Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Poor Teen Friendships Predict Adult Anxiety and Depression Symptoms

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

A 19-year study at the University of Virginia is revealing what may lead some young adults to suffer from debilitating depression and anxiety.

Researchers found adolescents who struggled to form and maintain meaningful friendships were more likely to experience negative emotions and a poor self-concept between the ages of 27 and 32.

The study, "Pathways from adolescent close friendship struggles to adult negative affectivity," is published in the journal Development and Psychopathology.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders notes that people who experience such "negative affectivity" have heightened emotional distress, with frequent and intense negative emotions, including hostility, in addition to depression and anxiety symptoms.

Psychology professor Joseph Allen said, "Our hypothesis going in was that social relationship qualities beginning in adolescence would be important in understanding that experience."

So they followed 169 people starting when they were 13 and analyzed near-annual self, parent and peer reports.

"We looked at their social relationship qualities as reported by other people, not just as they, the subjects, reported," Allen said.

Allen's Adolescence Research Lab has produced other research findings "that show that those poor relationship qualities not only affect your mental health, they also predict being less physically healthy," he said. Poor relationship quality also predicted high inflammation and high blood pressure levels.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-09-poor-teen-friendships-adult-anxiety.html

Study Shows How Pandemic Affected Teen Boys and Girls Differently

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

Being a teen during the first part of the COVID pandemic meant experiencing many milestones—the first day of high school, birthdays, graduation—from behind a computer screen.

Pandemic isolation had a marked effect on young people. But a recent University of Washington study found teen girls were more adversely affected by the lockdown than teen boys, with girls' brains aging more than three times as much.

Researchers say it's not entirely clear what that could mean long-term for people who were teens during the early part of the pandemic. But in the immediate future, it could make teen girls more susceptible to anxiety and depression.

Neva Corrigan, the lead researcher on the study, said it highlights the need for more mental health support.

In 2018, researchers at UW's Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences studied the brain scans of 160 people ages 9 to 17 with the intention of looking at changes in their brains over a two-year period. When the pandemic hit, they had to wait an extra year to bring their subjects back.

About 130 of them came back for the second scan. The researchers used the data of about 110 people from the original group to create a model, projecting what expected brain development would look like. They used the data from about 50 other students in that group to look at how their brains had actually changed in those three years.

What they found surprised them. Between 2018 and 2021, the teen girls in the study experienced more thinning of their frontal cortices—indicating aging in the brain. They found teen girls' brains aged 4.2 years beyond the predicted rate, whereas teen boys' brains aged 1.2 years more than expected.

The areas where girls' brains showed the most cortical thinning was in the part of the brain associated with social interactions, Corrigan said.

"We know that during the teen years, girls use their social network a lot to help deal with emotions and stressors," Corrigan said. "During COVID, they lost that emotional support avenue, and males may not use that as much."

Corrigan also acknowledged that while the study showed changes during this time period, researchers couldn't pinpoint the exact aspects of the lockdown that caused those changes. Researchers hypothesized it was because of the stress, she said, based on previous research about how chronic stress affects the brain.

"This study highlights the importance of social interaction for teenagers," Corrigan said. "Adults should be fostering and helping teens make these connections. I know it might not be fun for parents when their kids are spending all their time with their friends, but those interactions are very critical to their teens' development."

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-09-pandemic-affected-teen-boys-girls.html

Just One Egg Daily Reduces Nutrient Gaps Among U.S. Adolescents

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by News-Medical.

In a recent study published in The Journal of Nutrition, researchers in the United States analyzed data from the US NHANES study to evaluate the nutritional status of US adolescents and the impacts of added egg consumption on observed patterns. Alarmingly, over 60% of adolescents were at risk of inadequacy in one or more of calcium, magnesium, choline, and essential vitamins ((e.g., vitamins D and E), potentially due to unhealthy eating behaviors (e.g., late-night snacks).

Encouragingly, the consumption of primarily egg-based dishes was found to improve nutritional outcomes, with consumers exhibiting significantly higher choline, vitamin B2, vitamin D, selenium, lutein + zeaxanthin, docosahexaenoic acid, and protein levels than their egg-avoiding counterparts. These findings emphasize the need for policymakers to enhance the publicity, accessibility, and availability of eggs and similar nutrient-rich foods to reduce the widespread risk of nutrient inadequacy and address the growing concerns of nutrition insecurity in the country and abroad.

The study aimed to evaluate the nutritional contributions of eggs (nutrient exposure scores) on the micronutrient and protein aspects of dietary recommendations (DRI, DGA, and Thrifty Food Plan). It further modeled the potential benefits of adding one daily egg to the diets of former adolescent participants of the NHANES (2007-2018) study.

