The April 2009 issue of The Southern Health Magazine was distributed with the newspaper two days ago. If you didn’t get a chance to see it as yet, visit the health web site online and read the stories.

The cover story talked about why you need to have “the talk” with your child.

“So far in the first quarter we have done pregnancy tests on girls as young as 15,” said Marsha Perfetti, executive director of Shawnee Crisis Pregnancy Centers and single parent to two teenagers. “One out of four pregnancy tests we do are on teenagers.”

That’s one reason to start the conversation early and talk about values at the same time.

Also in this issue are reasons why you need to lose weight (and its not what you think).

In his 40 odd years of practice, Dr. Frank Becker, endocrinologist at Community Health and Emergency Services Inc. in Carbondale, said he has seen 20-25 patients who lost a significant amount of weight actually recover from diabetes.

“It does occur,” Becker said. “You have to have people get motivated to lose weight. The wrong way to get motivated is to have a heart attack and stroke! Do it before.”