FOR THE AGES

Children will be transported to another time and place during the sixth annual Pioneer Day Camp at Dade Battlefield Historic State Park, an authentic 1800s period camp for youths ages 8-12. During the one-week camp, kids experience historical living from soap making to milking cows, and interact with farm animals such as sheep, goats and chickens.

“It’s very hands-on,” says Park Ranger Kristin Wood, who has organized the camp since it began in 2012. “That’s a big reason it’s popular and why they enjoy it so much.”

The kids of today love learning about Florida life of the 1800s, as they trade in modern electronics for wooden toys of a bygone era, she says. The campers also play marbles and jacks, learn how to walk on stilts, and compete in sack races and tug-of-war.

“It’s a novelty for them,” Kristin says. “If you can tear them away from video games, it’s great.”

One of the more popular days is Food Day, when campers eat what they make after milking cows, shelling peas, husking corn and cooking other items for their meal. They also learn about American Indian life and the Second Seminole War, re-enacting the battle fought at the site for their families and friends on the last day of camp.

Pioneer Day Camp is scheduled for June 5-9 at the park, 7200 County Road 603, Bushnell. Attendance is capped at 50. The park also hosts Nature Days, July 17-21, a day camp exploring animals, plants, birds and insects.

For information, contact kristin.n.wood@ dep.state.fl.us, call 352.793.4781, or go to floridastateparks.org.

Camping By The Numbers

EACH YEAR, MORE THAN 14 MILLION CHILDREN AND ADULTS ATTEND CAMP IN THE UNITED STATES.

CAMPING IS AN $18 BILLION INDUSTRY.

MORE THAN 14,000 DAY AND RESIDENT CAMPS OPERATE IN THE UNITED STATES

8,400 ARE RESIDENT (OVERNIGHT) CAMPS, AND 5,600 ARE DAY CAMPS.

NONPROFIT GROUPS, INCLUDING YOUTH AGENCIES AND RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS, OPERATE ABOUT 11,000 CAMPS, AND 2,500 ARE PRIVATELY OWNED, INDEPENDENT FOR-PROFIT OPERATORS.

CAMPS EMPLOY MORE THAN 1.5 MILLION CAMP STAFF MEMBERS. NEARLY 20 PERCENT ARE FROM OTHER COUNTRIES.

Source: American Camp Association

WRITER: RICHARD T. BOSSHARDT, MP

If you have a sedentary job, it is enough to exercise regularly.

Myth: It is not enough to exercise regularly, or even daily. Studies show that prolonged periods of immobility, whether sitting or standing, create a risk of sudden death six times that of people who move continuously in their jobs. This is independent of exercise. To counteract this, many people are turning to such things as standing desks, instead of sitting at a desk in a chair. There are apps for your cell phone that tell you to periodically move, stretch, or simply change position. The goal is to move around more or less continuously throughout the day.

As long as you feel OK and have no restrictions in your activity level, you probably don’t need to worry about heart disease.

Myth: The first sign of heart disease may be a heart attack, stroke, or sudden death in as many as one-third of people who have heart disease and don’t know it. If you have a history of heart disease in your family, high blood pressure, diabetes, are overweight, or have elevated cholesterol levels, have a regular checkup with your primary physician. If there is any question, there are noninvasive tests, such as a cardiac PET scan, stress test, and others that can identify persons at risk. The time to begin a heart healthy lifestyle is before you experience a cardiac event.

You need to drink eight glasses of water daily.

Myth: You need to stay hydrated, but there is no need to walk around all day sipping water, as some people do. You get water in the foods you eat and that counts, too. The way to stay hydrated is drink when you’re thirsty and monitor your urine color. Assuming you have normal kidneys, your urine should be light yellow to almost clear. If it is dark yellow, you are dehydrated and need to drink. Don’t use sodas or even fruit juices for hydration because of high sugar content. Beverages with caffeine, such as coffee and tea, are the best because they cause your kidneys to excrete more water. Alcoholic beverages should never be used for hydration.

Sugar from natural sources, like fruits and honey, is healthier than refined sugar.

