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
. . .
Exercise may be best treatment for
depression
The Mental Health Foundation in it's report "Up and Running", says
exercise might well prove to be a more effective treatment for some
forms of depression than pills, and GPs should be offering all patients
with depression a programme of exercise to help overcome their symptoms.
The report by the charity marks the start of a year-long campaign
calling for more exercise therapy for people with mild or moderate
depression and comes amid growing concern about the side-effects and
over-prescribing of antidepressants in the UK.
Dr Andrew McCulloch, MHF chief executive, says many patients with mild
or moderate depression who ask their GPs for help are currently being
denied an effective treatment option - exercise referral, and though
there are some obstacles standing in the way of exercise on
prescription, they're not insurmountable. McCulloch says that society
needs to be educated about the benefits of exercise in treating mild or
moderate depression, and GPs need to be made aware that exercise
referral is available.
30 March 2005
Modern life spawns twin menace to children
A decade ago, a child with type 2 diabetes would be such a rarity that
the case probably would be written up in a medical journal, says
pediatric endocrinologist Francine Kaufman. Today, such children fill
her clinic at Children's Hospital in Los Angeles.
The twin epidemics of diabetes and obesity in children and young adults
have created an international public health problem, she says. To stop
it, “we need to redefine progress.”
Americans see progress “in terms of the quantity rather than the quality
of our food,” she writes in Diabesity (Bantam, $27), a book whose
name expresses the link between diabetes and obesity.
“We've also defined progress as the elimination of any requirement for
physical activity in our jobs and for transportation, ignoring its
importance for our health.
“And thanks to this brand of 'progress,' we've managed to devise a world
designed to kill us.”
If there were no obesity, type 2
diabetes, the most common form of the disease, would be rare, she says.
Instead, more than 18 million Americans have it. Another 41 million are
pre-diabetic, with blood sugar levels higher than normal.
“This generation of children growing up may be the first to live shorter
lives than their parents,” Kaufman says.
More children are seriously overweight than ever, Kaufman says, and that
is leading to type 2 diabetes, which until recent years was thought to
occur only in middle age or later. Because they're getting diabetes
early, these children risk suffering its complications early in life,
she says.
Of the estimated 18 million Americans with diabetes, 5.2 million are not
diagnosed. Untreated, the disease silently damages blood vessels and
organs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web
sites) estimates that men who have diabetes before age 40 lose more than
11 years of their expected life span; women lose more than 14 years.
“Diabetes is not a little bit of a problem. It's a huge problem for the
people who have it,” she says. “If they don't address it, they're
destined to take layer on layer of medications and still risk losing
their eyesight or limbs or having a heart attack or stroke.”
It's society's problem, too, she says.
Diabetes consumes one of every seven health care dollars; it cost $92
billion in 2002. Add in lost wages and productivity, and the bill comes
to $137.7 billion, she says.
Kaufman recommends specific actions, such as getting soft drinks and
unhealthful snacks out of school vending machines; limiting children to
two hours a day in front of a screen, whether computer or TV; increasing
outdoor play time; and reinstating gym classes in schools.
But she says turning a society away from sugar, salt and fat to whole
grains and lots of exercise will take education and a change of social
norms: Make it socially unacceptable to offer a dinner guest a fatty
meal with high-calorie dessert. Instead of lunching with the ladies,
meet them for a hike.
Kaufman knows that for many people, fresh vegetables are too expensive,
and people who work long hours have little time to cook healthful meals.
In some communities, finding a safe place for a daily walk or for kids
to play is not easy.
“Lots of people feel that anyone who is overweight or has type 2
diabetes, it's their fault, that someone chooses to live this way,” she
says. “I've dealt with kids long enough and have seen what's available
to them” in schools, their neighborhoods and at home.
Things are starting to change for the
better, at least in some areas, Kaufman says. She cites programs to
encourage walking and fitness, communities that open school gyms and
running tracks to the public, and classes that teach people how to read
a nutrition label and understand portion sizes.
“We're at a critical crossroads,” she says. But “if we can continue to
gather evidence that these interventions make a difference, we can start
to push change. This is within our reach.”
Anita Manning
21 March 2005
US Study: More young teens use inhalants
Nearly one of every dozen 12- and 13-year-olds has used inhalants such
as glue or shoe polish to get high, a government study says.
The data collected in 2002 and 2003 indicated inhalant use is far more
prevalent than parents realize, officials said Thursday. Figures from
2003 show that a higher percentage of 12-13 year-olds used inhalants
than marijuana.
“While overall drug use among young people has declined substantially
over the past three years, we must not lose our focus,” said John
Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy. “Inhalant abuse remains a dangerous and potentially deadly
behavior that parents need to be aware of.”
The findings came from data collected in the National Survey on Drug Use
and Health. The survey defines inhalants as “liquids, sprays, and gases
that people sniff or inhale to get high or to make them feel good.” Most
common inhalants are glue, shoe polish, gasoline and spray paint.
The study also found that young people who used inhalants were about
five times more likely than other youths to have used other illicit
drugs. They also were six times as likely to have stolen or tried to
steal something valued at more than $50.
A separate study by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America found that
parents significantly underestimate their children's vulnerability to
inhalant use. The study said only 4 percent of parents of children in
the sixth through eighth grades believe their child has used an
inhalant.
But the partnership's data indicated about 22 percent of children in
those grades, generally ages 12 through 14, said they had tried
inhalants.
