THE INTERNATIONAL CHILD AND YOUTH CARE NETWORK
HOME  /  OTHER JOURNALS

EXTRACTS  FROM  THE  "OTHER"  JOURNALS  RELATING  TO  CHILDREN,  YOUTH  AND  FAMILIES
—  IN  THE  FIELDS  OF  HEALTH,  SUBSTANCE  ABUSE,  EDUCATION,  PSYCHOLOGY,  SCIENCE . . .

March 2004

UK Children given fewer antibiotics
GPs have cut back on the number of medicines they prescribe for children, a study reveals. Researchers at St George's Hospital in London found GPs wrote 6.5m prescriptions for children in 2002. This compares to 12.4m scripts in 1993.
Speaking at a Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health meeting in York, they said GPs were heeding warnings on overprescribing.
Overuse of antibiotics has been linked to the growth in drug resistance.

'Antibiotic crisis'
Leading experts have been warning that the UK is facing an antibiotics crisis unless prescribing is brought under control.
Last year, Professor Hugh McGavock from the University of Ulster warned that "gross overprescribing" is making many antibiotics useless.
He warned that all antibiotics could be redundant within 12 years unless changes are made.
This latest study suggests GPs are taking these warnings on board.
The researchers found doctors have cut back significantly on the number of prescriptions they write for common antibiotics.
Prescriptions for drugs like amoxicillin, penicillin and erythromycin fell by around half while ampicillin and co-trimoxazole prescribing fell by over 95%.
"Doctors are not prescribing for simple coughs and colds and they probably were doing so," Dr Helen Kendall, one of the researchers, told BBC News Online.
"But there is also some evidence that the number of people with respiratory infections has fallen and that some bugs are not as virulent as they once were.
"It might also be that people are not going to doctors as much. Patient education has worked and many people with coughs and colds don't go to their doctor now."
But she said the big change was in GPs' attitudes to antibiotic resistance. "GPs are taking the advice on board."
Dr Jim Kennedy of the Royal College of GPs welcomed the figures. But he said there were many reasons for the drop, including a fall in the under 16 population and the increased availability of stronger medicines without a prescription.
Nevertheless, he said doctors and patients were now much more aware of the dangers associated with overprescribing.
"There is no doubt that the public and doctors have taken on board the long campaign around antibiotics.
"The type of consultation one has with patients is very different now compared to 10 years ago.
"Patients accept that they don't always need a prescription."
Source

'Game Boy' generation is risking health by sleeping less
Children are risking their mental and physical health because they get so little sleep, according to new research. One in five youngsters gets between two and five hours less than their parents did at that age, losing up to one month's sleep a year. Instead of being read a book at bedtime, children are left in their rooms with electronic gadgets. Experts say the number of televisions and computers in children's bedrooms is largely to blame for sleep deprivation among the young. They also cite the decline of the bedtime routine and an increasingly round-the-clock society that creates a dilemma for parents who do not settle their children adequately.
Dr Luci Wiggs, a research fellow at Oxford University's Section of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, said 10-year-olds needed between eight and 10 hours sleep a night while four-year-olds needed 12 hours.
"One of the problems with the pre-sleep activities of modern children is that they are unstructured activities - that is they do not have clearly defined start and end times," she said. "This is the first generation of children to face such a plethora of alternatives to going to sleep and the long-term consequences in respect to physical and mental health for both the child and their family can only be guessed at. "What we do know is that impaired sleep quality or quantity can compromise children's physical health, academic achievements and mental health."
Lack of sleep could affect children's immune functions and growth, she said. There was also a well-established effect on memory, reaction time and concentration. She added: "In the days before electricity, central heating and Playstations, the child's only motivation for staying up late was to read a favourite book under the bedclothes by torchlight. Today's diversions are more easily achieved and stimulating. Televisions, computers and other forms of entertainment are commonly found in bedrooms.
"As these new childhood pre-sleep activities have become more widespread so more traditional ones such as reading or being read to may have declined."
She said a bedtime routine should include at least 15-30 minutes of calm, soothing activities such as reading or a warm bath, with a definite endpoint. The survey of 1,000 adults was conducted by ICM research on behalf of the children's bedtime drink Horlicks Snoozo.
In adults, meagre sleep allowances are known to affect day-to-day functioning in myriad ways.
In the young, it is believed to harm neurological development and can contribute to behavioural problems, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Dr Irshaad Ebrahim, a consultant sleep physician, said it was vital that children went to bed at a predictable time so that their bodies got used to a regular routine.
Source

