Childhood Obesity

It has become an epidemic, leading to the very early development of Type 2 Diabetes. However, obesity in children is also causing something else:

The growing rates of child obesity in the United States may be causing girls to
reach puberty at an increasingly younger age, a study released Monday concluded.

After following 354 girls, University of Michigan researchers found those who were fatter at age 3 and continued to gain weight reached puberty, as defined by breast development, by age 9.
Earlier evidence has shown that girls are entering puberty at younger ages than they were 30 years ago.

This simply adds to the growing health and social problems of childhood obesity and is avoidable in the live of so many kids.

That garden ...

Do you want to create a kitchen garden that's as beautiful to look at as it is productive? Start by banishing the idea of a single, vast patch of upturned earth with regiment after regiment of linearly disposed vegetables marching across it. Instead embrace the idea of growing vegetables in a decorative, multiple-parterre planting within a fenced or walled space. You have now opened the door to a far more pleasurable experience on every level. More soothing to be in. Far easier to work. The first step on this journey is to eliminate the prototypical rectangle from your vocabulary and let your mind wander freely over all the other geometric possibilities. Picture an octagonal garden. Or a square one with semicircular island beds, or one further divided into pie-wedged beds, or even a quartet of rooms. How about an enfilade of smaller plots linked by fruit trees trained into arbor form, chaining across a lawn or encircling a central water feature? - more