March 17, 2005
Source
Pettigrew Introduces Bill To Limit The Use Of Force In Public Schools
Legislator proposes bill emphasizing
accountability in district-security standards
In response to the incidents brought forward by the Seattle/King County
NAACP last year, State Representative Eric Pettrigrew (D-37) has
introduced legislation that, if passed, will establish firm procedures
for the use of force and physical restraints -- including handcuffs --
against students in Washington state public schools.
“Yes, schools have a responsibility to protect children — as well as
teachers and other school staff — from young people who are being
violent or threatening to be violent,” said Pettigrew. “What I’m saying
with this measure is that I want — and everyone should want — the adults
who deal with our children and our neighbor’s children to be held
accountable for their actions.”
The bill (HB 1892) encourages schools and districts to consider school
discipline and security models in which counselors and
prevention/intervention specialists, along with school building
administrators and other school security personnel, if employed, and
school resource officers, if present, are trained and work as teams of
experts in diffusing anger, de-escalating conflict, and reducing violent
behavior within their schools.
The bill limits the use of physical
restraint to what it termed as “reasonable force” only when: (1) the
person’s behavior poses a threat of imminent, serious, physical harm to
self or to others; and (2) school personnel must believe that
non-physical intervention would not be effective in removing the
imminent threat of harm. In addition, the bill prohibits the use of
physical restraint as a means of punishment or As a disciplinary
response to destruction of school property, disruption of school or
classroom order, noncompliance with a school rule or staff directive, or
communication of a verbal threat that does not constitute a threat of
imminent, serious, physical harm.
The legislation limits — with very few and very clearly defined
exceptions — the use of physical restraint in our public schools,” he
said. “One exception would be if the physical restraint is consistent
with a student’s individual education plan. Also, the proposal does not
prohibit commissioned law-enforcement officers — including
school-resource officers and judicial authorities — from exercising
their authority or executing their responsibilities, which might include
the physical detainment of a student.”
Pettigrew, D-Seattle, has worked on the
legislation with parents and school officials.
“The point of this legislation is to preserve a safe learning
environment for all students — and for all teachers and other school
staff,” he explained. “We know that a safe learning environment requires
the establishment and enforcement of appropriate and accountable
policies for student discipline.
“A school’s culture and climate will determine the quality of
interaction between students, school-staff, volunteers, and, of course,
parents,” he added. “The school environment greatly affects the level of
disciplinary activity that goes on inside a school. Sometimes, a
district’s board of directors might determine that it’s appropriate to
employ school-security personnel in order to preserve a safe learning
environment.”
Pettigrew’s legislation directs individual schools and school districts
to consider models for school discipline and security. These models in
turn would direct the work and training of school counselors and
prevention or intervention specialists, school administrators, and other
security personnel.
“My proposal is aimed at building a framework for appropriate training
of adults with whom we trust our children for hundreds of hours every
year,” the Seattle lawmaker said. “Our goal is simple: School-staff
should work as a team in diffusing anger, de-escalating conflict, and
reducing violent behavior in our schools.
In every school, according to terms of Pettigrew’s bill, the principal
must meet at least once a year with school staff — including any
school-security officers or school-resource officers who work there — to
develop or review the building’s disciplinary standards and uniform
enforcement of these standards.
“My legislation simply calls on our schools to establish firm,
accountable procedures for the use of force and physical restraints in
dealing with unruly students.”
Pettigrew’s bill is scheduled for a public hearing on Weds., Feb. 16,
2005 at 8 a.m. in Hearing Room B at the John L O'Brian Building in
Olympia. The community is encouraged to call or write their legislators
in support of this bill.
The Seattle Medium
Originally posted 2/16/2005
Source
Some herbs may help ease children's ills
Certain herbal supplements show promise for treating children's colds,
skin allergies and sleep problems, according to a new research review.
On the other hand, the study found, some of the most popular botanical
products, including echinacea, garlic and cranberry supplements, do not
have the evidence to back them up.
But even with herbs that have some supporting evidence, parents should
be careful about giving the products to their children, cautioned Dr.
Gail Mahady, a researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago and
the study's lead author.
“They need to recognize that treatment of any disease with an herbal
medicine is really drug therapy, not dietary supplementation,” she told
Reuters Health.
Among the herbs that Mahady and her
co-investigators found promising was Andrographis paniculata, a plant
long used in traditional Chinese and Indian medicine for treating the
common cold, flu and other infections. In one clinical trial, children
given the herb daily for three months had roughly half as many colds
during the third month as children given a placebo. Other herbs with at
least some research evidence to support them included evening primrose
oil, valerian root and ivy leaf, according to findings published in the
Journal of Pediatrics.
Many herbal products have not been well studied, particularly for use
among children. But the new review shows there are botanicals on the
market that may well aid in childhood illness, according to Mahady.
Those are the products that researchers should be “actively
investigating,” she said.
Evening primrose oil is derived from an
American wildflower and is rich in essential fatty acids. Three clinical
trials have looked at the botanical's effectiveness for children's
atopic eczema, an allergic condition that causes patches of skin to
become inflamed, dry and extremely itchy. Overall, according to Mahady
and her colleagues, the research suggests evening primrose oil may help
with the condition.
Valerian is an herbal sedative, and only one clinical trial has assessed
the effects of the extract in children, according to the review. But
that small study found that the herb improved sleep patterns among boys
with learning deficits and hyperactivity.
Extracts of ivy leaf are used to treat upper respiratory problems, and
Mahady and her colleagues found some evidence that the herb may help
improve breathing difficulties in children with asthma or chronic
bronchitis.
In contrast, Mahady said, the evidence for the popular cold fighter
echinacea is mixed, and cranberry juice and supplements have not been
proven to help prevent or treat children's urinary tract infections.
