Helping Kids Avoid the Swine Flu

Reason no. 700 to listen to your mother: you can avoid swine flu.

Keeping kids healthy (and helping avoid scary things like school closings and pandemics) can be as simple as minding your manners and eating your vegetables. Dr. Steven Chang, a staff physician with RightHealth, suggests some good habits for kids as they go back to school:

1. Don’t spray it. Cough or sneeze into your elbow, not your hands. Whatever you do, do NOT let those germs just fly into the air!
2. Be obsessive about hand washing - with soap. And remember, a hasty squeeze and rinse won’t do the trick. As they say in preschool:  scrub fronts, backs and in-betweens.
3. Don't pick your nose!  Do we even have to go there … 
4. Keep your nails well-trimmed. If millions of germs can fit on a pinpoint, imagine the population spike they can have under long nails. Gross.
5. Carry a bottle of hand sanitizer (alcohol-based only). In a pinch, put the squeeze on germs.
6. Don't eat with your hands. Keep your paws off your plate - utensils are there for a reason.
7. Don't kiss your friends who are sick or not feeling well. On the flip side, if YOU are sick or not feeling well, be responsible and stay home. At the very least, don’t reach out and touch someone!
8. Avoid sharing drinks with your friends. For once, you really don’t have to share. There are so many ways to get sick from drink sharing – swine flu, colds, mono... Hmm… suddenly your friend’s soda doesn’t look as appealing, does it?
9. Eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. As if we needed another reason to add more good stuff to our diets. An apple a day, as they say…
10. Get plenty of sleep. A well rested body fights off infections better than a sluggish system stymied by lack of sleep.
    

Dr. Chang practices Family Medicine at the University of California Davis Medical Center. Dr. Chang trained at the Stanford University affiliated O'Connor Hospital, and was a research fellow at the National Institute of Health.  He holds an M.D. from McGill University and a BA in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University.