Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Major Depression in Adolescents on the Rise

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on MedicalXpress.

A growing number of adolescents are going untreated for major depression nationwide over the past several years, warranting enhanced educational, policy, and service capacity efforts, according to a new Rutgers University–Camden study.

Girls, older adolescents, and those from single-mother households may be at greatest risk of depression among adolescents ages 12 to 17 nationwide, says Wenhua Lu, an assistant professor of childhood studies at Rutgers University–Camden, who conducted the study.

"Data also shows that adolescents with less authoritative parents are especially susceptible to major depression and less likely to receive treatments and medication," says Lu.

The Rutgers–Camden researcher examines the national trends in the prevalence, risk factors, and treatment of depression among adolescents, and investigates disparities in their mental health service use in the United States, in her new study to be published in the January 2019 issue of the American Journal of Health Behavior.

"Major depression represents a severe health concern among adolescents, with suicide being the third highest cause of death among 10- to 19-year-olds," says Lu. "Depression is often not diagnosed and treated in this age group, which can lead to severe long-term health and social consequences."

Lu analyzed data for adolescents ages 12 to 17 years who participated in the annual, cross-sectional National Survey on Drug Use and Health from 2011 to 2016.

Adolescents participating in the survey had answered a number of questions to assess major depression, treatment for depression, parenting styles, school experiences, and sociodemographic factors.

Lu found that the prevalence of adolescents' depression increased steadily each year during the time period studied, however, their overall use of mental health services remained unchanged.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-12-major-depression-adolescents-childhood.html

What's Hot? 12/21/18

Trending Today on Twitter - 12/21/18
1. #TrumpResign
2. #WinterSolstice
3. #FirstDayofWinter
4. 21 Savage
5. #FridayMotivation
6. #ILikeDoctorsWho
7. The Dream
8. Nuclear Option
9. Yule
10. Billy Crocker
Source: Twitter

Trending Today on Google - 12/21/18
1. Andy Cohen
2. Beyonce
3. 21 Savage
4. Winter solstice
5. GoFundMe Border Wall
6. Josh Gordon
7. Mattis
8. Thursday Night Football
9. Bumblebee
10. Government Shutdown
Source: Google

iTunes Top 10 Singles - 12/21/18
1. Without Me - Halsey
2. Sunflower - Post Malone & Swae Lee
3. High Hopes - Panic! At the Disco
4. One Last Time (44 Remix) - Christopher Jackson, Barack Obama & BeBe Winans
5. Happier - Marshmello & Bastille
6. thank u, next - Ariana Grande
7. You Say - Lauren Daigle
8. Speechless - Dan + Shay
9. Shallow - Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper
10. imagine - Ariana Grande
Source: iTunes

Top 10 TV (Broadcast) Shows - Week Ending 12/16/18
1. Sunday Night Football
2. Thursday Night Football
3. 60 Minutes
4. NCIS
5. Thursday Night Football Pre-Kick
6. Football Night in America, Pt 3
7. FBI
8. The Voice - Tues.
9. God Friended Me
10. The Voice - Mon.
Source: Nielsen Co.

Trending Today on YouTube - 12/21/18
1. Men in Black: International - Official Trailer
2. Warriors won't win title if Draymond Green keeps missing shots
3. The 1994 Toyota Supra Turbo Is a Sports Car Legend
4. Baby Name Reveal!! Baby Name Reveal Piñata Cookies
5. 'Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)' Carpool Karaoke
Source: YouTube

Top 5 Movies - Last Weekend
1. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
2. The Mule
3. The Grinch
4. Ralph Breaks the Internet
5. Mortal Engines
Source: Rotten Tomatoes

High School Students See Higher Grades, Fewer Absences With Later Start Times

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on Study Finds.

If you’re convinced the push for a later start to school times in many districts across the country in recent years will cause more of a strain on parents’ work schedules and less of a benefit to their kids, some new research could change your mind. A new study finds that children not only log healthier levels of sleep, they also perform at a higher level in the classroom when they begin the school day slightly later.

After the Seattle Public School District followed the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics and delayed their school start time by 55 minutes (from 7:50 am to 8:45 am), researchers from the University of Washington decided to study the effects on teenagers and their academic performance.

