Childhood Obesity Conference

I had the opportunity to go to a Childhood Obesity Conference yesterday in San Francisco. Along with my Public Health degree I am a "Certified Health Education Specialist" which basically just means I have to pay a yearly due and take a certain number of Continuing Education Units every 5 years to keep up my certification. Even though I am a "Stay at Home Mom" right now, I am trying to keep up in the field and try to complete my credits (which of course I'm way behind on even though I already filed for one extension). In short, I have to complete 75 credits over a term of 5 years and let's just say with one year left I'm not even halfway there so I have a lot of credits to make up this year. This is why independent study courses and I never got along very well...
Anyhow, once I drove myself up to the city I really enjoyed the conference. There were four different tracks: Nutrition, Family & Community, Physical Activity & Cutting Edge. I had trouble trying to narrow down what I wanted to attend. It was awesome hearing about all the current research and work in everything from Breastfeeding to exercise among adolescents to activities to get preschoolers moving to Emotional Brain Training. The last one probably fascinated me the most because it is something I feel is true, but hadn't seen a lot of tangible research on it. Emotional Brain Training enables people to address the root cause of anxiety and depression by acquiring the skills to effectively process stress. Laurel Mellin who taught the lecture says she uses this to help obese kids address the real issues at heart, not just the overeating and lack of movement or exercise. She pointed out that in our society during 1980-2000 there was a lot of movement toward reducing smoking, recreational drug use and alcohol abuse and statistics show this actually worked. However, during that time Credit card debt, prescription drug abuse and obesity increased dramatically so society just handled their stress and issues in different ways, we weren't making healthier choices or increasing overall wellness, just transferring the habits. Anyway...Enough of me on a soapbox. I just really enjoyed the conference and learning again! Every time I read something to do with health education it reaffirms why I went into that field in the first place. I love it! Thanks to my honey for watching the girls all day and being supportive of me!