Pre-school crucial time: A new study shows a vital need to invest in early childhood
By the time children get to Grade 1, it may be too late to help those who have already fallen behind, says a new study by a renowned child development expert.
The latest research by Toronto-based Dr. Fraser Mustard and his Founders' Network compares children's readiness for kindergarten and standardized test results in Grades 3 and 6, and concludes that children who lag behind early on will generally remain so years later.
"What we tend to do is bash the school system for poor performance, when it's what's coming into the schools that leads to poor performance," Mustard said in an interview.
He says the study helps explain why overall results on standardized tests in reading, writing and math have stalled, despite millions poured into remedial programs. That investment should be made earlier, he argues, in programs aimed at early childhood development.
"If the evidence is that trajectories are set early in life," he said, the possibility of substantially changing a child's academic performance is limited no matter what investments are made in the school system.
While socio-economic status appears to play some role in a child's readiness for school, many students from needy neighbourhoods do exceptionally well, while many from wealthy areas do very poorly.
In pure numbers, it's middle-class children who make up the bulk of those in need.
Mustard argues that "it's more than just economics" — what really counts is quality parenting, good interaction and reading to children.
The study is the latest in a series that have concluded that investment in the early years pays off over time, not only in terms of a country's economic and intellectual prosperity, but also in terms of improved physical health and emotional well-being among its citizens.
Armed with the results of these studies, Mustard and volunteers interested in children's issues want to set up centres across the province that would help parents learn how and what to read to youngsters, and get advice on parenting. They would also provide organized activities and educational play for children, which parents can then use at home. Some could provide links to community agencies to help parents struggling with unemployment or immigration issues.
The group, called the Council on Early Childhood Development, is calling for participation from community groups, public health authorities, private companies, municipal governments and school boards. Mustard, who has long advocated a system of centres supported by government, communities and the private sector, also hopes federal and provincial governments will sign on.
"If society doesn't invest in early childhood development for families with young children, we risk damaging the next generation," Mustard said, estimating the start-up costs to be $3.2 billion in Ontario.
On Thursday, he presented his case to directors of education around the province, offering them study after study showing the difference that good parenting and reading to children has on literacy, behaviour, health and emotional well-being throughout the school years and into adulthood.
Mustard's newest research looked at the results of the latest study assessing the social, emotional and language skills of Toronto kindergarten students, and compared it with Ontario's standardized reading and math tests for Grade 3 and 6 students.
Jim Grieve, director of education for the Peel District School Board, said his colleagues found the information compelling.
"We're already talking" about what to contribute to such centres, said Grieve, including staff and expertise, space in schools, or even money.
The Peel board is currently assessing all of its young students using the "early development instrument," or EDI, which assesses pre-literacy skills, physical health, social skills, communication skills and cognitive development in young children. It will then target communities that need better support. The payoff for paying attention to what's happening in early childhood is enormous, he said.
"It will ultimately result in children who are better ready to learn, fewer needing special education, better readers, and a better economic return — the return on investing in the early years is staggering compared to the gain from kindergarten to Grade 12 and beyond," said Grieve, who is vice-chair of the council Mustard is creating.
David Reid, director of education for the Toronto District School Board, said the board hopes to expand its 41 parenting centres in schools, even though it receives no funding for them from the province.
He said he's already asked Mustard to speak to senior staff and trustees about the importance of lobbying for proper early childhood education, even though it is considered outside the formal education system.
"Given we have 81,000 vacant student spaces (due to declining enrolment), the assumption is, the only solution to that is to shut down schools willy-nilly," he said.
"But we have to be more creative about it. In fact, because we're a publicly funded education system we're situated in every single community. So if the government is going to start talking about health services, social services — bringing services to people — they couldn't do it better than doing it in concert with the publicly funded education system."
Cathy Matthews, a Toronto investment banker, said her role as a member of the new council is to act as a liaison with the private sector, to put the proposal "in business and capitalist terms that the business community can relate to."
She said education dollars are spent in the exact reverse of where the greatest benefits lie. By investing more in early childhood, "and by getting it right at the start, to me it makes a tremendous amount of sense."
Mustard and Margaret McCain co-authored two reports for the previous Conservative government on the importance of the early years, where they outlined a vision for quality programs for families with young children. He is also part of the Founders' Network, which brings together people interested in early childhood development and related research.
One program underway is Toronto First Duty, which integrates kindergarten, parent and tot programs, community supports and child-care in five public schools. As many as 2,000 children are taking part.
Martha Friendly, of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit at the University of Toronto, said she understands why politicians and voters are preoccupied with what they see as more fundamental issues.
"We're talking about issues of whether people have electricity and are they going to die from tainted water and meat. Who would have ever thought the public education system would be in such decline?"
She said Canadians are conditioned to think of child care and early childhood education as a personal responsibility rather than a right of all children, as it is in many European countries, where it's expected children will go to school at 3 whether or not parents work outside the home.
David Dodge, governor of the Bank of Canada, earlier this year also agreed that investment in "human capital," especially in pre-school years, is essential.
And in a report last week, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said "investment in early childhood education is of key importance to build a strong foundation for lifelong learning and to ensure equitable access to learning opportunities later in school."
During the election campaign, the Liberals promised a "Best Start Plan" making schools community hubs, with child-care and parenting programs.
Source