Alarmingly, almost half (49%) of the study cohort never consumed eggs, while 36% and 15% consumed primarily egg dishes and egg-ingredient dishes, respectively. Adolescents consuming primarily egg-based diets and experiencing food security presented significantly better nutritional metrics than other cohorts, particularly in protein and essential micronutrient categories. Modeling the addition of one egg per day to the diet significantly improved nutrient intakes across all groups, including those at high risk of nutrient inadequacy. The study showed that even food-insecure adolescents benefited from egg consumption, particularly in areas of choline, vitamin D, and protein intake.

Source: News-Medical
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20240923/Just-one-egg-daily-reduces-nutrient-gaps-among-US-adolescents-study-shows.aspx

Know What 'Chroming' Is? TikTok Fad Could Harm Your Kids

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay

Chroming, where toxic fumes from common household items are inhaled for a quick high, is on the rise among youth and TikTok may be to blame, new research suggests.

In findings to be presented at the American Academy of Pediatrics annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., experts took a closer look at over 100 chroming videos that had garnered 25 million views on the social media app.

“What is particularly concerning about chroming is that it uses everyday household items that are easily accessible to teens,” said study first author Keerthi Krishna, a research assistant at Cohen’s Children’s Medical Center in New York. “The covert nature of these items means that parents and teachers are less likely to detect the behavior, significantly increasing the risk of repeated usage and addiction among adolescents.”

Chroming, which is also known as "huffing," typically produces a short euphoric state that can trigger repeated usage and addiction. Inhalant abuse can lead to dizziness, brain damage and even death.

"While chroming isn't a new activity for adolescents, it has resurged with the help of social media apps," the researchers noted in a meeting news release. "TikTok is one such social media platform with children aged 10-19 as its largest user demographic. "

In analyzing the chroming videos on TikTok, the scientists looked at: perceived creator gender; video creator age; meme information; item used; and repeated usage. Creator age and repeated usage was either self-reported, or estimated by the researchers.

What was the most popular item to huff?

Of the 109 videos that were analyzed, permanent markers (31%) were the most common chroming item, followed by air duster (17%) nail polish (12%), paint thinner (11%), gasoline (11%), spray deodorant (11%), and hair spray (6%).

Meanwhile, more than half of the videos referenced repeated usage or addiction.

Further, the high prevalence of chroming memes on TikTok could normalize the practice, prompting young people to view the practice as a "safer" choice than traditional drugs, the researchers noted.

Source: HealthDay
https://www.healthday.com/health-news/child-health/know-what-chroming-is-tiktok-fad-could-harm-your-kids

What's Hot? 09/27/24

Trending Today on X (formerly Twitter) - 9/27/24
 1. Maggie Smith
2. #1stLinePit
3. Sister Act
4. Mother Superior
5. #FridayVibes
6. Netanyahu
7. Dowager Countess
8. #FursuitFriday
9. RIP Queen
10. Monet
Source: X

Trending Today on Google - 9/27/24
 1. Maggie Smith
2. Google Doodles Popcorn
3. Judi Dench
4. Dwayne Wade
5. PCE Report
6. Boone NC
7. Muriel Furrer
8. Nuclear Weapons Russia
9. Volodymyr Zelenskyy
10. Benjamin Netanyahu
Source: Google

Top Five on Apple Music - 9/27/24
 1. LIL DEMON - Future
2. PLUTOSKI - Future
3. TOO FAST - Future
4. SKI - Future
5. TEFLON DON - Future
Source: Apple Music

Top Box Office Movies - Weekend of 9/20/24
1. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
2. Transformers One
3. Speak No Evil
4. Never Let Go
5. Deadpool & Wolverine
Source: Showtimes.com 

TV Shows Trending on Streaming Services - 9/27/24
 1. The Penguin - Max
2. From - Prime Video
3. Agatha All Along - Disney+
4. Matlock - Prime Video
5. High Potential - Hulu
Source: Reelgood

Trending Today on YouTube - 9/27/24
 1. Major Hurricane Helene As It Happened, Part 1
2. The Last of Us Season 2
3. Rod Wave - Fall Fast In Love
4. From the World of John Wick: Ballerina (2025) Official Trailer
5. The Weeknd, Playboi Carti - Timeless
Source: YouTube

Netflix Top 5 TV Shows in the U.S. Today - 9/27/24
 1. Monsters
2. Nobody Wants This
3. Mr. McMahon
4. Ellen Degeneres: For Your Approval
5. The Perfect Couple
Source: FlixPatrol

Fussy Eater? It Might Be in Your Kid's Genes

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

Pulling your hair out in frustration with your finicky youngster?

