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Recess isn’t just a fun break for grade schoolers. It’s crucial to good health and good grades for kids of all ages. That’s the message from a leading pediatricians group, which just released the first new guidance in 13 years about this unstructured time at school and how it needs to be protected. The updated policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics comes after years of shrinking recesses and worsening children’s health. (Ungar, 5/11)

A study from researchers at Loma Linda University in California suggests that eating eggs — fairly frequently — could be linked to lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease among older adults. The findings, published in the Journal of Nutrition, indicated a 27 percent decreased risk of Alzheimer’s among study participants who ate at least five eggs per week, but even participants who ate fewer eggs were said to have a reduced risk, including those who only ate eggs between one and three times per month, according to the study. (Bartiromo, 5/8)

The rate of “deaths of despair” is slowly declining, a new report said, but they are still more prevalent in Appalachia than in the rest of the country. Deaths of despair – those associated with drug overdoses, alcohol, and suicide – had been on the rise nationwide throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the research done for the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC). (Carey, 5/10)

When a child is struggling with a behavioral health crisis, family members often call 911 or take the child to a hospital emergency room for help. But medical providers say that a busy, sometimes chaotic emergency department is not the best place to tackle behavioral health issues. (Knopf, 5/11)

Bloomington native Shayla Woodworth had struggled with mental illness and addiction since she was a teen and spent time in jail in three states. She’d heard of mental health courts before but didn’t know much about them, and assumed they were something of a joke. Then, in 2023, she and her husband stole a car, drove it to the parking lot of a Love’s gas station and fell asleep. They woke up to flashing lights, surrounded by police officers shouting at them with guns drawn. Officers took them to McLean County Jail. (Hauck, McGhee and Adams, 5/8)