Broader rules urged for child research
With increasing emphasis put on medical research involving children, the government is being urged to broaden and clarify its rules designed to protect youngsters from risky or unethical studies.
While current regulations cover research that receives federal funding, the prestigious Institute of Medicine said Thursday those rules should be extended to cover all pediatric studies.
Physicians are allowed to prescribe medicines approved for adults to children, but a lack of studies in children has meant they were often forced to estimate an appropriate dose for youngsters of various sizes and ages.
That resulted in the deaths of some newborns whose livers were unable to process an adult antibiotic. In another case it was discovered that children needed a larger dose than adults of another medicine because it passed through their bodies faster than it did adults.
Children are not just small adults, said Dr. Charles Prober of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.
"Children are physiologically different than adults, they are developing day by day and year by year and you cannot extrapolate" the dose needed, Prober said.
Prober said many research centers follow federal ethics guidelines voluntarily, and welcomed the IOM report because it stresses the need for more research involving children.
Richard E. Behrman, chairman of the Institute committee that prepared the report, said "involving more children in clinical research today will benefit the health and well-being of countless children in the future.
"But unlike most adults, children usually lack the legal right and the intellectual and emotional maturity to consent to research participation on their own behalf," said Behrman, executive chair of the Pediatric Education Steering Committee of the Federation of Pediatric Organizations.
The Institute report urges the government to provide better guidance to help review boards interpret the federal rules, which are more restrictive for children than adults. In turn, review boards studying whether to allow research should be more thorough and explicit in judging whether research involving children meets the highest ethical and scientific standards, the report said.
In general, rules aimed at protecting people in research trials require that the risks to participants be minimized, that risks be outweighed or balanced by anticipated benefits, that research participants be equitably recruited and that investigators obtain informed consent from them.
The rules call for parents or guardians to grant permission before children can participate in research and they say that, when appropriate, researchers should seek from children themselves their agreement to participate in clinical studies.
When considering the risks from an experiment, the report said, the review board should compare it with the risks that are normally encountered by healthy, average children. That doesn't mean, the report said, that it is acceptable to expose a child to a higher risk merely because the youngster is already threatened by illness or by living in an unsafe neighborhood.
The report also said that it is permissible to reimburse families for expenses related to research, such as parking fees at research facilities, and to give token gifts of appreciation. But it is never acceptable to offer higher payments for enrolling children in more risky research, the report said.
In an effort to increase participation by children in research studies some institutions have offered youngsters gift certificates at toy stores and others provide payments to families ranging from $200 to $1,000.
Source