Don’t blame your parenting style—genetics likely played a huge role in their eating habits, a new twin study finds.

Fussy eating is mainly influenced by genes, according to findings published Sept. 19 in the Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry.

Further, finicky eating is a stable trait that lasts from toddlerhood to early adolescence, the researchers added.

Average levels of food fussiness remain relatively stable from 16 months to 13  years of age, peaking around age 7 and declining slightly after that, researchers found.

Genetic differences account for 60% of the variation in food fussiness at 16 months, and their influence increased to 74% and more as toddlers grew into tweens, results showed.

For the study, researchers tracked 2,400 sets of twins through age 13.

Parents regularly filled out questionnaires about their kids’ eating behaviors. Fussy eating is defined as a tendency to eat only a small range of foods due to dislike of certain textures or tastes, and a reluctance to try new foods.

To help tease out genetic influences, researchers compared fraternal twins, who share 50% of their genes, with identical twins who share 100% of their genes.

It turned out that fraternal twins were much less similar in their picky eating than identical twins, pointing to a large genetic influence in the behavior.

Fussy eating patterns among identical twins also started to become more different as the kids got older, indicating that environmental factors start to shape eating behaviors for tweens and teens.

“Food fussiness is common among children and can be a major source of anxiety for parents and caregivers, who often blame themselves for this behaviour or are blamed by others,” said lead researcher Zeynep Nas, a postdoctoral researcher with the University College London (UCL).

“We hope our finding that fussy eating is largely innate may help to alleviate parental blame. This behavior is not a result of parenting,” Nas added in a UCL news release. “Our study also shows that fussy eating is not necessarily just a ‘phase,’ but may follow a persistent trajectory.”

Source: HealthDay
https://www.healthday.com/health-news/child-health/fussy-eater-it-might-be-in-your-kids-genes

Fragrance in Care Products Could Be Triggering Early Puberty in Girls

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by ScienceAlert.

A search for chemicals that could inadvertently activate parts of the brain responsible for reproductive functions has identified compounds many of us may encounter in our environment, highlighting a potential trigger for early puberty in women.

One is a musky scent, once commonly used in men's fragrances, which was banned by the European Union, yet might still be found in products sold across much of the world, including the US.

Over the past century, the average ages of menarche – the commencement of menstruation – and breast development have trended downward. While there are clear racial and socioeconomic factors, the phenomenon is too global and too rapid to be wholly genetic, leaving scientists to question what novel environmental factors might cause such early changes.

While plenty of studies have hunted for candidates that could account for such precocious maturity, inconsistent results have made it hard to pin down any culprits.

Researchers from the US National Institutes of Health and North Western University chose to focus their search around a network of neurons in the hypothalamus known to play a critical role in managing the onset of puberty.

Rather than search for signs of disruption in a sample of volunteers, the researchers used a culture of tissue grown in the lab to screen for the effects of various substances on the cells' GnRH and kisspeptin activity.

The screening itself was substantial, sorting through some 10,000 different substances, outlined in an Environmental Protection Agency library. Then, additional evaluation tools whittled the list down to a few dozen compounds that interfered with one or both of the pathways.

One compound in particular stood out – a candidate agonist for kisspeptin, called musk ambrette. Once commonly found in cosmetics and men's fragrances, the sweet, slightly animal scent was banned by the European Union in the 1990s, following evidence of its neurotoxicity in rats, though it continues to be synthesized in India and China.

The substance is less common in commercial products today, thanks to recommendations by the International Fragrance Association. But being resistant to degradation, it continues to have an environmental presence that could pose a serious, ongoing concern, warn studies such as this new one.

This research was published in Endocrinology.

Source: ScienceAlert
https://www.sciencealert.com/fragrance-in-care-products-could-be-triggering-early-puberty-in-girls

Wildfire Smoke Exposure Boosts Risk of Mental Illness in Youth

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by ScienceDaily.

Each additional day of exposure to wildfire smoke and other extreme forms of dirty air boosts the risk of mental illness in youth a little more, according to a new University of Colorado Boulder study of 10,000 9 to 11-year-olds.

"We found that a greater number of days with fine particulate air pollution levels above EPA standards was associated with increased symptoms of mental illness, both during the year of exposure and up to one year later," said first author Harry Smolker, a research associate with CU's Institute of Cognitive Science.

The study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, comes as smoke from Southern California fires blankets much of the West, thickening skies as far away as Las Vegas and parts of Colorado. While annual average air quality has generally improved in recent decades due to limits on emissions from combustion engines, more frequent fires have created a new problem: more days with severe levels of tiny particles of burnt things -- a.k.a. particulate matter -- in the air.

