Most parents in this country have serious misconceptions about their children’s health, a nationwide survey released yesterday found.
The survey by the Chinese-language Common Health Magazine found that about 90 percent of respondents thought children should not eat sweet food or drink cold fluids when they have a cough because they think such foods increase phlegm.
Chang Gung Memorial Hospital vice superintendent Huang Jing-long (黃璟隆) said that belief was inaccurate.
“Sweet foods and cold drinks do not worsen the condition,” he said. “When a child has a cough, he or she can eat anything,” Huang said, adding that one parent had even forbidden his child from eating sweet fruits.
Huang also clarified other common myths among parents, such as the idea that children suffering from diarrhea should drink sports drinks to replenish electrolytes or that the heat of a fever could damage a child’s brain.
Sports drinks have too much sugar and too few electrolytes to help with diarrhea and could even make things worse because of their high sugar content, he said.
“It may take a long time, even many generations, to straighten out these ideas,” Huang said, adding that education was crucial.
However, parents have more common sense today than they did 30 to 40 years ago, he said, noting that instead of applying soy sauce or toothpaste to burns, parents now know to apply cold water and cover the burn before seeking treatment, he said.
More parents and their children are wearing masks in public areas and making an effort to wash their hands frequently, he said.
“Parents are children’s gatekeepers for healthcare, but those with inaccurate information can delay treatment, thereby affecting their children’s health,” he said.
The survey of 1,080 parents was conducted between March 16 and March 20 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
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The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
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