Youths doing own body art run risks infections and nerve damage
Erik Hansen rolls up his left sleeve to reveal a roughly drawn skull-and-crossbones-tattoo. A friend did it for him, using a needle and ink at what Hansen calls a “poke and stick party” — a growing trend among young people as tattoos and piercings have surged in popularity.
Body art between friends can be a rite of passage, a backroom ritual often done on the sly. Teens talk about school athletes doing tattoos or piercings for one another as an initiation.
“It’s more fun to have a friend do it — and it was free,” said Hansen, a 20-year-old from Minneapolis.
But officials where he lives — and in other places nationwide — are worried. In Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, they’ve started a poster campaign in schools and neighborhood hangouts to encourage young people to have their tattoos and piercings done by licensed professionals.
“Get the good design, not a bad disease!” says one poster about tattooing. Another features a photo of an upper lip piercing with warnings about the risk of infections, blood-borne diseases and nerve damage.
The Oregon Health Licensing Office has a similar Web-based campaign, begun after several young people from the town of Klamath Falls got serious upper ear infections from piercings done at a jewelry kiosk with lax sterilization procedures.
The cases — and resulting disfigurement — were documented recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Meanwhile, the Texas Department of Health has since produced a video for teens and young adults titled “Tattooing and Body Piercing: Thinking Smart About Body Art.” And Connecticut is among states offering a brochure with similar information.
The biggest concerns include the potential spread of tetanus and hepatitis B or C if people share tattooing needles or whatever sharp objects — pins and nails included — they use to do their piercing.
“It’s just not something you can do in your garage,” said Shahn Anderson, a licensed tattooist and president of the Alliance of Professional Tattooists, who helped design the Hennepin County campaign.
Several states have laws that prohibit minors from getting tattoos or “body art” regardless of who’s holding the needle. And others, such as Wyoming, are considering bans.
Often, licensed piercers and tattooists have even stricter standards than states or cities, requiring a parent to be present or, in some cases, setting their own age limits for certain procedures.
Some youth think that banning them from having work done, or requiring parental permission, is only causing more minors to do the piercing themselves or seek out unlicensed amateurs, known in the industry as “scratchers.”
“You can’t just outlaw things,” said Hansen, who says he could not have afforded a professional tattoo even if he’d wanted one. “It’s like Prohibition — it doesn’t work.”
Gail Dorfman — the Hennepin County commissioner whose age-limits ordinance prompted the safety campaign, says doctors and nurses at the county’s hospital have seen a spike in young people with infections caused by amateur work, sometimes done by friends or unlicensed operators.
Jesika Bornsen, a professional piercer at a shop called Saint Sabrina’s in Minneapolis, agrees that the campaign can only help educate teens and parents.
“It’s saying, ‘Talk to your parents about it,’ ” said Bornsen, a member of Association of Professional Piercers who has worked in the field for eight years.
In the end, she said, “Parents have to pick their battles.”
“Do you want your kid to have a healthy piercing?” she asked. “Or the safety pin in their eyebrow?”
Source

