For the recently-released book, SUGARPROOF: The Hidden Dangers of Sugar That Are Putting Your Child’s Health at Risk and What You Can Do (Avery/Penguin Random House), Dr. Michael Goran, Ph.D., professor of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, co-director of the USC Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute and expert in childhood nutrition, teams up with co-author Dr. Emily Ventura, an expert in nutrition education and recipe development. 

The book is particularly topical with the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s recent changes to the Nutrition Facts label, listing hidden sugars, and the new USDA dietary guidelines now recommending infants age 0-2 consume zero added sugars. COVID-19 also adds urgency as high sugar diets weaken the immune system, increasing susceptibility to viral infections.

Sugarproof guides readers through the modern-day  “Sugar Storm,” providing realistic family-based solutions. “Sugarproof” isn’t about quitting sugar entirely, it’s about becoming a smart consumer, identifying and replacing hidden sugars while reducing reliance on sweet foods and drinks as daily staples by transitioning from processed foods (70% of which contain added sugars) to a more whole foods-based diet. Sugarproof also busts myths about the various types of sugars and sweeteners. 

In a groundbreaking study, Dr. Michael Goran and his team conducted a detailed analysis of the sugary products that kids love and how they impact everyday life. What they found was that many yogurts, cereals, sodas, and juices often had more sugar than advertised and contained different types of sugar than were being disclosed. The overabundance of sugar, and different types of sugar, can have a direct adverse effect on kids’ weight, chronic disease risk, behavior, and how well they do in school. High sugar intake has also been associated with longer term cognitive decline, including Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease as well as contributing to increased lifelong risk of cancer.

In Sugarproof, Goran and Ventura explain how babies are born with a built-in preference for sweet flavors, which is supposed to be protective so that babies like breastmilk, seek out calories and avoid contaminated foods. However, this protective mechanism backfires in today’s high sugar environment, making their developing bodies particularly susceptible to the adverse effects of too much sugar. Food companies target this innate preference for sweetness through advances in food technology, delivering new types of artificial sugars and processed sweeteners like fruit juice concentrates, and then using aggressive marketing campaigns that target children by using their favorite sports heroes and celebrities.

We also learn that children don’t need to be overweight to have a sugar problem. In fact, even if well-meaning parents purchase organic options, their children could still have dangerously high levels of blood lipids or body fat wrapped around internal organs. 

Sugarproof encourages families to take on a life-changing 7-Day No Added Sugar Challenge. Learning how to sugar-proof your life is an empowering journey for the whole family designed to bring sugar consumption to a reasonable level.

The 7-Day No Added Sugar Challenge gives families that start with tools to reboot their diets, identify everyday sources of hidden sugars and find alternative replacements. The book also offers a 28-Day No Added Sugar Challenge for those seeking a more gradual plan. Goran and Ventura offer a reliable and straightforward theory-based approach, encouraging family-based solutions, including easy steps like engaging children in the shopping and cooking process, which will inspire kids to adopt healthier eating habits and the ability to self-regulate sugar. Sugarproof includes 39 food and beverage recipes that are easy, kid-friendly, flavorful, and flexible to account for different food preferences and needs within families.

For more information or to purchase a copy of the book, visit: https://sugarproofkids.com

More people work from home (WFH) than ever before since the novel coronavirus pandemic began. If your employees are among them, they might still feel on shaky career ground with all the recent changes.

The telecommuting life offers multiple advantages, but feelings of engagement and security aren’t among them. Many remote workers struggle with isolation and self-doubt that compels them to labor harder than ever. Here are five thoughtful ways to show appreciation for your WFH employees and let them know you recognize their contributions.

1. Send a Thoughtful Gift

As an employer, you can reward your employees with gifts when your budget doesn’t justify bonuses. However, you must follow the proper etiquette — anything too expensive or personal can cause discomfort. You should also send similar gifts to every staff member to avoid the appearance of favoritism.

However, you can still find ways to honor each staff member’s unique tastes. For example, you can send out surveys asking employees about their favorite sports teams or music groups. Use the information to delight them with a new cap or a super-cozy throw.

2. Establish Routine Check-ins

Even if your WFH staff knows their duties like the backs of their hands, they can start to doubt themselves without their colleague’s ongoing reinforcement. Even if they keep records of their achievements, it’s human nature to compare yourself to others and see where you rank. When you remove this checks-and-balances system, your workers feel more insecure about their performance, even when doing their best.

Therefore, a once-a-year performance review isn’t adequate regarding keeping tabs on their progress. Establish routine check-ins to go over their goals and what they need to do to reach the next level in their careers.

Such meetings serve dual purposes. They also provide a place for telecommuters to ask questions since they might not understand the communication chain and hesitate to reach out for help when need be. Check-ins eliminate frustration, because email communication can mean waiting an inordinately long time to answer a question they could address in seconds through in-person conversation. 

3. Host More Virtual Happy Hours

One of the drawbacks of WFH life is isolation. Loneliness isn’t only a negative emotion — it can adversely affect your employee’s health and lead to more sick days.