While scientists have known for years that air pollution can harm lung and heart health, they've only recently begun to explore its impact on cognition and behavior.

Smolker's study is among the first to look at potential impacts on adolescents, whose brains are still developing.

The team analyzed data from 10,000 pre-teens participating in the ongoing Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study -- the largest long-term study of brain development and child health ever conducted in the United States. CU Boulder is one of 21 ABCD research sites.

When looking at parent questionnaires at four time points over three years, the researchers found that, across both genders, each additional day of exposure at unsafe levels boosted the likelihood of a youth having symptoms of depression, anxiety and other "internalizing symptoms" up to one year later.

While particulate matter can emerge from many sources, including traffic and industry, study co-author Colleen Reid, a geographer with the Institute for Behavioral Science at CU Boulder, suspects that most of the exposures in the study were due at least in part to wildfire smoke.

"Wildfire smoke events are becoming more and more common, and this study adds to a growing body of evidence that they can impact our health," Reid said.

Source: ScienceDaily
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/09/240912135646.htm

Adolescents Exposed to Greater Parental Conflict More Likely to Have Sleep Problems as Emerging Adults

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by PsyPost.

An eight-year study following a group of adolescents into emerging adulthood found that individuals exposed to more conflict between their parents during adolescence tended to have more sleep problems as emerging adults. These individuals generally had lower sleep efficiency and experienced a higher number of long wake episodes. The study was published in Sleep Health.

Many children witness conflicts between their parents. Studies indicate that over 40% of adolescents are exposed to verbal conflicts between their parents each year, while 22% witness physical conflict. Witnessing conflict, particularly violent conflict, is stressful for children and adolescents and can lead to sleep problems.

Study author Ryan J. Kelly and his colleagues sought to examine the relationship between witnessing conflict between parents during adolescence (ages 16-18) and sleep quality in emerging adulthood (age 23). They hypothesized that greater exposure to parental conflict during adolescence would predict more sleep-related problems in emerging adulthood.

In this study, the authors focused on three key sleep measures: time spent sleeping, sleep efficiency (the percentage of time participants spent sleeping between falling asleep and waking), and long wake episodes (the number of times participants woke and stayed awake for longer than five minutes during sleep).

Results showed that individuals who slept better at ages 16, 17, and 18 also tended to sleep better at age 23. However, participants who experienced more conflict between their parents at ages 16-18 tended to have lower sleep efficiency and a higher number of long wake episodes at age 23. The total time spent sleeping was not associated with the amount of parental conflict participants had witnessed.

Source: PsyPost
https://www.psypost.org/adolescents-exposed-to-parental-conflict-more-likely-to-have-sleep-problems-as-emerging-adults/

What's Hot? 09/20/24

Trending Today on X (formerly Twitter) - 9/20/24
 1. Oprah
2. Matt Gaetz
3. Majima
4. Three Mile Island
5. #FridayMorning
6. #FridayVibes
7. Rusev
8. #FursuitFriday
9. #JinxGucciSS25
10. Happy Friyay
Source: Twitter

Trending Today on Google - 9/20/24
 1. Russia Putin
2. Art Moore
3. Three Mile Island
4. Lancaster County CTC Willow Street
5. Joel Embiid
6. Beirut
7. Afghanistan vs South Africa
8. Kelsey Grammer
9. Dylan Douglas
10. Freddie Owens
Source: Google

Top Five on Apple Music - 9/20/24
 1. I Had Some Help (feat. Morgan Waller) - Post Malone
2. Die With A Smile - Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars
3. Taste - Sabrina Carpenter
4. Not Like Us - Kendrick Lamar
5. Please Please Please - Sabrina Carpenter
Source: Apple Music

Top Box Office Movies - Weekend of 9/13/24
1. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
2. Speak No Evil
3. Deadpool & Wolverine
4. Am I Racist?
5. Reagan
Source: Showtimes.com 

TV Shows Trending on Streaming Services - 9/20/24
 1. Shogun - Hulu
2. The Old Man - Hulu
3. High Potential - Hulu
4. Agatha All Along - Disney+
5. The Perfect Couple - Netflix
Source: Reelgood

Trending Today on YouTube - 9/20/24
 1. GREATEST GAME EVER?! Shohei Ohtani
2. BAD BUNNY - Una Velita
3. 50/50!! Shohei Ohtani makes history
4. Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero - Full Roster Reveal
5. Future - TOO FAST
Source: YouTube

Netflix Top 5 TV Shows in the U.S. Today - 9/20/24
 1. Monsters
2. The Perfect Couple
3. Emily in Paris
4. The Circle
5. Deon Cole: Ok, Mister
Source: FlixPatrol