Similarly, there's no evidence that garlic can improve cholesterol
levels among children with a strong family history of high cholesterol.
Like drugs, herbal products come with safety concerns, Mahady pointed
out. Echinacea, for example, can trigger allergic reactions in children
who already have allergies. Mahady said that, in general, parents of
children with asthma or other allergies should be particularly careful
about giving them herbal supplements, as plants are a common allergy
trigger.
Getting the advice of a doctor, pharmacist or other health professional
before using an herb, Mahady said, “will only be beneficial to the
child.”
Journal of Pediatrics
Amy Norton
16 March 2005
Teens need adult help in decision-making
Dangers: Brains under construction
Modern science is proving what parents have suspected for years:
Teenagers' brains aren't like those of adults.
Teens who routinely get sidetracked and forget to take out the trash or
who show other lapses in judgment that lead to household mayhem may be
doing more than just tweaking an adult authority figure.
Far from being hard-wired at puberty, teen brains are still growing,
affecting everything from risk perception to their ability to plan and
control impulses, health experts say.
“We used to believe that children's brain development occurred very much
early on during uterine growth and within the first six years of life,”
said Vaughn Rickert, professor of population and family health at
Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.
“What we have discovered in the last two to three years is that
adolescent brains do change, and there is a wave of growth that does
occur during the adolescent years.“
Just as kids go through a growth spurt where they shoot up in height and
fill out into more adult-like proportions, the brain has its own
timetable, which varies among teens. Changes in the brain's frontal
lobes, largely responsible for controlling impulses and measuring risk
and reward, are among the most dramatic, according to brain scans
performed on teens at the National Institutes of Health.
“It appears that reasoning and problem-solving skills are among the last
abilities to mature in the brain,“ Rickert said.
The research may have implications for a wide range of social and
health-related concerns, including why teens can't seem to get enough
sleep.
The route to full adult abstraction from child-like concrete thinking
may be bumpy at best, but there are things adults can do to make the
transition as healthy for kids as possible.
The first is identifying what constitutes “normal” teenage behavior,
which comes in three stages: early, middle and late adolescence, said
Dr. Barbara Staggers, director of adolescent medicine at the Children's
Hospital & Research Center at Oakland, Calif.
Early adolescents tend to deal with
situations on instinct and hang out with same-sex friends, she said.
They may be monosyllabic and giggle a lot, especially when under stress.
Teens in the earliest phase may perceive the social risk of not going
along on a joyride or joining a gang as higher than the physical risk,
making them vulnerable to peer pressure, Staggers said.
“These are kids you have to repeat and role-play with so when something
happens they can” respond appropriately, she said, suggesting parents
ask, “'How are you going to say no to me? How do you not get into a
situation where you feel like you have to do something?'... The fact
that they don't think about consequences puts them at risk.”
Middle adolescence: Teens in the middle
stage are trying to separate from adults, and can present the biggest
challenges by pushing their buttons with all manner of rebelliousness,
Staggers said. “This is the age group you want to duck and cover.”
But turning away from them when they get confrontational is a mistake,
she said. “They can give you the beginning of a plan and the end of a
plan but the middle makes no sense. They want to be a lawyer, but
they're getting C's and D's.”
“What you have to do is present options and opportunities and help them
through the decision-making process,” Staggers said. “Getting them to
make good decisions is critical.”
By late adolescence, kids are less
concerned about fitting in with peers and more able to plan and follow
through, she said. What they lack is experience from which to draw life
lessons.
Parents should make sure they're treating each child based on his or her
needs, said Dr. Andrea Marks, president of the Society for Adolescent
Medicine and a New York-based teen-medicine specialist.
“One of the most important things for an adult or parent is to tune in
to the individuality of the child, to try to get to know the child's
interests, temperament, strengths, weaknesses,” Marks said. “Very often
a parent will have two children and they're extremely different but the
parent wants one to be like the other.”
Health and cars
Safety is a natural concern as kids test the waters of adulthood.
Accidents and unintentional injuries were the leading causes of death
for kids age 15 to 19 in 2001, followed by suicide and homicide,
according to the most recent statistics from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
The risk for car crashes is higher among those 16 to 19 than any other
age group, and auto wrecks account for two out of five deaths among U.S.
teens, the CDC says. More than 4,700 kids ages 16 to 19 died of
car-crash injuries in 2001.
And it's not just teenage boys driving the problem. Teen girls have been
catching up to their male counterparts in terms of accident rates, said
Jeanne Salvatore, vice president of consumer affairs for the Insurance
Information Institute, a trade group.
“Unfortunately, what we're seeing is not that teenage boys are getting
better, but young girls are getting worse,” she said, noting she doesn't
know if that's been reflected in the rates yet.
Adults can help teens by rewarding them when they show good judgment,
Staggers said. “We are very good at socially punishing kids. We're not
good at giving rewards.”
A study from Tufts University published in the February edition of the
Journal of Early Adolescence suggests a model for positive youth
development that highlights “the five C's:” Competence, confidence,
connection, character, caring and compassion. The report says adults
need to develop a vocabulary to discuss positive youth development as
more than the absence of problem behaviors.
Kristen Gerencher
14 March 2005
Tattoos. They're everywhere and impossible to
miss — especially at local high schools.
Distinctive marks once found on sailors, prisoners and roughnecks,
tattoos are now mainstream enough for teenagers. An estimated 15 percent
of children from ages 13 through 18 have some sort of tattoo, an expert
says.
