When your dad's a pro athlete, there's a lot of pressure on you as a kid to measure up. These kids sure did:
- Brett Hull was an eight-time All-Star in the NHL; dad Bobby is a 12-time NHL All-Star; both are in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
- Harvey Catchings was a defensive force in the NBA from 1974 to 1985. His daughter, Tamika, played 15 years in the WNBA for the Indiana Fever and was Defensive Player of the Year in 2005.
- The Griffey boys (Ken Jr. and Ken Sr.), well, they hit back-to-back homers when they played for the Mariners, the only father-son pair in history to do so.
Sometimes pressure can lead to excellence, but there's one kind of pressure on kids that's guaranteed to cause problems: high blood pressure.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4 percent of kids 12 to 19 have high blood pressure (that's 1.3 million youngsters) and 10 percent have elevated blood pressure. Obesity is a huge cause of early-onset HBP, and these kids are candidates for premature heart disease, heart attack and stroke.
Heard enough to get you to make sure your kids are heart healthy? Here's what to do:
- Help them get at least 60 minutes of activity daily.
- Make sure they: avoid processed foods, deli meats and unhealthy fats; drink no soda; eat lots of fruits and veggies; and drink water!
To discover your child's healthy blood pressure level, talk to your doc and go online for the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute's pocket guide at http://tinyurl.com/y2ec2yyy.
Distributed by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
Read more http://cdn.kingfeatures.com/rss/feed/editorial/index.php?content=YouDocTips_20190219