Myth: Sugar is sugar. Pure, refined cane sugar is devoid of nutrients whereas natural sources may contain some beneficial factors, such as antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, etc. Even so, too much sugar from any source is not good for you and can contribute to problems—heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and so on. It is better to avoid refined sugar and get natural sugars from whole fruits rather than juices. The fiber in fruit slows absorption of sugar in your gut and prevents sugar spikes in your blood and slows down insulin production. If you want to drink your fruit, use a blender to get the juice, pulp, and, when possible, the skin. The latter is where most of the fiber and many nutrients are.

You can eat prepared foods as long as it says 0 grams of trans fats in the list of ingredients.

Myth: This is one of the most dangerous myths. No amount of trans fats (a type of fat that is not found naturally in food and is created by heating or added to foods to increase shelf life) is safe to consume. Trans fats damage cells and can cause all manner of health problems. Food labeling laws allow manufacturers of foods that contain less than 0.5 grams of trans fats per serving to list their content as zero. If it is fried, baked, or contains any form of hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fat, it contains trans fats, no matter what the label says.

Choose low-fat alternatives in the foods you buy.

Myth: Low fat usually translates to more carbs, and current research indicates carbs may be a bigger problem than fats ever were. Many manufacturers add salt and sugar to make low-fat products tastier. Research shows it is the type of fats you eat that matters, not whether you eat fats at all. You need healthy fats in your diet. Vegetable and nut oils—olive oil, walnut oil, and avocado oil—all are excellent choices for cooking and use in salads. Even saturated fats, such as found in animal and dairy products, and nuts such as coconuts, can be part of a healthy diet as long as other aspects of the diet are in good balance.

The best diet is the ___________ (fill in the blank with your choice: Atkin’s, paleo, Mediterranean, Ornish, South Beach, Macrobiotic, Hallelujah, etc.)

Myth: There is no perfect diet that suits everyone. Many factors, such as lifestyle, genetics, age, sex, personal health history, and more play into whether a particular diet is optimal for you. The best diet provides necessary nutrients, enough calories to maintain a healthy weight, and maximizes your health potential. It must not be so complicated that you need a degree in nutrition to follow it. Not least, it must be enjoyable and varied enough you will not tire of it. Too many people focus obsessively on their diet to the exclusion of other important factors, such as being active, reducing stress, getting enough sleep, and eliminating unhealthy habits. Overall health is not achieved by finding the perfect diet. It is the consequence of daily, conscious decisions and actions that move toward better health.

If you want to see your future health situation, just look at your parents, since you have their DNA.

Myth: One thing we have learned is that people are not necessarily locked into whatever their DNA is programmed for. Just because your parents died early, or lived into their 90s, had cancer, or heart disease, or were subject to an addiction, does not mean you will. Now, we speak of factors that can modulate the expression of certain genes in our DNA. This is why lifestyle choices become so important. We don’t really know, in most cases, what causes a specific segment of your DNA to be expressed or not. Just do your best to keep up with advances in medicine and try to follow the tenets of a healthy lifestyle. Your primary physician is a great source of information

Once you get old, it is too late to try to reverse aging changes to your body, acquire new skills, improve your memory, or make other fundamental changes to your life.

Myth: If studies have shown one thing, it’s that it is never too late to make changes to benefit your health. Even people in their 90s can learn new skills, increase their strength and mobility, improve their memory, and even reverse such things as narrowing of the arteries that supply their heart muscle. Of course, it is also true that the earlier in life you begin, the greater the rewards you reap from whatever changes you make. So, the ideal is starting when you are young, but never assume it is too late to make positive changes.

Take A Shine To Your Health

Everyone knows protection is needed for long exposure to the sun’s harmful rays, but do you know being in the sun also provides healthful benefits?

While the dangers of getting too much sun have been widely reported, researchers also have looked more closely at the many advantages of being in the sun for short periods. Excessive exposure to UVA rays can lead to DNA damage and skin cancer, and so can an overdose of UVB rays, which cause sunburn. Both types of rays also deplete your skin’s vitamin A supply, damage collagen, cause cataracts to develop, and make you look older by speeding the skin’s aging. But sunlight in small doses may have benefits.