The legal age for getting a tattoo or piercing in Florida is 18, but
younger teens can get them legally with a signed, notarized form from a
parent. Some studios will tattoo teens to reduce the chance they get
hepatitis or infections from amateur tattoos.
Some studios will not touch teenagers unless they are 18 or older, even
with consent.
“There are too many problems,'' says Blake Russell, manager of the Blue
Devil Tattoo Gallery on Seventh Avenue in Ybor City.
Russell won't tattoo anyone younger than 18.
“It's too permanent,'' he says. “They're minors, and they don't need to
get tattoos.''
Myrna Armstrong, a nursing professor at Texas Tech University, has been
studying tattoos since 1994. Until about 20 years ago, tattoos often
identified their owners as unsavory. Any teen wearing one was perceived
to be a poor student.
But Armstrong's research indicates that tattoos and bad grades don't
necessarily go hand in hand. Sixty percent of those tattooed in a study
of 23 high schools around the United States a decade ago were “A'' and
“B'' students, she says. Not surprisingly, they tend to be bigger risk
takers.
“This isn't something being done by a deviant group,'' Armstrong said
Tuesday. “It's broad; it's mainstream.''
Tattooing and body piercing are ways for teens to give themselves a
stronger sense of self, Armstrong says.
“It makes them feel special,'' she says. “They think their particular
design gives them self-identity.''
The increase in teens with tattoos matches that among their older
counterparts. One in five college students has a tattoo, Armstrong says.
Among older adults, the rate is one in seven people.
Designs More Creative
Not only has the number of tattooed teenagers increased, but the designs
are growing more creative than the standard butterfly or rosebud.
William Prescott, a senior at Robinson High School, has a tattoo on his
back in memory of his dad.
“I wanted something permanent to honor my dad, and what's better than a
tattoo?'' said Prescott.
Other designs come from bands and hobbies.
Chrystal Campbell, a 17-year- old junior at Robinson, has four tattoos.
One, of pinup model Bettie Page, is on her right shoulder. Campbell has
a star above each ankle and the logo of her favorite band, A Perfect
Circle, on the back of her neck. Each has different significance.
“I incorporate them with my life,'' Campbell says. “Pinup girls are my
hobby ... and music is a big part of my life also.''
Critical Feedback
Not every design that teenagers want is a good idea. Tampa tattoo artist
Carol Schaefer has been tattooing for 28 years and will not hesitate to
give a customer critical feedback.
“I'll tell them to rethink it; they may not want it in six months, or
mom and dad may not approve,'' Schaefer says. “But you can't always talk
them out of it.''
At one time, parents universally objected to the idea of tattoos. “Now
they're letting their teens get tattoos and piercings for good report
cards,'' Schaefer says.
“If they want it and they're good [students], how can you say no?''
Jenni Graff has a heart surrounded by tribal markings on the small of
her back. The 17- year-old Robinson junior got hers when she was 16.
She had expected her parents to say no, since they told her brother he'd
have to wait until he was 18. But her father relented and her mother,
Vicki, agreed to go with her to Moniques Tattooing & Body Piercing in
Ybor City.
Once they got there, mom was talked into getting one as well. She picked
a long-stem rose with a butterfly. The tattoo is on her shoulder.
Jenni's friends were agog at the fact she was able to get her parents'
approval. Vicki said she didn't tell her parents that their
granddaughter was tattooed with her approval.
“I call it our mother-daughter bonding experience,'' Vicki says. “Not
too many mothers and daughters can say they got tattoos together.''
Leslie Hatton
11 March 2005
A victory for children
A student nutrition bill passed recently by the Kentucky Legislature
wasn't everything it could have been, but it is a good compromise that
will improve our children's health — while also ending some of the
hypocrisy that exists in some schools.
In biology and health classes, we teach the importance of diet. At lunch
time, we give students fried foods, junk-food snacks and soft drinks.
Little wonder Kentucky's collective health is atrocious. We're among the
national leaders in obesity, juvenile diabetes, heart disease and rotten
teeth, not to mention smoking rates.
It's taken four years to get the state Senate to follow the House's
leadership in recognizing the need for a school nutrition law. The
compromise bill, which passed the House 63-23 and the Senate 23-7, now
goes to Gov. Ernie Fletcher for his signature. Among other things it:
- Bans the sale of soft drinks to elementary school pupils during the school day, although it allows sales after hours and at extracurricular events. The state Board of Education would regulate drinks sold in machines in middle and high schools.
- Limits the sale of retail fast food, such as pizza made by a retailer, to one day a week, although schools can still serve deep-fried items.
- Requires local site-based decision-making councils to develop “wellness policies'' that would include physical activity for elementary schoolchildren each day. Up to 30 minutes of exercise could be counted as part of the instructional day.
- Requires school food service directors to be certified.
- Calls on the state school board set nutritional standards for items sold in vending machines and in a la carte lines in all schools.
- Requires schools to report to parents once a year on nutrition standards and physical activity.
Previous nutrition bills had outlined
specific requirements for food and drinks sold in vending machines. Some
school officials had objected to changes in vending machine contracts
and the physical activity requirements, bemoaning the loss of local
control and potential loss of money. We hope they come around and see
that this is about more than money.
This bill doesn't finish the campaign to improve our children's health.
Gov. Fletcher must still sign the bill, schools must make a commitment
to implementing the new rules, and the state must still set the
nutritional standards.
And, above all, parents must take their cue from the schools and
implement healthy habits where the real responsibility lies — at home.
14 March 2005
Source
Witnessing violence can harm child's body, mind
Children who witness violence in their community or at home face
increased risks of both emotional problems and physical illness,
researchers report.