Understanding Depression
Your daughter spends more time in her room than usual, with the door closed and the shades drawn. She sleeps a lot, and even the family dog can't make her smile anymore. She has stopped hanging out with her friends, and when you ask what's going on, she just mumbles.
Normal teen behavior? Not really. There's more here than meets the eye, something that's telling you things are not right.
It's possible that your child is depressed. In the United States, depression is the most common mental health disorder, affecting 17 million people of all age groups, races, and economic backgrounds each year. As many as one in every 33 children may have depression; in adolescents, that number may be as high as one in eight. If you suspect that your child is depressed, you'll want to learn more about what depression is, what causes it, and what you can do if your child is depressed.
What Is Depression? Depression isn't just bad moods and occasional melancholy. It's not just feeling down or sad, either. These feelings are normal in children, especially during adolescence. Even when major disappointments and setbacks make people feel sad and angry, the negative feelings usually lessen with time. But when a depressive state, or mood, lingers for a long time — weeks, months, or even longer — and it limits a child's ability to function normally, it can be diagnosed as depression.
Two types of depression, major depression and dysthymia, can affect children. Major depression is characterized by a persistent sad mood and the inability to feel pleasure or happiness. A child with major depression feels depressed for most of the day, almost every day.
If the sadness is not as severe but continues for a year or longer, the condition may be dysthymia.
Bipolar disorder is another type of mood disturbance and is characterized by episodes of low-energy depression (sadness and hopelessness) and high-energy mania (irritability and explosive temper).
What Causes Depression? Depression usually isn't caused by one event or thing; it's the result of one or more factors, and its causes vary from child to child. Depression can be caused by lowered levels of neurotransmitters (chemicals that carry signals through the nervous system) in the brain, which limits a person's ability to feel good. Depression can run in families, so a child who has a close relative with depression may be more likely to experience it herself.
Significant life events such as the death of a loved one, a divorce, a move to a new area, and even a breakup with a girlfriend or boyfriend can bring on symptoms of depression. Stress also can be a factor, and because the adolescent years can be a time of emotional and social turmoil, things that are difficult for anyone to handle can be devastating to a teen.
Also, chronic illness can lead to depression, as can the side effects of certain medicines or infections.
Diagnosing Depression Depressed children have described themselves as feeling hopeless about everything or feeling that nothing is worth the effort. They honestly believe that they are "no good" and that they're helpless to do anything about it.
But for an accurate diagnosis of major depression to be made, a more detailed clinical evaluation must be done. A medical or mental health professional (such as a psychologist or psychiatrist) must be sure that your child has had five or more of the following symptoms for more than 2 weeks:

  • a feeling of being down in the dumps or really sad for no reason
  • a lack of energy, feeling unable to do the simplest task
  • an inability to enjoy the things that used to bring pleasure
  • a lack of desire to be with friends or family members
  • feelings of irritability, anger, or anxiety
  • an inability to concentrate
  • a marked weight gain or loss (or failure to gain weight as expected), little or too much interest in eating
  • a significant change in sleep habits, such as trouble falling asleep or getting up feelings of guilt or worthlessness
  • aches and pains even though nothing is physically wrong
  • a lack of caring about what happens in the future frequent thoughts about death or suicide

A child who has dysthymia must experience two or more of the following symptoms almost all the time for at least 1 year:

  • feelings of hopelessness low self-esteem
  • sleeping too much or being unable to sleep
  • extreme fatigue
  • difficulty concentrating
  • lack of appetite or overeating

Depressed children and teens are more likely to use alcohol and drugs than those who aren't depressed. Because these substances can momentarily allow a child to forget about her depression, they seem like perfect "fixes." But they don't fix anything; in fact, they can make the depressed child feel even worse.
Source

Getting children to exercise
If your children's idea of physical activity is wrestling for the remote control, it's time to encourage them to exercise more. Children should get 60 minutes of exercise a day, health experts say, which can be broken up into five or 10 minutes here and there. Experts stress that fun physical activities are best, but there are many ways to get children moving:

  • Let your child walk to school, the store or to a friend's house.
  • Encourage them to take a physical education class at school, if it is offered.
  • Sign your child up for a sports team or class, such as soccer, dance, basketball or gymnastics. But recognize that some children are uncomfortable competing and would prefer activities that don't require a lot of skill, such as bicycling, bowling, playing tag or flying a kite.
  • Make chores count. Making the bed, washing the car or vacuuming can help your child burn extra calories.
  • Set a good example. Be active as a family, going to parks or even hiking through the zoo.

