Posts Tagged ‘ safety ’

Sept 28.11-Backpack Safety

Back to School and Backpack Safety

Several news stories and articles have appeared speaking to the issue of backpack safety in school children. One article from the Aug. 1, 2007 issue of the Okeechobee News starts off by noting that backpacks can be purchased anywhere, but very few people ask about the construction of these packs. The article suggests that parents ask the following questions. “How wide are the shoulder straps? Does it disperse weight evenly? Does the bag have a waist belt to disperse weight to the hips?”

The Okeechobee News article reports that according to the the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS), there are more than 21,000 backpack-related injuries each year. The article notes that increased weight is a major issue. The result, as they suggest, is that, “This increase in weight can be correlated to an increase in children seeing chiropractors.”

On July 12, 2007, the California publication, The Acorn, also published a story on backpack safety. In this story they quote Dr. Gerard W. Clum of the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress who advises, “Backpacks weighing more than 15 pounds that are slung over a shoulder produce an imbalance in the rib cage.” He continued by saying, “This type of repetitive strain can also initiate arm and hand numbness, headaches or backaches.”

The July 20, 2007 Toledo Free Press also ran a story on backpacks where they offered tips by the American Chiropractic Association to “help prevent the needless pain that backpack misuse could cause the students in your household.” These tips included:

 Make sure your child’s backpack weighs no more than 10 percent of his or her body weight.

 The backpack should never hang more than four inches below the waistline.

 A backpack with individualized compartments helps in positioning the contents most effectively.

 Make sure that pointy or bulky objects are packed away from the area that will rest on your child’s back.

 Urge your child to wear both shoulder straps.

 The shoulder straps should be adjustable so the backpack fits to your child’s body.

 If the backpack is still too heavy, talk to your child’s teacher.

To Download this Article: BackpackSafety

Oct.21.10-McDonald’s Doesn’t Decompose

McDonald’s Happy Meal resists decomposition for six months

By Brett Michael Dykes brett Michael Dykes – Tue Oct 12, 1:54 pm ET

Vladimir Lenin, King Tut and the McDonald’s Happy Meal: What do they all have in common? A shocking resistance to Mother Nature’s cycle of decomposition and biodegradability, apparently.
That’s the disturbing point brought home by the latest project of New York City-based artist and photographer Sally Davies, who bought a McDonald’s Happy Meal back in April and left it out in her kitchen to see how well it would hold up over time.
The results? “The only change that I can see is that it has become hard as a rock,” Davies told the U.K. Daily Mail.
She proceeded to photograph the Happy Meal each week and posted the pictures to Flickr to record the results of her experiment. Now, just over six months later, the Happy Meal has yet to even grow mold. She told the Daily Mail that “the food is plastic to the touch and has an acrylic sheen to it.”
[Related: 'Double Down' among the worst fast food of 2010]
Davies — whose art has been featured in numerous films and television shows and is collected by several celebrities — told The Upshot that she initiated the project to prove a friend wrong. He believed that any burger would mold or rot within two or three days of being left on a counter. Thus began what’s become known as “The Happy Meal Art Project.”
[DIY: Make happier meals for your kids at home -- just don't forget one key tip]
“I told my friend about a schoolteacher who’s kept a McDonald’s burger for 12 years that hasn’t changed at all, and he didn’t believe me when I told him about it,” Davies told us. “He thought I was crazy and said I shouldn’t believe everything that I read, so I decided to try it myself.”
[Did you know? Before the Happy Meal, there was the Fun Meal]
Some observers of the photo series have noted that the burger’s bun appears at different angles, and therefore aired suspicions that the Happy Meal may not in fact be as “untouched” as the project’s groundrules stipulate. Davies says there’s a simple explanation for the mobile-bun effect. “The meal is on a plate in my apartment on a shelf,” she says, “and when I take it down to shoot it, the food slides around. It’s hard as rock on a glass plate, so sure, the food is moving.”
Click image to see more photos of the unchanging Happy Meal

Photo courtesy of Sally Davies
Davies’ friend was the person who should have done the additional research. Wellness and nutrition educator Karen Hanrahan has indeed kept a McDonald’s hamburger since 1996 to show clients and students how resistant fast food can be to decomposition.
As for Davies, she said that she might just keep her burger and fries hanging around for a while as well.
“It’s sitting on a bookshelf right now, so it’s not really taking up any space, so why not?” she said. It ceased giving off any sort of odor after 24 hours, she said, adding: “You have to see this thing.”

In response to Davies’ project, McDonald’s spokeswoman Theresa Riley emailed The Upshot a statement defending the quality of the chain’s food. Riley’s email also blasted Davies’ “completely unsubstantiated” work as something out of “the realm of urban legends.”
“McDonald’s hamburger patties in the United States are made with 100% USDA-inspected ground beef,” Riley wrote. “Our hamburgers are cooked and prepared with salt, pepper and nothing else — no preservatives, no fillers. Our hamburger buns are baked locally, are made from North American-grown wheat flour and include common government-approved ingredients designed to assure food quality and safety. … According to Dr. Michael Doyle, Director, Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia, ‘From a scientific perspective, I can safely say that the way McDonald’s hamburgers are freshly processed, no hamburger would look like this after one year unless it was tampered with or held frozen.’”

To Download this Article: McDonalds_Doesnt_Decompose