That's Fit

If your kid has a big neck, he or she may be more likely to develop a sleep-related breathing disorder, say researchers at the University of Virginia. Translation for big: Obese.

Of 215 children, ages 18 months to 18 years, who were referred to a pediatric sleep clinic, 37.3 percent were obese and snored more than not-so-heavy kids, says this Virginia study. Basically, neck size showed a strong inverse correlation with oxygen saturation and was an even better indicator of breathing problems than BMI, weight, or tonsil size.

One implication of this finding, says study author Dr. Pearl L. Yu, is this: "Children with bigger neck sizes for age should be queried about snoring, apnea, excessive sleepiness, and hyperactivity. Neck size should be considered in the clinical evaluation of children with a history of snoring and apnea."

When I was younger, I used to have perfect posture. I had a choir director who just drilled posture into us. Through the years, my posture has changed. I'm a writer, so my job has me glued to my computer desk all day long. I try to maintain good posture but by the end of the day, I find my shoulders hunched forward and I end up with an aching back.

I found an article about this simple exercise designed to improve your posture. The exercise is dubbed "The Superman" because you start with your arms stretched straight out in front of you. There are no weights required and it works all the right muscles. I tried it and my back and shoulders feel loose and better than they did before. Whether it will improve my posture remains to be seen, but I'm willing to give it a try!

Want to try something different? Back in March, Jacki posted about a posture exercise she's been having luck with. Developing better posture is well worth the effort. Not only will your back and shoulders thank you for it, better posture can even help you look slimmer in your swimsuit.

Prevent muscle mutiny with these four feel-good moves from the April issue of Women's Health, on newsstands now! Instead of letting a great workout leave you feeling miserable, use some of these suggested exercises to prevent muscle imbalances in your: back, knees, neck, and shoulders.

Ball Squat with tubing

Pain-prone area: Fronts and sides of the knees
Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and wrap resistance tubing around your knees so there's no slack in the band. Place a stability ball between the middle of your back and a wall, but put only enough pressure on it to keep the ball from falling. Squat down as if sitting on a chair, pushing out against the tubing to keep your knees from caving inward. Press back up to start. Do two sets of 12 reps, resting for 30 to 60 seconds between sets.

Every time you smoke another cigarette, it's almost like loading a Russian Roulette revolver with another bullet. This dangerous habit markedly increases your chances of premature death, be it from cardiovascular complications or several types of cancer. Lung cancer is typically among those most closely linked to cigarette smoking, but the risk of head and neck cancers is also be increased.

A large study on smoking, conducted by the National Cancer Institute, revealed a strong association between smoking and malignancies of the neck and head. These cancers also include cancers of the nasal passage, larynx, pharynx, and oral cavity. An estimated 500,000 people are diagnosed with one of these types of cancer each year. While it was already known that smoking elevated the risk of these types of cancer, the study uncovered new information regarding gender.

Evidently, smoking may play a greater role in the development of head and neck cancers in women than in men. After examining an extensive amount of data, researchers found that 45 percent of these cancers could be attributed to smoking in men, 75 percent could be attributed to smoking in women.

The results of this study can be found in the October 2007 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Cancer.

I am sore. I train hard, I play hard, and I am sore. But, I just treated myself to something I think will allow me to be less sore in the future. An iNeed shiatsu massager pillow from Brookstone. Mmmmm. It makes me so happy. If you're unfamiliar with this thing, it's a pillow you attach to a chair and lean back on. Then these thumb-like knobby things move around and massage the sore parts on your back and neck.

In fact, right now as I'm writing this I have that weird look of ecstasy on my face. I'm using my shiatsu pillow. Usually folks come to me on advice on how to become more sore. Training equipment, strategies, etc. Today you get the opposite. My $59 pillow of pleasure from Brookstone will satisfy my aching back for much longer than any single massage at a spa. (Although I love those too).

If you feel a little pain, tension, or pull on your shoulder, take a look inside your purse. What you've got crammed in there may be weighing you down.

A heavy bag can cause pain in your neck, tingling in your fingers, even headaches, says family practitioner Jane Sadler of the Baylor Medical Center in Garland, Texas. Sadler recommends carrying bags no heavier than three pounds and definitely no more than 10 percent of your body weight. For those wishing to lighten up a bit, Sadler offers these tips:

• Clean out your wallet. Only carry credit cards, papers, and store cards you'll need that day.

• Stash a duplicate make-up bag at the office and in your gym locker and remove the one you've got stashed in your purse.

• Keep your cell phone or PDA in a pocket.

• Wear bags with the strap-messenger style (across the body).

• Alternate shoulders.

• Watch your posture. Slumping adds to the strain.

A substance found in delicious fruits like mangoes and strawberries has found to be very effective in stopping the spread of cancer cells in the head and neck area, according to a new study out of Hong Kong this week.

Lupeol was found to be most effective when used with traditional chemotherapy drugs, and was noted as suppressing both the movement and growth of cancer cells. Not surprisingly, the compound was more effective than some cutting-edge pharmaceutical drugs as well.

No surprise there -- I continue to believe that a good vegetable (broccoli) and fruit (blueberry) cancer defense beats the tar out of drugs that have horrid side effects.