Source: National Institutes of Health
Source

Teens buy nicotine patches as easily as cigarettes
(By Alison McCook) Teenagers can purchase nicotine replacement therapy with relative ease, despite the fact that these products carry warnings saying they are meant for adults, according to new research. U.S. investigators found that a 15-year-old girl was able to purchase nicotine replacement products like nicotine patches in 8 out of 10 attempts, without showing any proof of age.
Unfortunately, research has shown that some teens "misuse" nicotine replacement products, either trying them when they don't need to quit smoking, or using them while they are still smoking, study author Dr. Karen C. Johnson told Reuters Health.
However, studies have shown that nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) is usually safe and unlikely to become addictive, and some teens may benefit from being able to purchase an NRT product if it can help them quit smoking, Johnson said.
"If a smoking youth wanted to quit smoking by using NRT, with parental permission and supervision, I believe this would be appropriate use of the product," Johnson said.
According to the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine report, one quarter of U.S. high school students smoke, and more than half of these students say they want to quit.
Currently, NRT carries U.S. Food and Drug Administration warnings that the products should not be sold to anybody under the age of 18. However, experts now agree that the products may be a safe option for some teen smokers who want to stop.
To determine whether young smokers have access to NRT, Johnson colleagues at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis observed a teen girl as she tried to purchase NRT at 165 different stores.
During 8 out of 10 attempts, she was not asked a single question about her age, and walked away with the NRT product. Stores that contained cash registers that prompt workers to ask a buyer's age and those that also sold alcohol were more likely to ask her about her age, and less likely to let her buy an NRT product.
Johnson explained that store employees may be often unaware that NRT has warning labels saying the products should not be sold to minors.
"I recommend that retail establishments consider training their staff to inquire about age for all age-regulated products, including NRT and cigarettes," she said.
No studies have shown that NRT helps teens quit smoking, likely because many teens light up due to behavioral and social pressures, and not an addiction to nicotine, Adelman said.
"Making NRT widely available, and assuming it is safe and effective for teenagers before it is known to be the case, is not a wise course of action," Adelman said.
Source

Too much weight tugs at kids' hearts
Overweight children show symptoms for coronary disease and diabetes. Need more proof the U.S. childhood obesity crisis may be a ticking time bomb?
Researchers have found that many schoolchildren are exhibiting early risk factors of diabetes and heart disease, often displaying troubling symptoms that usually show up in adults.
In fact, a recent study found one in eight children have three or more risk factors for what doctors call metabolic syndrome, a cluster of symptoms that serve as an early warning signal for heart disease and diabetes. And more than half of the children have at least one of the risk factors.
These risk factors include high blood pressure, inefficient processing of glucose, elevated insulin levels, low levels of "good" HDL cholesterol and elevated triglycerides — a fatty substance found in the blood.
But the real culprit is obesity, says study leader Joanne S. Harrell, director of the Center for Research on Chronic Illness at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
"Almost half of our children are overweight or at risk for overweight," Harrell says. "These findings document what has been evident to most people who deal with a large number of children, that obesity is an epidemic in our youngsters."
"We know enough about the risk factors related to lifestyle that if we could control them from adolescence or childhood, we could probably prevent 80 to 90 percent of coronary heart disease that happens prior to age 65 or 70," McGill says.
McGill and Harrell recommend a number of ways parents can protect their children:

  • Encourage kids to exercise and engage in active play;
  • Place them — and the entire family — on healthier diets, including more fruits and vegetables and less fat;
  • Quit smoking to offer children a healthy role model, and encourage them never to start;
  • Petition your schools to include more physical education, with an emphasis on active games that involve even non-athletic children;
  • Ask educators to remove soft drink and vending machines from schools, and provide healthy meals and snacks.