As reported in the March issue of the Journal of Pediatrics, researchers
at the University of Michigan interviewed the mothers and teachers of
160 children from low-income, single-mother families enrolled in Head
Start programs in two Michigan counties.
They found that 65 percent of the 4-to-6-year-olds had been exposed to
at least one incident of violence in their communities. These incidents
ranged from shootings, stabbings and rapes, to beatings and chasings.
The study also found that 47 percent of the children had been exposed to
at least once violent incident within their own families, such as
domestic violence or child maltreatment.
Those experiences had consequences: According to the researchers, 90
percent of children exposed to violence experienced traumatic stress
reactions, including nightmares, bed-wetting, or thumb-sucking, while 20
percent were at high risk for developing post-traumatic stress disorder.
Nearly a third of the children in the study had allergies, asthma or
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. These health problems were
much more likely in children who'd experienced violence within the
family, the study found.
Children who had gastrointestinal problems or asthma were nearly four
times as likely to be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder than
children who did not have those particular health problems, the
researchers added.
The Michigan team said it's unclear whether post-traumatic stress causes
illness or vice-versa. And they added that the overall health and
substance abuse habits of mothers were also big factors in predicting
child health problems.
Clinical interventions to increase the health and safety of such single
mothers may improve their ability to care for their children, the study
authors suggested. Treating affected children for traumatic stress
symptoms may also go a long way to improve their health and well-being,
they said.
Journal of Pediatrics
10 March 2005
Source
TV, Computers a 'Full-Time' Activity for U.S.
Youth
Using computers, watching television and listening to music are nearly a
full-time activity for most U.S. children, with the average 8- to
18-year-old taking in 6 1/2 hours a day, a report published on Wednesday
said.
The study by the Kaiser Family Foundation was one of the few national
efforts to attempt to verify how much time children spend with
television and other media. It was based on classroom questionnaires
given to more than 2,000 U.S. schoolchildren in the third to 12th
grades.
Just over half said their families had no rules on watching television.
Sixty-eight percent said they had a television in their bedroom, half
had a VCR or DVD player and 31 percent had a computer in the bedroom.
The youngest children watched the most television, with 8- to 10-year
olds watching more than four hours a day on average, including videos.
Overall the children watched three hours and 51 minutes of television on
average.
However, the study found that children who reported spending the most
time with their parents were also the ones who reported watching the
most television. “Perhaps that's how kids and their parents spend time
together,” said the report, available on the Internet at
http://www.kff.org/entmedia/7251.cfm.
There was also a link between heavy use of video games and low grades,
and this held true to a lesser degree for watching television or
listening to music.
Fears that electronic media would rob children of more old-fashioned
skills seem unfounded, the report finds.
“In a typical day, nearly three out of four (73 percent) of young people
report reading for pleasure,” the report reads.
“On average, 8- to 18-year-olds spend about three-quarters of an hour a
day reading,” it added.
“Interestingly, those young people who spend the most time watching TV
(the 20 percent who watch more than five hours a day) don't report
spending any less time reading than other young people do; and those who
spend the most time playing console video games spend more time reading
than those who play fewer video games.”
Children were also multitasking. The report found that 26 percent used
two or more media at the same time, for example, using the computer and
television together.
Over a seven-day week the children spent 6 1/2 hours a day with “media”
such as television, video games, music and computers, two hours with
their parents, just over an hour a day in physical exercise or play, 50
minutes doing homework and half an hour doing chores.
10 March 2005
Source
Girls as young as five say they wish they were
slimmer
Girls as young as five are unhappy with their bodies and wish they were
slimmer, according to a new study.
Among those aged between five and eight, 46.9 per cent said they wanted
to be thinner and 45.7 per cent said they would diet if they put on
weight.
The study of 81 girls, carried out by Flinders University in South
Australia and published in the British Journal of Developmental
Psychology, found 28.6 per cent of five-year-olds and 71.4 per cent of
seven-year-olds wished they were thinner.
After being shown pictures of a girl before and after putting on weight,
35.7 per cent thought eating habits would be the reason for the change
and 28.6 per cent suggested she should go on a diet.
Most of the girls believed being thin would make them more likeable,
although few said they discussed their bodies with friends.
Their perception of their peers’ body dissatisfaction was linked to
their own level of body dissatisfaction. “It is therefore possible that
peer transmissions of ideals about appearance could also occur through
comments when trying on clothes, or about pop stars when watching
television,” the report said.
Hayley Dohnt, who helped carry out the study, said: “Previously,
research has focused on adolescence as the likely time for the emergence
of body dissatisfaction. However, clear evidence has accumulated that a
substantial number of pre-adolescent girls are dissatisfied with their
bodies and wish to be thinner.
”Previous research has also focused on parental influence as the most
salient source of information for young children. However, the major
life event which occurs over the five- to seven-year age range, when
body dissatisfaction begins, is the commencement of schooling.
“Peer influence, which has been ... assumed as more or less irrelevant
for young children, may in fact be particularly salient for this age
group.”
Source: British Journal of Developmental Psychology
8 March 2005
Source
Do children 'grow out of asthma'?
A third of children who supposedly outgrew their asthma have seen it
come back by the time they reached their mid-20s.
Researchers on Monday reported that kids with some common allergies,
such as a sensitivity to house dust mites, and those with poor lung
function, seem to be more likely to redevelop asthma as adults.
“While we cannot definitively explain why some individuals experience
asthma relapse and others do not, we found that persistence of asthma
and asthma relapse are significantly increased in children with house
dust mite sensitivity,” said study leader Malcolm Sears of McMaster
University in Hamilton, Canada.