If you are having trouble balancing during certain exercises using a spotter is a good idea until you build up body muscles that will hold you for that particular exercise. Spotters are not just for weight lifting.

One of the most important things to know with exercise is proper body alignment and balance. Maintaining a good position with your head so that you are not pulling on your neck while doing sit ups or other ab exercises is important to reduce your risks of injuries. If you're doing a set of abdominal exercises and your neck hurts but not your stomach then you might want to look and see how you were lying or how you were holding your head because you're neck shouldn't hurt after you've been doing abdominal exercises. You need to check your body alignment. If you are holding your hands behind your neck and you're actually irritating your neck or straining then you are doing either too much or trying to go too fast and you are straining and that is creating stress on your neck.

One of the top exercises that you can do for abs is a reverse crunch. Lie down on a bench with your knees bent and your upper legs at a 90 degree angle with your torso. Hold the bench above your head for stability. Use your ab muscles to pull your knees toward your chest until they reach your elbows. Hold the crunch position for three seconds and return to the starting position. Doing ten of these in your exercise routine every day will give you a toner midsection.

Recently a small study confirmed for college kids what I think many of us already knew: too much time spent on the computer means aches, pains, and sore muscles. The study looked at 27 college students and found that the more time they spent working on the computer, the more complaints they had of aches and pains over the next 24 hours. Spending three or more hours a day on the computer increased musculoskeletal symptoms by 50%, with the most common complaint area being the neck, followed by the lower back, upper back, and shoulders.

Posture is obviously important, as is taking frequent breaks to sit back and stretch. Since computers aren't going anywhere anytime soon, researchers will now be setting up larger studies to hopefully gain some ideas on how to help students stay healthy while studying and working (and the rest of us too!).

Push-ups are by far my favorite upper body exercise. In fact, if you had to choose only one exercise to do for your upper body for the rest of your life.......you better pick the push-up. This all in one exercise works just about every muscle above your hip and then some. No other strength training exercise has the ability to work your chest, back, shoulders, biceps, triceps, forearm, abs, erector spinae (low back), glutes, calves, anterior tibialis (over your shin), neck. and more. Not only are they the best, they're something almost everybody can do. Barring spinal injuries and rotator cuffs, unless you've specifically been told not to do push-ups.....you should do them.

Here's a bunch of fun ways to do a push-up, in order from easiest to hardest. Keep in mind, your back should always be straight, Your tushy should not sag down, or stick up. Breath, breath, breath. Suffocation is rarely useful. I normally start my clients with three sets. Do the most you can possibly do on your first, rest and repeat two times. You'll be surprised at how quickly you progress.

Level 1:

Wall push-ups. Hands on wall, feet on floor about a foot away. Push out.

On knees, butt high. Hands and feet shoulder width apart on ground, push-up.

On knees butt flat. Hands and feet shoulder width apart on ground, push-up.

Dealing with chronic neck pain? Neck kinks and discomfort are fairly common, and although pain usually resolves itself on its own, anything lasting longer than two months can become chronic and require specialized treatment. A study done recently suggested that a combination of two treatments is the most effective -- neck exercises combined with sleeping on a supportive pillow. The study included 4 groups: one was the control group, one did exercises, one used a support pillow, and one group did exercises and used a special pillow. After a 12 week period, the only group that reported decreased neck pain was the group that recieved the combination of therapies.

This is good news, considering how debilitating neck pain can be. Unfortunately, though, this study only looked at patients complianing of mild neck pain, so there's no data on whether it helps people with more severe cases.

Are you getting more headaches than you used to? Are you having neck cramps or back pain and can't figure out why? The culprit could be your large, heavy purse. Trendy handbags and purses keep getting bigger and bigger - and we're filling them to the max.

Toting these bags around with us all day - which can easily weigh 15 pounds or more - can also lead to upper back problems. And since you might not notice the pain until later, when you're working out or sitting at your desk at the office, the source of the pain often remains a mystery as the problem gets worse and worse.

The American Chiropractic Association recommends that handbags weigh no more than 10 percent of the owner's body weight, but doctors point out that the rule was made assuming the weight would carried distributed evenly across your back, like when wearing a backpack.

Handbags that will be carried with the straps over only one shoulder should generally weigh less than 10 percent of your body weight to avoid injury. Also remember to switch the side you're carrying it on often, and walk with correct posture, keeping your head and shoulders aligned and upright.

Good news for all of us cell phone users! Over the years there have been lots of conflicting rumors and news about whether cell phones and the radio waves they emit can cause cancer or not. But recently researchers in Denmark published results from an enormous study in which 420,000 cell phone users were tracked, some of which had been using cell phones for over 20 years. This study is the largest yet, and it seems to determine that there is no link between cell phone use and cancer risk.

Among the 420,000 cell phone users studied, the cancer rate was actually slightly lower than expected based on national cancer statistics. And although there have been a few studies that raised some doubt about the issue in the past, these most recent results support the majority that cell phones are safe. But U.S. health officials are still playing it safe -- insisting that there is no reason for concern, but refusing to officially declare cell phones risk-free either.