Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Internet-Based Therapy Found to Be Effective Against Self-Harm in Adolescents

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

Self-harming behavior in young people causes suffering and increases the risk of suicide. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Region Stockholm have now investigated whether an internet-delivered emotion regulation therapy can reduce self-harm in youth. The study, which is published in JAMA Network Open, suggests that the therapy is effective.

"The therapy is based on the expectation that if you teach young people more adaptive ways for regulating their emotions, they will have less need to harm themselves and our results indicate that this assumption is correct," says corresponding author Johan Bjureberg, docent at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet.

Self-harming behavior often serves to regulate emotions in the moment, but has many adverse consequences. The idea behind the treatment, called Internet-delivered Emotion Regulation Individual Therapy for Adolescents (IERITA), is to reduce self-harming behavior by helping young people to handle and regulate their emotions in a more adaptive way.

The efficacy of IERITA has now been tested by researchers at the Center for Psychiatry Research at Karolinska Institutet and Region Stockholm. The study involved 166 young people between the ages of 13 and 17 who had harmed themselves at least five times in the past year, including once in the past month and their parents.

IERITA as add-on to regular care resulted in an 82% reduction in self-harm episodes and other destructive behavior and an improved ability to regulate emotions and greater level of functioning after treatment, compared with 47% after treatment with regular care only. The effects of IERITA were still significant at a three-month follow-up.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-07-internet-based-therapy-effective-self-harm-adolescents.html

What's Hot? 07/14/23

Trending Today on Twitter - 7/14/23
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2. #fridaymorning
3. #FridayFeeling
4. Gilgo Beach
5. Bastille Day
6. Good Friday
7. NAACP
8. #FridayVibes
9. #FursuitFriday
10. Russell
Source: Twitter

Trending Today on Google - 7/14/23
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5. Small bowel obstruction
6. Arsenal
7. Gerber Baby 2023
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Source: Google

Top Five on Apple Music - 7/14/23
 1. fukumean - Gunna
2. Last Night - Morgan Wallen
3. All My Life (feat. J. Cole) - Lil Durk
4. vampire - Olivia Rodrigo
5. I Can See You - Taylor Swift
Source: Apple Music

Top Box Office Movies - Weekend of 7/7/23
1. Insidious: The Red Door
2. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
3. Sound of Freedom
4. Elemental
5. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Source: Showtimes.com 

TV Shows Trending on Streaming Services - 7/14/23
 1. The Bear - hulu
2. Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan - Prime Video
3. Hijack - AppleTV+
4. The Lincoln Lawyer - Netflix
5. Silo - AppleTV+
Source: Reelgood

Trending Today on YouTube - 7/14/23
 1. Billie Eilish - What Was I Made For?
2. MISAMO "Do Not Touch" M/V
3. Troye Sivan - Rush
4. EA SPORTS FC 24 | Official Gameplay Trailer
5. Dele: "Now is the Time to Talk"
Source: YouTube

Netflix Top 5 TV Shows in the U.S. Today - 7/14/23
 1. The Lincoln Lawyer
2. Quarterback
3. Suits
4. Tom Segura: Sledgehammer
5. The Witcher
Source: FlixPatrol

Acute Care for Mental Health Conditions Rose Notably Among Adolescent Females During Pandemic

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by JAMA Psychiatry.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, youth emergency department (ED) use for mental health problems was increasing, and boarding (waiting in an ED or medical inpatient unit) before inpatient psychiatric care was common. The pandemic exacerbated stressors among youth, including social isolation, school disruptions, and parental unemployment, and rates of depression and anxiety have doubled since the start of the pandemic. In 2021, 20% of high school students seriously considered suicide, and 9% attempted suicide.

This retrospective, cross-sectional study used deidentified health insurance claims data from March 2019 to February 2022 for members of commercial health plans spanning all 50 states (OptumLabs Data Warehouse). It included youth aged 5 to 17 years enrolled in both medical and behavioral health coverage in a given month.

The study's sample included 4.1 million youth was 51% male, and 41% were aged 13 to 17 years, and identified 88 665 youth mental health ED visits. Compared with the baseline year, the fraction of youth with at least 1 mental health ED visit decreased 17.3% in pandemic year 1 but increased 6.7% in year 2.

Changes in the fraction of youth having a mental health ED visit from baseline to pandemic year 2 varied by age and sex: the fraction of females aged 13 to 17 years with visits increased 22.1%, the fraction for males aged 5 to 12 decreased 15.0%, and the fraction for males aged 13 to 17 years decreased 9.0%.

The percent of mental health ED visits that resulted in an inpatient psychiatry admission was 20.9% in the baseline year and increased 13.1% from baseline to pandemic year 1 and 8.4% from baseline to pandemic year 2.

In the context of a national emergency in children’s mental health, we observe a 7% increase in the fraction of youth with any mental health ED visits from baseline to pandemic year 2. Among adolescent females, there was a notable 22% increase. Into pandemic year 2, the percentage of mental health ED visits that resulted in a psychiatric admission increased by 8%, and there was a striking 76% increase in prolonged boarding.

Source: JAMA Psychiatry
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2806889?guestAccessKey=1686c665-6a07-46fb-9f7c-713ba2972899&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=071223

New Zealand Kids Spending One-Third of After-School Time on Screens

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

Regulations are urgently needed to protect children from harm in the unregulated online world, researchers at the University of Otago, New Zealand, say.

The call comes as the researchers publish the results of their study into the after-school habits of 12-year-olds. Their research, published in the New Zealand Medical Journal, finds children are spending a third of their after-school time on screens, including more than half their time after 8 pm.

Senior researcher Dr Moira Smith from the University's Department of Public Health says this is considerably more than the current guidelines, which recommend less than two hours of screen time per day (outside school time) for school-aged children and adolescents.