“This is likely due to persistent inflammation and genetic factors,”
Sears added in a statement.
Study details
Sears and colleagues studied more than 1000 children born in New Zealand
between 1972 and 1973, testing them at ages 9, 11, 13, 15, 18, 21 and
26.
About 20% of them had asthma diagnosed by a doctor at some point in
childhood, and of these, 38% were free of symptoms by the age of 18, the
researchers found.
But by the age of 26, 35% said their symptoms came back.
The patients who relapsed more often had allergies to house dust mites,
grass, cats, dogs, and mold, the researchers said.
“By not smoking and avoiding occupations that increase the likelihood of
developing asthma, patients can help protect themselves from asthma
relapse,” Sears said.
“This study demonstrates the role that specific risk factors have on
asthma remission,” added Dr Paul Kvale, President of the American
College of Chest Physicians.
8 March 2005
Source
Becoming an adult takes longer these days
It takes longer to become an adult these days, and the passage to
adulthood is more ambiguous and complicated than in the past, according
to a Case Western Reserve University sociologist and researchers from
the Network on Transitions to Adulthood and Public Policy funded by the
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
“Although pinpointing the onset of adulthood is not easy, it's most
certainly not the magic legal ages of 18 or 21,” according to Richard
Settersten Jr., chair of Case's department of sociology, co-director of
the university's Schubert Center for Child Develoment and co-editor of
the new book, On the Frontier of Adulthood: Theory, Research and Public
Policy (University of Chicago Press, 2005). Settersten, with Frank
Furstenberg Jr. of the University of Pennsylvania and Rubén Rumbaut from
the University of California, Irvine, explore this new and often
misunderstood period of life.
Caught between adolescence and adulthood, Settersten and his colleagues
say young people are navigating a new life phase. And to reach
adulthood, they need greater help getting there from their families or
other support systems.
“Adulthood no longer begins when adolescence ends,” Settersten said,
especially where the “big five” traditional markers of adulthood are
concerned-leaving home, finishing school, starting a job, getting
married and having children. In prior generations, these transitions
were completed by the mid-20s.
Today, this set of transitions is often not completed until well into
the early or late 30s for many people. And what we might think about as
a neat “three-box model” of life-with education up front, work in the
middle and retirement or leisure at the end-is crumbling.
This model of life, the study indicates, underlies the organization of
many social institutions and policies, despite the fact that these old
scripts of life no longer match the realities of the world today or how
the lives of current generations of young people will unfold.
In some ways, the road to adulthood now more closely resembles that of
agricultural times than it does the last few decades, where at the turn
of the last century, it took young people a long time to reach
self-sufficiency while working on family farms.
Now other social institutions, especially educational ones, have
replaced the farm in allowing youth to cultivate the skills needed to be
self-sufficient. The four-year college, in particular, serves to
“bridge” adolescence and adulthood by providing shelter, planned
activities, health care, adult and peer support, and entertainment.
For young people who do not attend residential colleges, other
institutions may serve as important bridges-community colleges, the
military, national service and work organizations. But these settings,
Settersten and his colleagues say, need to be “re-architected to provide
stronger scaffolding for vulnerable groups of young people who do not
have strong family supports in place.” The Network is now conducting
several large-scale demonstration projects to explore how this can be
done.
Transitioning to Adulthood
According to Settersten, one of the new hallmarks of successful movement
through early adulthood may be interdependence rather than independence.
“A brand new challenge to understanding this period is how individuals
develop a sense of autonomy amidst increasingly long periods of
dependence on others, without strong or clear scripts to guide them, and
when the institutions through which they move are based on models of
early adulthood that no longer reflect the realities of the modern
world,” he said.
Because this is a period of “sink or swim” for American kids, those who
manage to swim often do so only because they receive a great deal of
family support or have other informal safety nets to prop them up as
they make their way.
“These circumstances put young people in a position where they now are
more attached to their parents than ever before,” Settersten noted.
The book's contributors find that sizable costs associated with
childrearing now occur between 18 and 34, in both money and time, and
that these percentages have increased dramatically in the last 30 years.
“When middle-class families are making such tremendous levels of
investments in their children through their 30s, we must especially ask
about the fate of young people who come from struggling or fragmented
families that simply cannot assist their children in these ways,”
Settersten says. “Worse still, we must ask about the fate of young
people who have been in the foster care, special education or juvenile
justice systems and are abruptly cut off from state support when they
hit ‘eligibility cliffs' of 18 or 21. These groups are completely on
their own without any safely nets whatsoever.”
On the Frontier of Adulthood is the result of more than four years of
collaborative research. Instead of asking the question, “What is wrong
with young people today?” which so often seems to underlie media
portrayals, Settersten says that he and his colleagues have instead been
trying to understand “How have changing social and economic conditions
combined to create a new life period, what new capacities and skills do
young people now need to navigate this period successfully and how do
institutions and policies need to be revamped to smooth entry into and
through adult life?”
Contrary to popular perceptions, Settersten and his colleagues do not
find that young people are unwilling to take on adult roles. “If
anything,” he says, “the opposite may be occurring, as young people now
seem very aware of how difficult it is to become ‘independent' or
‘autonomous' against current economic and social conditions, and they
seem hesitant to make commitments they cannot honor or that they think
may fail.”
3 March 2005
Source
Gene may be a cause of dyslexia
Researchers at Cardiff University have discovered a gene which they
believe is likely to be one of the causes of dyslexia in children. It is
hoped the discovery will lead to better understand of the brain disorder
which disrupts reading and writing.