Work does provide a valuable social outlet, and switching to telecommuting can make your employees feel unbearably lonely. Why not hop on the virtual happy hour bandwagon and provide opportunities for your staff to socialize off-the-clock?

Such events offer considerable advantages over the traditional model. You can liven them up with games that get everyone involved — even that shy person who typically stands in the corner.

4. Provide Transparency

When your employees don’t work on-site, they can feel adrift about their future career prospects. Please avoid practices like promises of advancement that aren’t likely to materialize. This rule is especially vital with new hires, as 25% of Americans lost work during the recent pandemic and are struggling to rebuild their careers.

Be open and transparent about advancement potential, and only mention promotions if they are likely to happen. By avoiding any misleading information about career advancement, you can more effectively help get them where they need to be in life, and you’ll keep their trust.

5. Treat Them Like “Real” Staff

If your company has a blend of WFH staff and on-site workers, please make your remote workers feel like more than temp workers serving at your convenience. Offer them the same perks you do to those performing similar labor in-office.

There are some exceptions — for example, you don’t need to issue your receptionist a work truck if you run a plumbing company. However, if other staffers are eligible for PTO, please ensure the folks running the phones from home get the same. Sickness doesn’t discriminate, and even telecommuters need to take their kids to the doctor sometimes.

Treating your remote workers like in-office staff also helps to increase engagement. Since many employers make productivity their foremost concern when switching to WFH arrangements, it only makes sense to improve the ownership such employees take in their work. Incentives work far better than punitive measures if you hope to reduce turnover.

Show Appreciation for Your WFH Employees With These Tips

Although you might not see them every day, your WFH employees are part of the lifeblood of your business. Please show them your appreciation with these five tips.

I ran across a reference to World Storytelling Day in a message from a Scottish-American group on Facebook. Lo and behold, it’s coming up on March 20. (I know, not much surprise after the headline, but what could I do?)

But what else struck my attention is that March 20 is also the birthday of Sir Walter Scott, the famous Scottish novelist who is remembered in Scotland’s capital city, Edinburgh, by the Scott Monument. So, with rustlings coming from the Imaginary Writers’ Room in my mind, I assumed that the storytelling day was planned to be on the birthday of one of Scotland’s great storytellers.

One of them, Arthur, I thought as a familiar Scots voice rumbled behind the door of the Writers’ Room. (Really familiar — I’ve seen a YouTube “talkie” film of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle here which really does sound like my grandfather.)

But sometimes coincidence is just that, incidents happening at the same time without any real link. As Wikipedia explains, ‘World Storytelling Day has its roots in a national day for storytelling in Sweden, circa 1991-2. At that time, an event was organized for March 20 in Sweden called “Alla berättares dag” (All storytellers day). The Swedish national storytelling network passed out some time after, but the day stayed alive, celebrated around the country by different enthusiasts. In 1997, storytellers in Perth, Western Australia coordinated a five-week-long Celebration of Story, commemorating March 20 as the International Day of Oral Narrators. At the same time, in Mexico and other Latin American countries, March 20 was already celebrated as the National Day of Storytellers.”

Then I thought I heard a laugh in the Writers’ Room — a joyful shout, really, When I heard a third man’s voice calling out a quiet “Wheesht!” and knew that was Louis Stevenson’s call to be quiet, I figured out that the second man I’d heard in my mind must have been Robert Burns.

“So Scott gets a party,” Burns said through giggles, “but only because they started it in Sweden!”

“That’s right,” said Agatha Christie, who sounded like she was opening the door — perhaps to edge her way away from Burns. “But we all do owe Sir Walter a great deal.”

“Yes,” said Daphne du Maurier. “He did so much to make novels popular.”

“He wisnae the only one,” muttered Stevenson.

“No, he wasn’t,” said Sir Arthur, “but he was quite a leader. Why, even I copied bits from his mannerisms.”

“Copied?” I couldn’t see from my perch outside the door, but I thought Agatha might be fanning herself at the mere word.

“The image of the man against the lighted window shade,” said Arthur.

I knew “the man” was Sherlock Holmes — this happened in my favorite short story, “The Adventure of the Empty House.”

As Arthur wrote in his great book about books, “Through the Magic Door,” Sir Walter Scott was observed working on his novels late into the night, with his profile visible in the shadow on his window shade.

I gathered my tired nerves and turned the door of the Writers’ Room in my mind.

“Hello, everyone,” I said. Agatha Christie and Daphne du Maurier were sitting on the far side of the dining-room-sized table, with T.S. Eliot and Robert Burns on the near side and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at the head of the table. (After all, he is the chairman of my imaginary committee.)

Robert Louis Stevenson waved to me from where he lay on the sofa and said “Come in, Margaret.”

“Thank you, Louis, but no,” I said. “I just stopped by to remind you that World Storytelling Day is coming up in two days.”

The committee looked around as if embarrassed, avoiding my eyes.

“How long is that?” said Agatha Christie, reminding me of Maggie Smith’s line in “Downton Abbey,” “What is a weekend?”

They don’t need to know about time anymore, but they do love stories. Share some of their works as soon as you can!

Margaret Serious has a page on Facebook.