Time to go and play with Lego
Not many people haven’t heard of Lego, and with good reason! The age-old toy that never seems to go out of fashion will be centre stage at a family fun event in Galway next month.
‘LimBrick City’ will bring their Brick Expo on tour and visit Galway on September 27.
Organisers say activities include workshops by ‘Bricks 4 Kidz’, viewing custom models and official sets on display, Lego play areas, face painting, speed build competitions, master builder competitions, a Lego colouring area and treasure hunts.
They also say there will be competitions, raffles, vendors selling Lego figures, Lego sets, Lego Jewellery and lots more. There will be a sensory play area and safe zone.
The event takes place in the Galway Bay Hotel from 11am-5pm. Ticket prices are: Adults €10, Children €4. The Early Bird Family Ticket is €20 (two adults, three children), while the normal Family Ticket is €25 (two adults, three children). More info can be found by emailing limerickafols@gmail.com
Pester power can promote health eating
Lessons about food and nutrition in the classroom may lead to children pushing their parents into making healthier choices at home.
A US study found that while shopping and at home parents were being influenced by their children who had taken on board health lessons in class.
The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Louisiana Tech University researchers focused on schoolchildren that took weekly healthy eating classes in school for a year and then interviewed their parents.
“We asked parents how often they experience pester power. And we also asked them about their dietary habits before and after the intervention – their intake of fruits and vegetables, their intake of nutrient poor foods, and also their parenting behaviours that support healthy diets for their children,” lead researcher Dr Taren Swindle said.
“The more pester power that parents were exposed to from their children, the greater we saw changes in the desired direction for intake of fruits and vegetables and also supportive parenting practices.”
Marijuana use while pregnant linked to autism in children
Women who use marijuana during pregnancy are 1.51 times more likely to have a child with autism according to a new study.
Published in the journal Nature, researchers from Ottawa Hospital looked at data regarding 500,000 births over a period of five years from 2012 which.
Researchers found that 2,200 women said they used marijuana while they were pregnant without mixing it with any other drug or tobacco.
The study states it found “an association between maternal cannabis use in pregnancy and the incidence of autism spectrum disorder in the offspring”.
“The incidence of autism spectrum disorder diagnosis was 4.00 per 1,000 person-years among children with exposure compared to 2.42 among unexposed children, and the fully adjusted hazard ratio was 1.51.”