It is believed to be the first time a single gene linked to the
condition has been identified.
The team analysed 300 families from Wales and the west of England who
had at least one child with dyslexia.
They isolated the gene by comparing these results with those from
families who do not suffer from the condition, which affects around 5%
of the UK population.
The research will now focus on how the gene, called KIAA0319, works
within the brain to disrupt reading and writing skills. The research has
been carried out by a team from the Department of Psychological Medicine
at Wales College of Medicine, who described their findings as a major
breakthrough.
They are looking for new volunteers to take part in their research.
Professor Julie Williams, who led the team, told BBC Wales: “We have
known for a number of years there is a gene on chromosome six that
confers susceptibility to develop dyslexia.
“We along with other groups throughout the world have been chasing this
gene.
“We found a number of DNA variants in children we tested with dyslexia
and compared them with children without dyslexia. “We found there were a
lot of differences coming from just one single gene.”
Ruth Madoc
She added: “There will probably be a number of genes as well as
environmental factors that contribute to dyslexia.
“We need to find out how this gene functions and how it actually
contributes to dyslexia.
“Perhaps it may also tell us how it contributes to the way we process
language normally, which is one of the major puzzles for neuroscience
today.”
Actress Ruth Madoc, most famous for her role in Hi-He-Hi and more
latterly in Little Britain, was diagnosed with dyslexia when she was
still a girl.
She said the condition caused her problems at the start of her career
because she would find herself in auditions when she had to read from a
script unprepared.
She said: “I would fall down at that - it would be very difficult for
me.”
She said her parents “never let it be a stumbling block in any way” but
she welcomed the research findings at Cardiff.
“Any knowledge would take away the stigma that dyslexia has,” she said.
4 March 2005
Source
Virtual gaming 'eases child pain'
Hospitals should give child patients virtual reality computer games as
well as painkillers, a study suggests. An Adelaide hospital team found
that immersion in a virtual world of monsters and aliens helped
alleviate pain in children with severe burns.
Seven children aged five to 18 were asked to play a virtual reality game
while their dressing was being changed.
When playing the game on top of having painkillers, they recorded a much
lower pain score, BMC Pediatrics reported.
Adelaide Women's and Children's Hospital used a game with a special
headset housing two small computer screens and a special sensor allowing
the child to interact and immerse themselves in a “virtual” world where
they could shoot monsters.
All of the children had also been given their usual painkiller.
The children were then asked to rate how much pain they had experienced
using a visual scale of cartoon faces - ranging from smiling to
grimacing.
Compared with when their dressings were changed under the cover of
painkiller drugs alone, the children reported much less pain when they
were allowed to also play the computer game.
The average pain score with drugs alone was 4.1 out of 10, compared to
1.3 out of 10 with drugs and use of the computer game.
Distraction
By relocating themselves to “another world”, the children paid less
attention to the painful stimuli, said the researchers.
“Provided a number of different games were available to cater for
different age groups, it could be widely applied,” they said.
Liz McArthur, clinical nurse specialist in pain management at
Liverpool's Alder Hey Hospital, said: “Play and distraction interferes
with the transmission of pain.
“Also, what causes children a lot of distress is the memories and
anxiety they experience with painful situations. So distraction helps
with that too.
“And it doesn't have to be expensive. For example, we ask some of our
children to imagine themselves in a different place.”
Dr Ann Goldman, consultant in palliative care at London's Great Ormond
St Hospital, said: “It does depend on the age of the child.
“We have a lot of quite young children where we use other things, such
as blowing bubbles while a cannula is being placed.
“It helps concentrate their minds and when they blow out it also relaxes
their body.”
She said other research shows enhancing a person's natural coping style
is most helpful.
For example, some people deal with pain by ignoring it and pretending
they are somewhere else, while others find it more helpful to focus on
the pain, she said.
Pain is detected by nerve endings which send information to the brain,
via the spinal cord, which perceives pain.
This transmission is complex and can be blocked, dampened or heightened
by things like drugs, level of consciousness and emotions.
3 March 2005
Source
Graphic Ads speed up decline in youth smoking
New study findings suggest that adolescents are indeed influenced by
antismoking ads on television that use graphic images about death and
disease and expose the tobacco industry's marketing practices.
Such “truth” ads have been instrumental in decreasing the prevalence of
smoking among young people in the US, researchers report.
“This study showed that the campaign was associated with substantial
declines in youth smoking and has accelerated recent declines in youth
smoking prevalence,” write Dr. Matthew C. Farrelly and his colleagues in
the American Journal of Public Health.
The “truth” campaign was initiated in February 2000 by the American
Legacy Foundation as a result of the Master Settlement Agreement between
the tobacco industry and 46 states. Rather than relying on overt
antismoking messages, the campaign uses “hard-hitting ads that show
at-risk youths rejecting tobacco and that reveal deceptive tobacco
industry marketing tactics,” the researchers write.
To gauge the effect of the campaign, Farrelly and his team analyzed
responses from about 50,000 junior and senior high students who were
asked about their frequency of smoking during the past 30 days. All of
the study participants were involved in the Monitoring the Future survey
and were surveyed each spring from 1997 through 2002.
In 1997, 28 percent of the young people — including 19 percent of 8th
graders, 29.8 percent of 10th graders and 36.5 percent of 12th graders —
reported having smoked during the past 30 days.
By 1999, shortly before the start of the “truth” campaign, the overall
proportion of youth smokers dropped to 25.3 percent, and by 2002, two
years after the campaign was launched, smoking prevalence was down to 18
percent, the investigators report.