 "There's no magic here," McGill says. "People have to eat less and move around more, although everything in our culture is against that."
Harrell's team followed more than 3,200 students, about half boys and half girls between the ages of 8 and 17, in a rural North Carolina county. The researchers evaluated each student's body mass index, a ratio of weight to height, along with other risk factors.
More than half of the children had at least one of the risk factors for metabolic syndrome. About one-quarter of the children had two or more factors, and one in eight had three or more.
Most troubling, about 8 percent of children aged 8 or 9 already displayed three or more risk factors, Harrell says.
Girls suffered more often from the risk factors, she says. About 16 percent of girls had three or more, compared with 10 percent of boys with three or more.
The most common risk factor was a lack of "good" HDL cholesterol. That was found in more than 40 percent of the children.
One in four children was classified as overweight. "We found that 26 percent were at or above the 95th percentile for expected weight given their age and gender," she says. "You would expect only 5 percent to be at that."
About an equal number were considered at risk for becoming overweight.
High levels of insulin were found in 16 percent of the children, high blood pressure in 10 percent, high triglycerides in 8 percent and glucose intolerance in about 5 percent.
McGill says it's particularly frustrating to get the word out about this potential link because you're talking about symptoms that could take decades to result in a disease.
"It's a tough sell," McGill says. "Young people think they're immortal. Physicians don't get paid to prevent something that's going to occur 20 or 30 or 40 years later."
Source

For Teens, it's often not just rewards
Research may explain typical adolescent risk-taking. Teenage behavior can leave parents shaking their heads and wondering what could possibly be motivating their adolescent's actions.
It turns out it actually takes quite a bit to motivate a teen, because the reward center in an adolescent's brain isn't fully developed and isn't as responsive as the reward center in adults.
That's the conclusion of a study in the Feb. 25 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.
And these findings may explain why teens are more apt to drink alcohol, use drugs or engage in unsafe sex, because these activities require little effort for a seemingly greater reward.
"Adults have readily active motivation in the brain," says study co-author James Bjork, a research fellow in the laboratory of clinical studies at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. But, he says, "it may take exceptionally strong incentives to get kids jazzed up."
Bjork and his colleagues compared MRI scans of 12 teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17 to MRI scans of 12 adults between the ages of 22 and 28. While undergoing the MRI scans, the study volunteers were asked to play a game. If they could hit a target on a screen, they were rewarded with 20 cents, $1 or $5. If they couldn't hit the target, they would lose money.
In both the teens and adults, the MRI images showed that in anticipation of a potential gain, the ventral stratium, right insula, dorsal thalamus and dorsal midbrain sections of the brain were activated. And the ventral stratium, which is believed to be a reward center in the brain, showed increased activation as the reward amount increased for both groups.
But, the right ventral stratium showed less activation in teens than in adults. According to Bjork, other research has shown this area of the brain is responsible for motivation.
"That region of the brain controls how much an organism is willing to work to get a reward," Bjork says. "The data show that adolescents are just as happy and excited at the prospect of winning as adults, but they differed in the expenditure of effort for that reward."
For parents, these findings show "there might be a normal developmental reason why it's so tough to get your teen off the couch," Bjork says. Additionally, he says, the findings could explain why teens are drawn to risky behavior such as alcohol and drugs, because they offer a strong reward for very little effort.
Dr. Ramon Solhkhah, director of child and adolescent psychiatry at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City, says the findings "give us information about how teenagers prove rewards in a different way than adults do."
He says it's important to realize their brains are still developing, and they are not just small adults. Teens rarely consider long-term consequences, he says.
"Their sense of the future is processed differently than an adult's. It appears [teens] do much better with short-term consequences, so the high they get from using drugs may be more powerful than the potential long-term health consequences," Solhkhah explains.
He recommends telling your teen how things will affect him or her now, rather than in the future. Don't tell your child that smoking will give him lung cancer in 30 years, he says, because it won't mean anything to your teen. Instead, he says, focus on here and now. For example, tell your child how smoking can stain teeth or make it difficult to participate in athletics.
Source

