It’s a typical weekend morning in Montana.

Zack, a 7-year-old, wakes up to a sunny day and wants go outside and play with the family dog. But before doing so, he throws on a pair of pants and a T-shirt while Zach’s mother fixes his breakfast, which includes cereal with fresh berries, juice and toast. With breakfast taken care of, Zack and the dog both race out the front door and immediately partake in an intense game of tag and tackle on the front lawn. Later, Zack heads over to his friend’s house. His friend’s parents are remodeling the kitchen. The two boys end up playing in the unfinished basement downstairs. This is a typical day for a 7-year-old. Or is it?

Typical daily life for our children can expose them to various environmental hazards; from the unwashed berries in Zack’s cereal to unprotected sun exposure to chemical exposure in homes, lawns, and building renovations. Our environment — the food we eat, the air we breath and even the cleaning chemicals we use — has undergone dramatic changes in the last few decades. For example, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, today there are up to 80,000 chemicals registered for manufacture in the U.S. It’s easy to see how all of us could be inadvertently exposed to various chemicals and toxins in day-to-day life.

October is Children’s Environmental Health Month. Children’s environmental health focuses on protecting our children and infants from possible adverse effects of these exposures to environmental hazards. Pesticides, cigarette smoke, lead, mercury, contaminated water or food, radon, carbon monoxide, and household chemicals are just some of the environmental toxins that scientists know are harmful, particularly to children. These toxins may contribute to certain childhood diseases, such as asthma and leukemia, and to some learning disabilities. According to the World Health Organization, about 40 percent of disease in children under age 5 is caused by environmental exposures.

Why focus on Children’s Environmental Health? Children are not small adults. Compared to adults, kids eat proportionately more food, drink more fluids, and breathe more air than adults. As a result, they are exposed to more pollutants per pound of body weight than adults. Unhealthy food, water and air therefore are more threatening to their health. Sometimes these exposures occur at critical windows of development — kids may be more vulnerable than adults to environmental hazards because their systems are still developing.

Children’s behavior can also expose them more to chemicals and organisms. Kids often play on or close to the ground. They learn by crawling and placing hands and objects in their mouths. These developmentally normal behaviors may lead to unintended exposure to environmental hazards. In addition, a child has little or no control over exposure — for example, to the second-hand smoke of a nearby adult.

What to do? All this sounds scary. But we need not become overly paranoid about environmental health risks and our kids can and will go about their normal routines. The main thing to remember about children and environmental hazards is that we can limit exposure and thus minimize the risks. The health department and the EPA suggest a few prevention basics:

• Wash hands regularly. Unwashed hands often find their way to the mouth or to unwrapped snacks.

• Protect exposed skin from the sun — even in the winter. Apply sunscreen.

• Keep kids, toys and pets away from household chemicals and pesticides. Follow label instruction when using chemicals in and around the house.

• Prevention starts at home — keep children’s environment as clean as possible.

• Winter is almost here, have furnace flues and chimneys checked yearly.

• Ventilate indoor environments with fresh outdoor air when possible.

• Winter inversions in the Helena Valley can affect outside air quality. Starting Nov. 1, call the health department’s 24-hour air quality hotline at 447-1644 for current updates.

• Wash all fruits and vegetables. Eat a healthy, balanced diet with the right amounts of iron and calcium, but avoid fish with high levels of mercury.

• If your child drinks well water, consider having the well tested for bacteria, nitrates and metals.

• Watch your kids. If they aren’t feeling well or having a bad reaction to something call your health care provider.

The Montana Children’s Environmental Health Network — composed of health department officials along with state, local, and federal agencies — is working together to promote initiatives that protect children’s health and educate the public about environmental risk factors that affect our children’s health.

For a complete list of environmental health risks and preventive measures visit Children’s Health Protection at www.epa.gov or www.deq.mt.gov and look under “Montana Children’s Environmental Health Network.”

Melanie Reynolds is the Health Officer at the Lewis and Clark City-County Health Department. The Health Department’s mission is to improve and protect the health of all Lewis & Clark County residents.