Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

US Surgeon General Report Warns of Mental Health Crisis Hitting Youth

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

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy recently warned that the pandemic has intensified mental health struggles that were already widespread among American teens.

The pandemic and other major issues faced by their generation are causing "devastating" mental health effects in young people, he warned in a new report.

Emergency room visits for suicide attempts by adolescent girls were 51% higher in early 2021 than in early 2019, and 4% higher for boys.

Worldwide, symptoms of anxiety and depression doubled during the pandemic, but mental health issues were already increasing in the United States before COVID-19, according to Murthy. For example, ER visits due to depression, anxiety, and similar conditions rose 28% between 2011 and 2015, the report found.

The causes of the mental health crisis among youth are complex, and include adolescent brain chemistry, family and friends, and a fast-paced media culture, according to Murthy.

“Young people are bombarded with messages through the media and popular culture that erode their sense of self-worth — telling them they are not good-looking enough, popular enough, smart enough or rich enough,” Murthy wrote. “That comes as progress on legitimate, and distressing, issues like climate change, income inequality, racial injustice, the opioid epidemic, and gun violence feels too slow.”

The surgeon general's report is the latest call for action on adolescent mental health. In October 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Children’s Hospital Association jointly declared “a national emergency” in youth mental health.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/b-12-8-us-surgeon-general-warns-of-mental-health-crisis-among-youth-2655942914.html

What's Hot? 12/17/21

Trending Today on Twitter - 12/17/21
1. Roddy
2. #fridaymorning
3. #FridayVibes
4. #FlashbackFriday
5. #IsMoreFunThanWorking
6. #SpiderMan
7. Eric Clapton
8. Garrett Gilbert
9. Tonto
10. Tim Pool
Source: Twitter

Trending Today on Google - 12/17/21
1. How I Met Your Father
2. Chiefs
3. TikTok school threat December 17
4. Spider-Man: No Way Home
5. Chris Noth
6. Jackson Mahomes
7. Vincent Jackson
8. Isaiah Thomas
9. Epic Games
10. Jeff Garlin
Source: Google

Top Five on Spotify - 12/17/21
1. Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree - Brenda Lee
2. All I Want for Christmas Is You - Mariah Carey
3. Jingle Bell Rock - Bobby Helms
4. INDUSTRY BABY (feat. Jack Harlow) - Lil Nas X
5. It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year - Andy Williams
Source: Spotify

Top Five on Apple Music - 12/17/21
1. Super Gremlin - Kodak Black
2. I Hate U - SZA
3. Easy On Me - Adele
4.  Knife Talk (w/ 21 Savage ft. Project Pat) - Drake
5. All I Want for Christmas Is You - Mariah Carey
Source: Apple Music

TV Shows Trending on Streaming Services - 12/17/21
1. Yellowstone - Peacock
2. Station Eleven - HBO Max
3. Succession - HBO Max
4. And Just Like That... - HBO Max
5. Yellowjackets - SHO
Source: Reelgood

Trending Today on YouTube - 12/17/21
1. $1,000,000 Influencer Tournament
2. A CHRISTMAS GAME SHOW!
3. Tom Holland, Zendaya & Jacob Batalon Answer MORE
4. M1llionz - Daily Duppy
5. BTS Performs a Concert in the Crosswalk
Source: YouTube

Netflix Top 5 in the U.S. Today - 12/17/21
1. The Unforgivable
2. Selling Tampa
3. The Witcher
4. The Queen of Flow
5. A California Christmas: City Lights
Source: Netflix

Pandemic Saw Big Declines in Kids' Use of Drugs, Alcohol, Vaping

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

There may be a silver lining to the COVID-19 pandemic, with U.S. health officials reporting an "unprecedented" decline in teens' use of alcohol, marijuana, other illegal drugs, and vaping.

"We have never seen such dramatic decreases in drug use among teens in just a one-year period," said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse.

"These data are unprecedented and highlight one unexpected potential consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused seismic shifts in the day-to-day lives of adolescents," she added in an institute news release.

From 2020 to 2021 — the first year of the pandemic — rates of past-year alcohol use fell from about 55% to around 47% among 12th graders, and from nearly 41% to around 29% among 10th graders. Eighth-grade drinking dipped from about 21% to just over 17%, according to the survey results.

Rates of past-year marijuana use also decreased, falling from around 11% to about 7% among 8th graders, and from 28% to 17% among 10th graders. Pot use dropped from around 35% to less than 31% among 12th graders, the findings showed.

Vaping's popularity rates also fell after COVID-19's emergence. Rates of past-year nicotine vaping fell from nearly 17% to 12% among 8th graders, from about 31% to less than 20% among 10th graders, and from roughly 35% to about 27% among 12th graders.

The 2021 decrease in vaping for both marijuana and tobacco was especially welcome, as it follows sharp increases in use between 2017 and 2019.

Other significant declines in use were also reported across a wide range of drugs, including cocaine, hallucinogens, and nonmedical use of amphetamines, tranquilizers, and prescription opioids.

The findings are from the University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future survey. It is given annually to students in grades 8, 10, and 12.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/b-12-16-2656044928.html

A Mother’s Stress Impacts Their Child’s Mental Health and Vice Versa

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted by StudyFinds.

New research confirms that when it comes to family mental health dynamics, everything usually comes full circle. Researchers from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston report a two-way relationship between a mother’s and their children’s mental health. Mom’s mental health symptoms influence her child’s mental state, but the reverse holds true as well. The child’s mental health symptoms have an impact on the mother.

Study authors examined mother and child mental health symptoms over a 10-year period to reach these conclusions. Specifically, the investigation indicates that parental stress brought on by the near-unavoidable challenges that come with raising a child is the main element that partially links maternal depression with child anxiety and depression.

“By focusing on mother-child duos, we identified that maternal depression at an earlier time point predicted child anxiety and depressive symptoms at a later time point. Further, children who experienced anxiety and depressive symptoms at an earlier time point were more likely to have mothers who experienced depression at later time points,” says senior study author Daphne Hernandez, Ph.D., associate professor and Lee and Joseph Jamail Distinguished Professor in the School of Nursing, in a university release.

The research team explains that maternal depression often leads to feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of being a parent. This in turn produces hostility and lack of warmth within the greater family environment, eventually taking a toll on the child.

The findings are based on data collected for the ongoing Fragile Families study which began way back in 1998 with the intention of studying familial relationships between unmarried parents and their kids.

The study was published in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

Source: StudyFinds
https://www.studyfinds.org/mothers-stress-impacts-child/

1 in 3 College Freshmen Has Depression, Anxiety

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

Starting college can be a time of fun, new experiences, and growth. Yet it can also be a rough transition for many students who struggle with mental health issues.

A new study from researchers in the United Kingdom and Canada found about one-third of first-year students have or develop moderate to severe anxiety or depression.

When these young adults had increasing use of illicit drugs, they had greater odds of developing high levels of anxiety or depression. Yet if they were more socially active, their mental health tended to be better.

“We've been seeing that the mental health of college students has been deteriorating,” said Dr. Rachel Conrad, director of young adult mental health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. She was not involved in the study.

“Prior to the [COVID-19] pandemic, alcohol use had been decreasing, but stress, depression, anxiety, trauma, and suicidal thoughts had been increasing. And then during the pandemic, alcohol use increased significantly in the college-age population as well,” Conrad said.

The study was led by Kiera Louise Adams, a doctoral student at the University of Oxford in England. She and her colleagues analyzed nearly 1,700 responses from a survey of first-year undergraduates at a public Canadian university taken in September 2018 and in March 2019.

About 32% of respondents had anxiety at the start of the academic year and 27% had depressive symptoms. Six months later, 37% of students had anxiety symptoms and 33% experienced depressive symptoms.

Students who had a history of internalizing disorders, such as anxiety and depression, when they began were almost four times as likely not to recover from significant levels of anxiety/depressive symptoms as those without that history, according to the research. Conversely, students who felt connected to university life and their peers had greater odds of recovering.

