Kids in predominantly Caucasian countries get pretty good sleep, says a new study. Better than kids in Asian countries, anyway.

This study, led by researcher Jodi Mindell of Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia, is the first ever to look at sleep patterns in infants and toddlers cross-culturally. The results, says Mindell, are astonishing. Here are two of them.

• Mindell found significant variability in bedtimes and total sleep time. For example, 15.1 percent of children in Canada shared a room, compared to 94.5 percent in Thailand, and the percentage of parents who believed their child had a minor or severe sleep problem ranged from 11 percent in Thailand to 76 percent in China.
  
  

• Kids in Asian countries were more likely to have later bedtimes, shorter total sleep times, increased parental perception of sleep problems, and were more likely to share a room than children in Caucasian countries. But there were no significant differences in night wakings and naps.
  
  

Mindell says her findings present more questions than they do answers, like: Why the differences? Could it be different cultural practices? And what is the impact of these differences? Seems it's time for another study.

Source

Last week First lady Laura Bush toured through several different nations in Africa in an attempt to draw more attention to the $2.5 million dollar Global Business Coalition and its programs that are helping to fight HIV and AIDS, along with other ailments like malaria. 50% funded by U.S. corporations like Coca Cola, Johnson & Johnson, and the NBA it's just a small part of what the U.S. is doing to help. Congress has allocated as much as $15 billion dollars for fighting diseases abroad, and may as much as double that in upcoming years.

Education and awareness is key, and Americans seem more than willing to help. Laura Bush was quoted as saying "I think all of the programs we'll see that are supported by U.S. taxpayers are a good example of what Americans are really like."

Source

Yes, yes, we all know that Americans are getting fatter and fatter all the time. But wanna hear some good news? In a ranking of the most obese countries, the U.S. is not #1!

Sadly, however, we are in the top 10.

This is a pretty depressing article if you ask me -- over 74% of our adult population is overweight? I guess that shouldn't surprise me, since the issue is in the news so often, but it kinda does anyway. That's a really big number.

But back to the positive, at least we're doing better than the list topper, Nauru. At the #1 spot, 94.5% of their population is overweight. For the complete list of countries ranked from fattest to thinnest, click here.

Source