The data reveals better sleep cycles, better attendance, and better grades for high school students.

Research has suggested that delayed school start times give teenagers a better chance to stay within their natural sleep schedules and are more likely to excel school. To put it another way, the authors compare having to be at school by 7:30 a.m. for children to an adult having to clock-in at the office at 5:30 a.m.. Promoters of the delayed start-times believe a change would narrow the gap between high- and low-achievers.

“All of the studies of adolescent sleep patterns in the United States are showing that the time at which teens generally fall asleep is biologically determined — but the time at which they wake up is socially determined,” explains lead researcher Gideon Dunster, a doctoral student in biology at the university, in a release. “This has severe consequences for health and well-being, because disrupted circadian rhythms can adversely affect digestion, heart rate, body temperature, immune system function, attention span and mental health.”

Dunster and his team studied two Seattle high schools, Franklin High School in the South End, and Roosevelt High School in Ballard. The team measured the sleep-wake cycles of sophomores in both schools using wrist-worn activity devices. A group of 92 students wore the high-tech wristbands every day for two weeks in the spring of 2016, when start times were still at 7:50. Then in 2017, seven months after classes were pushed to 8:45, another group of 88 students were tasked with wearing the monitors.

The delayed start times produced measurable results. Students experienced an increase in sleep time by 34 minutes on average (totaling seven hours and 24 minutes each night), which led to a 4.5 percent increase in final grades. What’s more, attendance at Franklin, located in a low-income neighborhood, increased dramatically, while tardiness dropped.

The study was published in the journal Science Advances.

Source: Study Finds
https://www.studyfinds.org/high-school-students-higher-grades-fewer-absences-later-start-times/

Screen Time Study Shows Differences in Kids' Brains

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on U.S. News & World Report.

Some children who spent more time on smartphones and other devices exhibited a different brain pattern than kids with less screen time, according to the first data from a major ongoing study by the National Institutes of Health.

The findings, which aired Sunday evening on CBS' "60 Minutes," reveal that in some cases, 9- and 10-year-old kids who spent more than seven hours a day using devices like smartphones, tablets, and video games showed signs of premature thinning of the cortex, the outer layer of the brain that processes sensory information.

"We don't know if it's being caused by the screen time. We don't know yet if it's a bad thing," Dr. Gaya Dowling of the NIH said on "60 Minutes." "It won't be until we follow them over time that we will see if there are outcomes that are associated with the differences that we're seeing in this single snapshot."

Kids who spent more than two hours a day on such devices also scored worse on language and thinking tests, the NIH data show.

The initial findings come from brain scans of 4,500 9- and 10-year-olds, according to "60 Minutes." Researchers will follow a total of 11,000 children during the $300 million longitudinal study on adolescent brain development, and Dowling said it will be years before they understand the true impact of screen time on kids' brains.

"In many ways, the concern that investigators like I have is that we're sort of in the midst of a natural kind of uncontrolled experiment on the next generation of children," Dr. Dimitri Christakis, who helped develop the American Academy of Pediatrics' guidelines on screen time, told "60 Minutes."

Source: U.S. News & World Report
https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2018-12-10/screen-time-study-shows-differences-in-kids-brains-test-performance

Family, School Support May Help Stop Bullies in Their Tracks

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

Children with strong family ties and school support are more likely to try to stop bullying when they see it, new research suggests.

The study included 450 sixth-graders and 446 ninth-graders who were asked about their relationships with their family, friends and teachers.

The students were then presented with six scenarios of specific aggressive acts: physical aggression; cyberbullying; social exclusion/rejection by a group; intimate partner violence; social aggression, such as teasing or harmful gossip; and exclusion by a former friend.

The investigators then asked the students to rate the acceptability of intervening in these situations.

"We found that family is very important," said study co-author Secil Gonultas, a doctoral student at North Carolina State University.

"The stronger a student's reported 'good family management,' or positive family relationships, the more likely a student was to deem aggressive behaviors and retaliation unacceptable, and the more likely they were to intervene in either case," Gonultas said in a university news release.

And according to study lead author Kelly Lynn Mulvey, "sixth-graders were more likely than ninth-graders to find aggressive behaviors unacceptable and to intervene." Mulvey is an assistant professor of psychology at N.C. State.

"That suggests it's important to maintain anti-bullying efforts into high school -- which many places are already doing," she added.

The researchers also found that students who felt excluded or discriminated against by peers or teachers were less likely to stand up for victims of bullying.

"The study tells us that both home and school factors are important for recognizing bullying behavior as inappropriate, and taking steps to intervene," Mulvey said.

The study was published online recently in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/kids-health-information-23/bullying-health-news-718/family-school-support-may-help-stop-bullies-in-their-tracks-739633.html

More U.S. Teens Are Vaping, But Use of Opioids, Alcohol Falls

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

Vaping among American teenagers increased dramatically in 2018, with nearly two of every five high school seniors reporting they've tried an e-cigarette during the past year, a new survey reveals.

There was a bit of good news in the report, with teens reporting decreased use of alcohol, tobacco and opioids.

But the vaping trends remained troubling. About 37 percent of 12th graders said they'd vaped within the past 12 months, compared to about 28 percent in 2017, according to the latest Monitoring the Future survey.

Vaping rates also increased by about one-third in younger teens, with about 18 percent of 8th graders and 32 percent of 10th graders reporting they'd tried e-cigarettes in 2018.

"That's a marked increase just over a one-year period," said Dr. Wilson Compton, deputy director of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funds the survey. "In fact, the investigators pointed out this is the largest increase they've ever seen in a substance product by youth in America," he noted.

After alcohol, vaping is the second-most common form of substance use in the United States, the survey found.

However, marijuana use remains steady among high schoolers, with nearly 6 percent of 12th graders reporting daily use. For the past two decades, daily use among high school seniors has hovered between 5 and 6.6 percent.

"When we see rates of around 6 percent of high school seniors smoking marijuana on a daily or near-daily basis, that's an awful lot of kids whose memory may be impaired and their brains aren't working at full steam at the exact time when they need to be," Compton said.

The survey has tracked drug, alcohol and cigarette use among teens since 1975. This year, 44,482 students from 392 public and private schools participated in the survey.

Compton said marijuana use rates likely have remained steady due to societal acceptance of pot, as reflected in the state-level movement to legalize recreational use.

"We've seen a softening of the attitudes toward marijuana, and youth respond to those," Compton said. "They have less perception of risk from use of marijuana."

But Muench argued that, given how opinions on marijuana have shifted, it could actually be a good sign that use has remained steady among teenagers.

"We always want to see declines, but I think with the normalization and legalization and the big money behind marijuana products, steady is OK," Muench said.

The survey also found that:

• Smoking is at an all-time low, with only about 4 percent of high school seniors smoking daily, compared to 22 percent two decades ago.
• Prescription opioid use (such as OxyContin or Vicodin) has declined to about 3 percent among 12th graders. Only 1.7 percent of seniors reported misuse of Vicodin in the past year, compared to 10 percent 15 years ago.
• Alcohol use also has declined. About 17 percent of high school seniors reported being drunk during the past month, down from 26 percent five years ago.
• Fewer teens report binge drinking (five or more drinks in a row). About 14 percent of 12th graders said they'd recently engaged in binge drinking, down from 17 percent in 2017, and the all-time high of 31 percent in 1998.

Compton said more progress is needed, however.

"While we see improvement overall, we still see binge drinking in way too many youth," Compton said.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/cancer-information-5/electronic-cigarettes-970/more-u-s-teens-are-vaping-but-use-of-opioids-alcohol-falls-740634.html

What's Hot? 12/14/18

Trending Today on Twitter - 12/14/18
1. #SandyHook
2. Sunmi
3. #FridayFeeling
4. Nancy Wilson
5. Seventeen
6. #ALiversary
7. #FridayMotivation
8. #2018MAMA
9. JJ Lin
10. Janet Jackson
Source: Twitter