The results are from the innovative Kids’Cam project, with the 108 children involved wearing cameras that captured images every seven seconds, offering a unique insight into their everyday lives in 2014 and 2015.

Children were mostly playing games and watching programs. For ten percent of the time, the children were using more than one screen.

Screen use harms children’s health and well-being.

“It is associated with obesity, poor mental well-being, poor sleep and mental functioning, and lack of physical activity,” Dr Smith says. “It also affects children’s ability to concentrate and regulate their behavior and emotions.”

Source: ScienceDaily
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230706231333.htm

In Study, Almost Half of Obese Teens Were No Longer So After Taking Wegovy/Ozempic

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

The drugs Wegovy and Ozempic are all the rage for weight loss these days, and now a new study shows these injections may be game-changers for obese teenagers, too.

This trial, funded by drug maker Novo Nordisk, found that nearly half of all adolescents on semaglutide (Wegovy/Ozempic) were able to achieve a healthy weight in about 17 months.

Semaglutide is a GLP-1 receptor agonist, which slows digestion, decreases hunger, reduces how much people eat, and prompts weight loss. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Wegovy for treating obesity in kids and adults aged 12 years and older, while Ozempic has been approved at a lower dose to treat type 2 diabetes.

"Semaglutide appears to be highly effective in helping teens reduce their body mass index [BMI] to a level below the clinical cutoff for obesity," said study author Aaron Kelly, co-director of the Center for Pediatric Obesity Medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School, in Minneapolis. "Pharmacotherapy should be offered to all adolescents with obesity who are medically eligible."

For the study, teens with high BMIs received either 2.4-mg of semaglutide weekly (the maximum dose) or a dummy (placebo) injection for 17 months. Everyone in the study was encouraged to exercise for 60 minutes a day and got advice about healthy eating.

Fully 45% of teenagers who took once-weekly semaglutide lost enough weight to drop below the clinical cutoff for obesity, meaning they moved to the normal weight or overweight category. By contrast, just 12% of the teens in the placebo group achieved that status.

The American Academy of Pediatrics backs this up in its latest guidelines on childhood obesity treatment. They state that children with obesity should be evaluated and treated early and aggressively, including with medications.

It's not just the weight loss, Vaidya said. "These kids also become healthier."

The study was published online recently in the journal Obesity.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/ozempic-2662230293.html

Helping Adolescents to Feel Competent and Purposeful -- Not Just Happy -- May Improve Grades

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

Encouraging adolescents to feel capable and purposeful -- rather than just happy -- could improve their academic results as well as their mental health, according to new research which recommends changing how wellbeing is supported in schools.

The University of Cambridge study, involving over 600 teenagers from seven English schools, examined two separate aspects of their well-being: life satisfaction and 'eudaimonia'. While life satisfaction roughly equates to how happy a person is, eudaimonia refers to how well that person feels they are functioning. It incorporates feelings of competence, motivation, and self-esteem.

Researchers found that students with high levels of eudaimonia consistently outperformed their peers in GCSE-level assessments, especially Maths. On average, those achieving top Maths grades had eudaimonic well-being levels 1.5 times higher than those with the lowest grades.

The study's lead author, Dr. Tania Clarke, is a psychologist of education who now works for the Youth Endowment Fund but undertook the study for her doctoral research at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. The findings are published in School Psychology Review.

"Wellbeing education often focuses on teaching students about being happy and not being sad," Clarke said. "That is over-simplistic and overlooks other vital qualities of wellbeing that are particularly salient during the formative period of adolescence."

"Adolescents also need to develop self-awareness, confidence, and ideally a sense of meaning and purpose. Judging by our findings, an adolescent who is currently getting a 3 or 4 on their Maths GCSE could be helped to rise a couple of grades if schools emphasized these qualities for all students, rather than just promoting positivity and minimizing negative emotions."

The study involved 607 adolescents aged 14-15.

Source: ScienceDaily
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230705194618.htm

What's Hot? 07/07/23

Trending Today on Twitter - 7/7/23
 1. #fridaymorning
2. Good Friday
3. #FursuitFriday
4. #WorldChocolateDay
5. #FridayVibes
6. Taylor
7. Happy Friyay
8. URGENT MESSAGE
9. Ringo
10. Cardi
Source: Twitter

Trending Today on Google - 7/7/23
 1. Taylor Swift
2. Britney Spears
3. Andy Murray
4. Bob Marley
5. Lincoln Lawyer Season 2
6. Elly De La Cruz
7. Jennifer Aniston
8. Tom Brady
9. Leqembi
10. National Fried Chicken Day
Source: Google

Top Five on Apple Music - 7/7/23
 1. fukumean - Gunna
2. vampire - Olivia Rodrigo
3. Last Night - Morgan Wallen
4. All My Life (feat. J. Cole) - Lil Durk
5. Flooded The Face - Lil Uzi Vert
Source: Apple Music

Top Box Office Movies - Weekend of 6/30/23
1. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
2. Elemental
3. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
4. No Hard Feelings
5. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
Source: Showtimes.com 

TV Shows Trending on Streaming Services - 6/30/23
 1. Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan - Prime Video
2. The Bear - hulu
3. Hijack - AppleTV+
4. From - Prime Video
5. Silo - AppleTV+
Source: Reelgood

Trending Today on YouTube - 7/7/23
 1. Olivia Rodrigo - vampire
2. Dune: Part Two | Official Trailer 2
3. Saying bye for a while now
4. John Mulaney Seeks the Truth While Eating Spicy Wings
5. The Problem with Me Being Jewish
Source: YouTube

Netflix Top 5 TV Shows in the U.S. Today - 7/7/23
 1. Tom Segura: Sledgehammer
2. The Witcher
3. Suits
4. