the preschool years are the most important time for parents to teach about a healthy diet, by offering a variety of food choices, having regular meal and snack times, and modelling good health themselves.

“Parents face many feeding obstacles as their children reach 2 years old,” said Judith Levine, R.D., M.S. “A child’s appetite may decrease as growth slows, outside influences from television or other children start to impact a child’s food choices, and some children start to decline foods and beverages they once enjoyed as they start using utensils or switch from bottle to sippy cup.”

Read more

Mesothelioma

Diets of children could fatten their parents, study suggests

Whilst many studies of obesity in children focus on how their life is influenced by their parents, a new study reverses this thinking and instead looks at what influence kids may have on their parents:

“Parents with children are likely to be susceptible in their food choices to both the marketing of convenience in food choices as well as indirectly to the marketing directed at their children,” wrote the study’s authors, Dr. Helena Laroche of the University of Iowa and Dr. Matthew Davis of the University of Michigan Health System.

Read more