Vitamin D production

Vitamin D is produced when solar UVB rays hit your skin. The vitamin helps prevent cancer, aids immune and neuromuscular systems as well as calcium metabolism, wards off heart disease, and keeps bones strong. About 75 percent of U.S. adults and teenagers are vitamin D deficient, according to the National Library of Medicine. A normal vitamin D reading is between 30.0 and 74.0 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL). If you’re afraid of cancercausing rays, you may tend to stay indoors or cover up. While understandable, it is not recommended. Getting five to 10 minutes of unprotected exposure every day is relatively safe for the average person and provides this vital nutrient. Howver, light-skinned people should avoid getting too much sun.

Improved mood

Do you feel happier on sunny days? Long days of sunlight increase levels of serotonin, which is a hormone that improves your mood. Mental health professionals even recommend 30-minute periods of sunshine each day to patients who suffer from depression. So go for a walk, lounge by the pool, or play yard games with the kids each day to get your vitamin D fix and a healthy pick-me-up.

Improved sleep

Sunlight slows the body’s production of the hormone melatonin, which helps induce sleep. Healthy amounts of sun can help regulate your sleep cycle so you sleep better at night and feel rested during the day. Again, get outside when you get up in the morning and catch some rays to help perk you up. Leave the sun block, sunglasses, and other coverings behind so your body can absorb the sun’s rays. It’s especially helpful to leave your eyes uncovered— but don’t look directly at the sun because this allows sunlight to penetrate them and signal to the brain that it’s time to stop making melatonin.

Alzheimer’s relief

Certain behavioral problems linked to dementia may be relieved by adjusting the lighting, reported a study published in a 2008 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. When compared with study participants exposed to dim light, Alzheimer’s patients who got doses of bright light during daylight hours performed better on a mental exams, suffered fewer bouts of depression, and retained more functionality. Participants on melatonin, however, became more withdrawn. Don’t be afraid to soak up some sun! While you shouldn’t spend hours outside without protecting your skin, you should venture out for short periods during the day to help reap the important benefits of sun exposure. You just might find that you feel happier, healthier, and more rested.

POISON IVY: IT’S AN ITCH

The police call it a BOLO—be on the lookout, and that’s what you must do when you among the lush foliage where poison ivy blends in so well.

Setting out for a week of camping in the woods or settling in for the summer at the cottage can bring excitement and adventure, but it also can bring problem that ruin your time away. Being prepared to manage basic medical events may save your summer. With a little awareness and some supplies in the backpack, you can treat a mild case poison ivy successfully on your own.

Poison ivy is the plant identified by the age-old phrase “leaves of three, let it be.” While a keen eye can identify it, keep in mind when you are cleaning up an area of shrubs, poison ivy may be within the larger brush. Others may not know what to look for and come in contact with the plant while hiking or gathering kindling. If contact occurs and a rash develops, the classic symptoms are red, rough, raised, vesicular lesions that ooze, itch, and cause general discomfort. They will be anywhere the body touched the plant, as well as areas that came into contact with contaminated hands or clothing. Always wash your hands and all clothing that comes in contact with poison ivy oil.

Treatment is generally simple. Wash the area with soap and water and apply calamine lotion for the itch. Cool compresses provide some symptomatic relief, but to really settle the redness and itchiness, a hydrocortisone cream works well. While low-dose hydrocortisone creams can be purchased over the counter and are a good place to start, if they don’t relieve the symptoms, a medical visit and possibly a prescription-strength cortisone cream may be needed. Oral antihistamines also may help relieve the body’s reaction; however, if there are any signs or symptoms of a major reaction such as difficulty breathing or swelling of the eyes or lips, seek emergency attention immediately.

It also is important to monitor the rash for signs and symptoms of a possible secondary bacterial infection due to opportunistic bacteria that may infect within the rash. Infection often is caused by bacteria under the fingernails being transmitted by itching. Though it may seem impossible, avoid scratching. Signs of infection include worsening redness, pain, swelling, and discharge. For this, seeing a doctor is advised. Additionally, go to the doctor if the rash is around the eyes or genitals. You may need oral steroids only a doctor can prescribe.

Keeping a tube of hydrocortisone cream and calamine lotion on hand while away from home may allow you to treat a minor case of poison ivy. Reviewing pictures of poison ivy before heading out for a trip or, even better, keeping a small book of local plants on hand to review, may also help avoid this aggravating plant.