The findings were published in BMJ Open.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/12-6-1-in-3-college-freshmen-develop-depression-anxiety-2655888935.html

COVID May Trigger Heart Condition in Young Athletes

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

A heart condition, myocarditis, has been found in a number of U.S. college athletes who have had COVID-19, a new study finds.

Myocarditis has also been linked in some young people to the COVID vaccine. But the odds are far greater that this inflammation of the heart muscle will occur in those who get COVID infection itself, experts said.

"We're still learning about how the virus attacks the heart," said lead researcher Dr. Jean Jeudy, a professor of radiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "Myocarditis is part of the body's reaction to fighting the infection, but it's also in response to the virus trying to attack the heart."

Myocarditis can affect the heart’s rhythm and ability to pump. It can also cause lasting scarring of the heart muscle, Jeudy's team noted.

The risk for myocarditis among people with COVID-19 is 16 times higher than among those without the infection, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Jeudy and his colleagues said that myocarditis has been linked to up to 20% of sudden deaths in young athletes.

For this study, Jeudy's team took advantage of the Big Ten Athletic Conference's ability to get data on the frequency of myocarditis in student-athletes recovering from COVID-19.

The conference required all athletes who had COVID to get a series of heart tests before returning to play. Tests included cardiac MRIs, echocardiograms, ECGs, and blood tests.

Jeudy reviewed the results of nearly 1,600 cardiac MRIs from 13 participating universities. Thirty-seven of these athletes (2.3%) had myocarditis related to COVID-19. What was surprising, however, was that few had symptoms.

Twenty of these patients with COVID-19 myocarditis (54%) had no cardiac symptoms or heart abnormalities seen on other tests. Only MRIs found the problem.

MRIs are expensive, and most patients hospitalized for COVID-19 don't get them, so it's likely that many cases of myocarditis go undiagnosed, he said.

When can athletes resume play?

"At the very least, this athlete is going to be out for six months, with evaluation, making sure that they have a gradual return to play," Jeudy said. "It's largely connected with symptoms. If there are signs of decreased function or underlying arrhythmia, that would be a concern for that particular athlete."

The findings were released at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. Findings presented at medical meetings are considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/12-29-covid-may-trigger-heart-condition-in-young-athletes-2655783066.html

What's Hot? 12/10/21

Trending Today on Twitter - 12/10/21
1. #FridayFeeling
2. Assange
3. #HumanRightsDay
4. Drake
5. Netanyahu
6. 6.8% in November
7. #FridayMotivation
8. Demaryius Thomas
9. Rick Ross
10. #ArchivesGIFgiving
Source: Twitter

Trending Today on Google - 12/10/21
1. Miley Cyrus
2. Demaryius Thomas
3. Steelers
4. Jussie Smollett
5. Josh Duggar
6. Winter Storm Warning
7. Game Awards 2021
8. Bob Dole
9. Vicky Kaushal
10. Star Wars Eclipse
Source: Google

Top Five on Spotify - 12/10/21
1. I Hate U - SZA
2. Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree - Brenda Lee
3. All I Want for Christmas Is You - Mariah Carey
4. Jingle Bell Rock - Bobby Helms
5. INDUSTRY BABY (feat. Jack Harlow) - Lil Nas X
Source: Spotify

Top Five on Apple Music - 12/10/21
1. Super Gremlin - Kodak Black
2. I Hate U - SZA
3. Easy On Me - Adele
4. By Your Side - Rod Wave
5. Knife Talk (w/ 21 Savage ft. Project Pat) - Drake
Source: Apple Music

TV Shows Trending on Streaming Services - 12/10/21
1. Yellowstone - Peacock
2. The Beatles: Get Back. - Disney+
3. Landscapers - HBO Max
4. Yellowjackets - SHO
5. The Wheel of Time - Prime Video
Source: Reelgood

Trending Today on YouTube - 12/10/21
1. Tom Holland Calls for a Doctor While Eating Spicy Wings
2. A Conversation with Travis Scott and Charlamagne Tha God
3. Thank You All So Much... Pat McAfee
4. Cobra Kai Season 4 | Official Trailer
5. DIGGING A SECRET TUNNEL Part 6
Source: YouTube

Netflix Top 5 in the U.S. Today - 12/10/21
1. Money Heist
2. Lost in Space
3. Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway
4. The Queen of Flow
5. Law Abiding Citizen
Source: Netflix

Marijuana Use Among Young Adults Linked to Heart Disease Development

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted by StudyFinds.