Trending Today on Google - 12/14/18
1. Nancy Wilson
2. Imagine Ariana Grande
3. Aus vs Ind
4. Jabari Parker
5. Jessica Starr FOX 2 News
6. Jason Momoa
7. America vs Cruz Azul
8. Eliza Dushku
9. Drake
10. Sondra Locke
Source: Google

iTunes Top 10 Singles - 12/14/18
1. imagine - Ariana Grande
2. Without Me - Halsey
3. thank u, next - Ariana Grande
4. High Hopes - Panic! At the Disco
5. Sunflower - Post Malone & Swae Lee
6. What Happens in a Small Town - Brantley Gilbert & Lindsay Ell
7. Happier - Marshmello & Bastille
8. Shallow - Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper
9. All I Want For Christmas Is You - Mariah Carey
10. You Say - Lauren Daigle
Source: iTunes

Top 10 TV (Broadcast) Shows - Week Ending 12/9/18
1. Sunday Night Football
2. The Big Bang Theory
3. NCIS
4. Young Sheldon
5. Thursday Night Football
6. FBI
7. The Voice - Mon.
8. The Voice - Tues.
9. Blue Bloods
10. 60 Minutes
Source: Nielsen Co.

Trending Today on YouTube - 12/14/18
1. Last Youtuber to Leave Wins $100,000 - Challenge
2. Try Not to Eat Challenge - Holiday Movies
3. Taylor Swift reputation Stadium Tour
4. How fast does glass crack? - The Slo Mo Guys
5. Vanessa Hudgens Does Tongue Twisters While Eating Spicy Wings
Source: YouTube

Top 5 Movies - Last Weekend
1. Ralph Breaks the Internet
2. The Grinch
3. Creed II
4. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
5. Bohemian Rhapsody
Source: Rotten Tomatoes

More Teens Try Pot Before Booze, Cigarettes

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

Rebellious teens used to reach for cigarettes or alcohol. Now, marijuana is increasingly their first choice, a new study reveals.

Columbia University researchers who analyzed national survey data say the "gateway pattern" of substance use is changing. Since 2006, less than 50 percent of teens have tried cigarettes or alcohol before trying marijuana for the first time, the investigators found.

"Alcohol and cigarette use have precipitously declined in adolescent populations for 20 years, while marijuana use has not," said Katherine Keyes, associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia's School of Public Health, in New York City.

"The perceived risk of marijuana use to health among adolescents is declining as well, portending potential future increases. In short, the timing of substances in the 'gateway' sequence is changing, as public perceptions about drugs of abuse change," she added in a university news release.

For the study, the researchers analyzed results of 40 annual national surveys of 12th-grade students.

Among teens who said they'd tried both cigarettes and marijuana, the proportion who tried cigarettes before marijuana fell from 75 percent in 1995 to 40 percent in 2016.

The proportion who tried cigarettes in the same school grade as marijuana rose from 20 percent in 1994 to 32 percent in 2016.

Among students who said they'd tried both alcohol and marijuana, the proportion who tried alcohol before marijuana fell from 69 percent in 1995 to 47 percent in 1999.

"Reducing adolescent smoking has been a remarkable achievement of the past 20 years," Keyes noted.

"Now, the more prominent role of marijuana in the early stages of drug use sequences and its implications are important to continue tracking. Its increasing use suggests that marijuana is, and will continue to be, a key target of drug use prevention efforts," she concluded.

The study was published online in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/public-health-information-30/marijuana-news-759/more-teens-try-pot-before-booze-cigarettes-739869.html

How Long Will Your Teen Live? Personality Might Tell

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

Does your teenager's personality actually predict how long he or she will live?

Yes, claims new research that finds high school students who tend to be calm, empathetic and intellectually curious are more likely to still be alive 50 years later than their peers who are less so.

The finding does not prove that certain traits in adolescence actually cause people to live longer; it only reveals an association between the two.

But the conclusion stems from an in-depth analysis of personality surveys conducted in 1960, involving nearly 27,000 high school students across the United States. Those results were then stacked up against participant deaths due to all causes over nearly 50 years.

"Essentially, we find that high school students who report adaptive personality characteristics -- things like high levels of calmness and low levels of impulsivity -- have a lower risk of death over the ensuing half century," said study author Benjamin Chapman. He is an associate professor in the departments of psychiatry and public health sciences at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.

