If you have ever walked around a mall, you have seen childhood obesity, kids eating foods with poor nutritional content and more interested in texting than exercising. We’re in the middle of a raging epidemic affecting America’s youth – the obesity epidemic. The number of American adolescents who are obese increased 300% in the last 40 years.

Childhood obesity is a problem that can potentially affect every family. The good news is that in almost all cases, obesity is a lifestyle disorder. In other words, children become obese because of behaviors learned from their friends and their parents.

Healthy eating and regular exercise are the two critically important steps to take to help ensure your child retains an appropriate weight. With respect to healthy eating –

It’s a New Year – and you’v decided to find out if Chiropractic is right for you.  You’ve decided this is going to be the year you actually fulfill your list of New Year’s resolutions. This is going to be the year you finally start taking good care of yourself. You’re going to exercise regularly, you’re going to lose weight, and you’re going to find our whether chiropractic care can make a difference in your life.

Chiropractic can help you fulfil that promise you’ve been making: promising yourself good health for years. Your friends and even some family members have been recommending chiropractic health care to you for a very long time. You decide you’re ready to take action and you make an appointment to see our office at Grant Chiropractic Health Center, your local chiropractor.

Chiropractic health care is more important now than ever before. Today 47 million Americans are without

Kids need Chiropractic care and can get checked for free at Grant Chiropractic Health Center, too. Do kids need regular blood pressure check-ups or regular tests of their blood glucose levels? Probably not – these simple procedures can be done during a child’s annual physical. But kids are very active and more frequent chiropractic check-ups are usually a good idea. Most of us were introduced to chiropractic care when we were adults – and we had to play catch-up for however long a period of time before we really began to feel healthy again. If we began chiropractic care as a younger adult, it probably didn’t take too long to restore good health. If we were older – well, the process probably took more time.

If chiropractic care is valuable for you, imagine how valuable it is for your children.  Our website http://southingtonchiropractor.com/custom_content/45124_kids_and_chiropractic_in_our_office.html, will give you information on our office and how we treat children.  Kids are natural explorers – they run, jump, climb things, fall down, and bounce around. 1 And, kids are resilient – this ability to recover

While there is still a lot of debate in the medical community about degenerative disc disease, a few aspects of the condition are known. This article will discuss aspects of degenerative disc disease that are more commonly accepted, such as the theory of the degenerative process, as well as some areas of theory that are still a source of debate in the medical community.

Generally, the pain associated with degenerative disc disease is thought to stem from two different factors: Inflammation and abnormal motion causing instability. The proteins in the disc space can cause a lot of inflammation, and inflammation in the disc space can lead to low back pain radiating to the hips. The associated pain can also travel down the back of the legs.

Both the inflammation and instability can cause muscular spasm in the low back. The muscle spasm is the body’s attempt to stabilize the low back. It is a reflex, and although the body’s response of muscle spasm is not necessary for the safety of the nerve roots, it can be quite painful.

In our office we treat people of all ages with this problem.  It is really sad when we see younger people with

Degenerative disc disease is one of the most common causes of low back pain, and also one of the most misunderstood. Many patients diagnosed with low back pain caused by degenerative disc disease are left wondering exactly what this diagnosis means for them. Common questions that are often on patients’ minds include:
• If I have low back pain from degenerative disc disease in my thirties, how much worse will it become with age?
• Will the degenerative disc disease become a crippling condition? Will I end up in a wheelchair?
• Should I restrict my activities?
• Will the degenerative disc disease spread to other parts of the spine?
• Will the low back pain from degenerative disc disease cause any permanent damage?

When sciatica pain is at its most severe, patients may find the pain hard to bear and may need to rest for a day or two. However, resting for longer than one or two days is usually not advisable, as prolonged rest or inactivity will usually make the sciatic pain worse. Regular movement is important to provide healing nutrients to the injured structures that are causing the pain. Chiropractic care can correct the cause of the sciatica and just as important, an appropriate exercise program will over time reduce stress on the low back and help alleviate sciatic pain. When patients engage in a regular program of gentle strengthening, stretching and aerobic exercises, they can recover more quickly from a flare up of sciatica and likely to prevent future episodes of pain.

Sciatica exercises usually focus on three key areas. The first are strengthening exercises.Many exercises

We are very excited here at Grant Chiropractic Health Center because we have been providing massage therapy for almost a year and the response has been great. Nancy and Alice are available and boy are they good. Visit this link to our website to find out more about massage in our office. http://www.southingtonchiropractor.com/custom_content/2965_our_wellness_partners.html

Massage is the practice of applying structured or unstructured pressure, tension, motion, or vibration — manually or with mechanical aids — to the soft tissues of the body, including muscles, connective tissue, tendons, ligaments, joints and lymphatic vessels, to achieve a beneficial response. Massage Therapy is

Chiropractic spinal manipulation is very helpful with low back pain which can occur during pregnancy. The weight gain, loosening of the ligaments, activity change can cause and/or contribute to back pain. During labor, back pain is also a problem. There are some suggestions in the literature that back pain may affect pregnancy and delivery in ways other than increasing discomfort or restricting activity. There is some evidence that suggests that women with low back pain during pregnancy had longer labors and pain during delivery know as back labor. Other researchers have reported that there may be a relationship between back pain during pregnancy and during delivery. Having a baby is hard enough (and painful enough) so if there is a way to reduce the pain and make labor shorter, it would be a good thing.  Our office treats many pregnant women and their children as well.  Visit our website at www.southingtonchiropractor.com for more information.

The cause of back pain during labor is unknown for sure. Some possible causes are traction or stretching of

You might not think that Chiropractic can help with breathing problems but consider this story.  A patient brought in their daughter for me to find out why she had chest pain. She had been to her pediatrician already who didn’t think there was any thing wrong. I examined her and decided there was a problem in her mid back area, probably because of the heavy back pack she had to carry and began to treat her. She didn’t get better. That is unusual because children usually respond very quickly under Chiropractic care. Usually 2 or 3 visits and they are better and on their way. Obviously, something else was going on.

During my chiropractic consultation and with further questioning, I found out that this young girl was worried about what high school she was going to go to and it was affecting her breathing. She wasn’t sleeping well and had all the symptoms of being under a lot of stress. This included very shallow and rapid

In the old days, no one talked about core strengthening and its relationship to back pain. Football players, ballet dancers, and gymnasts went to practice and class and did what they did. We now know that much of what these highly trained athletes were doing was designed to strengthen their core musculature.

Your core muscles include your deep abdominal muscles and your deep spinal, pelvic, and hip muscles. Core muscles are trained by large, compound movements that use your body’s own weight as a gravitational load. Squats, push-ups, pull-ups, and jumping jacks are all excellent core exercises.

Again, decades ago athletic coaches never talked about core exercises. They just knew these basic, fundamental exercises were critically important for their students’ success.  My Chiropractic office consistantly recommends core exercises to strengthen our patients back.  Visit my website at http://www.southingtonchiropractor.com/custom_content/44486_services_and_products_offered.html to see the type of core exercises we recommend.

Additional important core exercises include the plank, pelvis press-ups, and the scorpion. Your chiropractor will be able to help you select a group of core exercises that will work for you.