With millions of young adults smoking marijuana weekly, and even daily, studies examining its health impacts have become increasingly important. Now, researchers at the University of Guelph are warning that young adults using the once-illegal drug may be putting themselves at risk of heart disease later on.

The team, led by study author Christian Cheung, examined 35 subjects between the ages of 19 and 30. Half of these individuals are regular cannabis users. Researchers measured arterial stiffness, arterial function, and how well the arteries expanded with blood flow. Using ultrasounds, they discovered arterial stiffness was greater in marijuana users than non-users based on how fast pressure traveled down the arteries.

Cardiac function, or how the heart moves, showed signs of diminishing slightly among cannabis users in comparison to non-users. The team discovered the same differences among cigarette smokers and non-smokers as well. However, this report discovered no change in vascular function, which came as a surprise to the study authors.

These findings prove there are more subtle signs of cannabis use that alter the heart’s ability to function properly.

“It also paves the way to our next studies, aimed at understanding the direct effects of cannabis consumption, and how this may interact with common stressors of everyday life, like exercise,” adds Dr. Jamie Burr, co-author of the study.

Source: StudyFinds
https://www.studyfinds.org/marijuana-heart-disease/

School Attendance Data Could Play Crucial Role in Targeting Mental Health Support for Pupils

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted by eMarketer.

Poor school attendance impacts a child's future, not just through their educational achievement but also socially and developmentally.

Pupils with mental and neurodevelopmental disorders or who self-harm are more likely to miss school through absenteeism and exclusion than their classmates.

Now researchers say these absences are potential indicators of current or future poor mental health and could be used to target vital assessment and potentially life-changing early intervention.

A study led by Swansea University's Professor Ann John, highlighted the importance of integrated school-based and healthcare strategies to support young people's engagement with education.

Professor John said: "Children with poor mental health, who are neurodiverse or who self-harm often struggle at school.

"Health and educational professionals, services, and policymakers should be aware that children with poor attendance may be experiencing emotional ill health, whether this is diagnosed in school or early adulthood.

"Absences and exclusions may provide a useful tool to identify those who require additional support. Early intervention will not only reduce immediate distress and difficulties for the young person but also may also interrupt poor life trajectories and improve outcomes in later life."

The new study, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, examined the association between attendance (absences and exclusions) and neurodiversity, mental health, and self-harm in 437,412 Welsh school pupils aged from seven to 16 between 2009 and 2013, found that children and young people with a neurodevelopmental disorder, mental disorder, or who self-harm diagnosed and recorded before the age of 24 are much more likely to miss school than their peers.

If absence results in social isolation and poorer academic performance, this could go on to exacerbate mental health and attendance issues.

Professor John said, "Attendance and exclusion data could provide useful information about where to focus limited resources. School-based mental health prevention strategies may also help build resilience, enabling pupils to develop strategies for managing and improving their mental health and wellbeing as well as to understand when and how to seek additional help."

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-11-school-crucial-role-mental-health.html

Gen Z's Preferred Social Platforms

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted by eMarketer.

Gen Zers in the U.S. make heavy use of many social networks to create connections, consume multimedia, play games, and share content.

The social networks with the most monthly Gen Z users are Snapchat (42.0 million), TikTok (37.3 million), and Instagram (33.3 million). These remain the most popular among Gen Z over the next four years, according to our estimates.

This pecking order will persist through 2025, but the top three platforms will grow at different rates. TikTok will pass Instagram to claim the No. 2 spot in 2021 and continue to close the gap with Snapchat over our forecast period.

Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Reddit also have relatively large followings. Their reach will continue to grow steadily as Gen Z ages out of popular teen platforms.

Source: eMarketer
https://www.emarketer.com/content/gen-z-preferred-social-platforms?ecid=NL1001