TV Ads add pounds to our kids
Report says children are bombarded with commercials for junk food. Word from the front in the battle against childhood obesity in America seems to grow more unsettling by the day.
Now comes news that advertising basically provides a super-size conduit from junk food straight to your child's waistline.
That's the conclusion of a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation, titled The Role of the Media in Childhood Obesity. The review of more than 40 studies turned up the not-surprising finding that children who spend the most time with the media are the most likely to be overweight.
"Media" here refers primary to television, says Vicky Rideout, vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, but, "advertisers are increasingly seeking other ways to put messages in front of kids."
There is a big push on the Internet, for instance, with food companies devising Web sites just for children, and "advergames" where kids can play games about candy and other unhealthy foods. According to Nielsen ratings, some sites can attract 800,000 kids per month. If a child plays a game for 12 minutes, "that's like a 12-minute commercial," Rideout says. "Plus advertisers can get information about the kids and target them."
In addition, there is increasing product placement in movies and video games. "Kids are a high-priority target for food companies and marketers," Rideout says. "A great deal of marketing expertise and firepower are being aimed at them to eat foods."
The study's findings strike a chord with nutrition experts.
"The advertisers and food companies themselves are truly trying to dodge responsibility for this," says Samantha Heller, senior clinical nutritionist at New York University Medical Center in New York City. "Their hunger is for money and they're playing on the hunger of children for sweets and unhealthy foods by seducing them with appealing commercials that specially target children."
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the proportion of children aged six to 11 who are overweight has more than doubled since 1980. During the same time period, the rate for adolescents has tripled.
Being overweight, of course, brings with it the risk of a host of serious health problems, including diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
The Kaiser report does not involve original research but is, according to the authors, the first time so much research from a variety of disciplines has been brought together in one place.
According to research cited in the report, the typical American child is bombarded with about 40,000 ads a year on television alone. The majority of ads targeted to children are for candy, cereal, soda and fast food.
Many of those ads use children's beloved TV and movie characters, everything from SpongeBob Cheeze-Its to Scooby-Doo cereals and Teletubbies Happy Meals, the report says. Children faced with this onslaught are more likely to choose unhealthy foods, studies show. Some of the blame rests with parents. "One study showed that parents were feeding children six months to two years [of age] junk food, all the stuff we're saying is so bad for them," Heller says.
Much of the research in the new study also revealed an association between the amount of time spent lounging in front of the television and a child's body weight.
But contrary to conventional wisdom, this does not seem to be because television is taking the place of physical activity. The evidence suggests those children who don't watch as much TV may be engaging in other sedentary activities such as reading or talking on the phone. One study did find that watching television and videos lowered children's metabolic rates to a level below that of sleeping.
Conversely, when television time is reduced, children are more likely to lose some of that extra fat.
Children also tend to snack while using media such as television, the research shows.
But if media can have this much negative influence on children's nutrition and health, it should also have the potential of playing a positive role in reducing childhood obesity, the report states. This would take the form of programs that teach children about healthy eating, for instance.
Policy options, such as regulating food ads and expanding public education campaigns, could also attack the problem, the study says.
Possibilities include targeting advertisers and food companies by writing local, state and federal representatives. The food industry could also find ways to be part of the solution, Rideout says.
Parents have to bear much of the responsibility, Heller says. "Children's taste preferences begin to be developed at very young ages, between 2 and 3. That's the first place to make the change," she says. "Try to get them to have good eating habits very early on. That would also mean that parents have to start to learn what healthy eating is and to be role models for it."
When children get to be 3 or 4 years old, parents need to keep them away from the television as much as possible. "That way children will not be as likely to be as taken in by advertising," Heller says. "The difficulty lies in that parents can't use the television as a babysitter, which I can certainly understand wanting to do."
"It's a very tough nugget," she continues. "We have the right of free speech and advertising and we're a capitalist society. How do you stop this flood of advertising and bad food to children? It's hard."
Source

Top
___