The truth campaign alone accounted for 22 percent of the drop in teen
smoking between 1999 and 2002 and helped accelerate the decline between
2000 and 2002, according to Farrelly and his team.
“We found that youth smoking rates declined faster in the two years
after the launch of the 'truth' campaign and that smoking rates declined
faster in areas of the country where youth were exposed to a greater
number of truth commercials,” Farrelly told Reuters Health.
Farrelly is a program director at RTI International's Center for Health
Promotion Research, a non-profit organization based in North Carolina.
“As a result of the truth campaign, there were 300,000 fewer young
smokers by 2002 than there would have been had the campaign never
existed,” Farrelly said.
Eighth graders, in particular, showed the greatest decline in smoking —
a 45 percent drop from 1997 to 2002, the report indicates. In contrast,
smoking among twelfth graders decreased by 27 percent during the same
period.
The campaign did not seem to affect other risky behaviors among the
youth, such as alcohol drinking during the past month or binge drinking
during the past two weeks — a finding that suggests that “'truth'
campaign exposure is not spuriously correlated with other prevention
efforts,” the researchers write.
Based on the success of the truth ads, similar campaigns may be
effective in reducing the prevalence of other risky behaviors, according
to Farrelly.
“I do think that many of the basic concepts underlying the campaign's
approach (if not the ads themselves) are very relevant to other
prevention campaigns,” he said.
Meanwhile, it's unclear if the antismoking campaign will continue. “The
primary source of funding for the campaign has come from the Master
Settlement Agreement between states and major tobacco companies,” Farrelly explained.
“This source of funding has run out and unless the American Legacy
Foundation is able to secure additional funding, the campaign's future
is uncertain despite its success.”
SOURCE: American Journal of Public Health, March 2005.
Charnicia E. Huggins
1 March 2005
Drug 'doubles mental health risk'
Smoking cannabis virtually doubles the risk of developing mental
illnesses such as schizophrenia, researchers say. The New Zealand
scientists said their study suggested this was probably due to chemical
changes in the brain which resulted from smoking the drug.
The study, published in the journal Addiction, followed over 1,000
people born in 1977 for 25 years.
UK mental health campaigners said it was more evidence of a
“drug-induced mental health crisis”.
The researchers, from the University of Otago, interviewed people taking
part in the Christchurch Health and Development Study about their
cannabis use at the ages of 18, 21 and 25.
They were also interviewed about various aspects of their mental health.
The scientists found psychotic symptoms were more common among cannabis
users.
They analysed their findings to take into account of the possibility
that their illness encouraged people to use more cannabis, rather than
the drug contributing to their condition.
But the researchers said the link was not likely to be due to people
with mental illness having a greater wish to smoke cannabis.
Instead, they said cannabis may increase the chances of a person
suffering psychosis by causing chemical changes to the brain.
The researchers also took into account factors such as family history,
current mental disorders, and illicit substance abuse.
'Growing evidence'
The scientists, led by Professor David Fergusson, said it was likely
cannabis use increased the chances of a person suffering psychosis by
causing chemical changes to the brain.
Writing in Addiction, he added: “Even when all factors were taken into
account, there was a clear increase in rates of psychotic symptoms after
the start of regular use.
“These findings add to the growing body of evidence from different
sources, all of which suggest that heavy use of cannabis may lead to
increased risk of psychotic symptoms and disease in susceptible
individuals.”
Paul Corry, of the mental health charity Rethink, said: “This is the
latest in long line of international research over the last 12 months
that shows we are facing a drug-induced mental health crisis.
“Rethink is renewing its call to the Health Select Committee to
investigate the latest research into the link between cannabis use and
severe mental illness.
“We need action from the Department of Health and we need it now if we
are to avoid the risk of tens of thousands of young people developing a
severe mental illness in the future.”
The Department of Health has said it will review all academic and
clinical studies linking cannabis use to mental health problems.
Source: Addiction
1 March 2005
Source
'Left-neglect' blindspot found in hyperactive
children
Hyperactive children may stop noticing things on their left side —
causing them to be misdiagnosed as dyslexic, research revealed today.
The phenomenon of “left neglect” is more widespread in children than
previously thought, the researchers said.
They found that children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
(ADHD) might simply stop noticing things to their left — especially when
doing boring or non-stimulating tasks.
Because of the tendency to miss the start of words, reading just the
letters to the right hand side, youngsters could be mistakenly thought
to have dyslexia, the study found.
ADHD affects up to 7 per cent of school-age children in the UK and the
condition can prove hard to diagnose.
The latest research was carried out by Dr Tom Manly and colleagues at
the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in
Cambridge. The study, published in the Journal of Child Psychology and
Psychiatry, said that “left neglect” was well-known in adults who had
suffered a right-sided brain injury.
The researchers said that this meant they could act as if half the world
had simply disappeared. They found that some children with ADHD, who had
no brain damage and were of perfectly normal intelligence, showed “left
neglect” quite as severe as that seen in some adults with substantial
damage to the right side of their brain.
The studies showed that most children’s awareness of things to their
left, but not their right, significantly declined if they had to perform
a boring task for about 40 minutes. The research also found that even
perfectly healthy children could begin to lose some awareness of
information on the left if they were bored.
“All children lose information disproportionately from the left, but
children with ADHD appear to reach this point more quickly and to a
greater extent than other children unless they are given stimulant
medication,” Dr Manly said.
“One boy with ADHD we worked with tended to ignore the first letters in
words, reading ‘train’ as ‘rain’ and ‘float’ as ‘oat’.”
Source: Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
1 March 2005
Source
Top
___