In addition to calmness and impulsivity, the initial survey gauged teenage levels of social sensitivity; leadership; energetic disposition; self-confidence; tidiness; sociability; intellectual curiosity; and maturity.

Chapman said his team "looked initially at each trait one by one." That meant that calmness was linked to a reduced risk of early death, whether or not the same teen also possessed other protective or risky traits.

Still, "adolescents who are more sociable tended also to be more self-confident, and so forth," he observed, suggesting that some traits tend to group together in the same person.

Chapman also noted that personality traits were assessed on a spectrum, so that each teen was characterized as having relatively high or low levels of a particular trait. And that meant that the degree to which a teenage trait was associated with a lower premature death risk also fell across a continuum.

For example, highly mature teens saw their long-term risk for an early death fall by about 6 percent for every statistically significant move up along the maturity spectrum; it fell by 8 percent for every notable bump in calmness and energetic disposition.

Bigger trait differences would likely produce even more dramatic protective benefits, the study authors suggested.

The findings were published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.

The initial personality survey asked more than 377,000 high schoolers to complete a battery of psychological tests back in 1960.

Death records dating up to 2009 were obtained for nearly 27,000 of them. By that point, 13 percent had died. The team did not assess specific causes of death.

And regardless of a teen's ethnic or family background, those who scored higher in terms of energy, empathy, calmness, tidiness, intellectual curiosity and maturity -- as well as lower for impulsivity -- faced a lower risk of death over the 48-year period.

"The insight of this work is that characteristics that we think are not particularly helpful in teens for immediate outcomes -- like getting good grades, getting into college, adjusting socially and emotionally to everyday life -- actually can have very long-term health consequences," said Chapman.

"The good news is that people can and often do change," he added. "There are many points in life between high school and a half-century later where chains of negative events can be halted or reversed in a sense."

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/kids-health-information-23/adolescents-and-teen-health-news-719/how-long-will-your-teen-live-personality-might-tell-739866.html

Most Parents Still Say ‘No’ To Tattoos For Teens, Fearing Harmful Impact On Health, Career

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on Study Finds.

Even though about a third of parents in the U.S. have tattoos themselves, 78 percent with teenaged children would flat-out say “no” if their teen requested one, a new study finds.

University of Michigan researchers questioned more than 1,000 parents about their experiences with teens and body art. While one in ten of the parents surveyed thought tattoos might be fine as a reward or to signify a special occasion, more than half had concerns about unwanted health, social, or professional outcomes.

“As tattoos become increasingly popular across all age groups, more parents are navigating discussions about tattoos with their children,” says pediatrician Gary Freed, who co-directed the survey, in a statement.

The nationally representative poll surveyed 1,018 parents of at least one teen between the ages of 13 and 18. Responses indicate that many of the parents have already faced a tattoo request. Older teens are more likely to pose the question, with 27 percent of 16- to 18-year-olds asking their parents for the nod, compared to 11 percent of younger teens (ages 13 to 15).

Surprisingly, 32 percent of parents surveyed have a tattoo themselves, but just five percent of the teens sport one.

Most parents (63 percent) think of tattoos as another way teens express themselves, akin to dying hair or making a fashion statement. But they are thankful for strong state laws that require parental consent for tattoos in the under-18 group.

The biggest fear of parents is that their child will be sorry they got the tattoo, with 68 percent voicing this concern. Other social-related concerns are how a tattoo might negatively impact employment possibilities (50 percent) and that the parents themselves would be judged for allowing their child to get a tattoo (24 percent).

Parents biggest health concerns involved infection or scarring (53 percent) and the risks for such transmittable diseases as hepatitis or HIV (50 percent).

The topic of teen tattoos is likely here to stay. According to a Pew Research Study cited in a 2017 report by the American Academy of Pediatrics, about 38 percent of adults ages 18 to 29 have at least one tattoo. The report suggests that pediatricians become better informed so they can talk about potential health risks with teenage patients.

The findings from the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health were published in a report released in August 2018.

Source: Study Finds
https://www.studyfinds.org/parents-say-no-tattoos-teens-fear-harmful-impact/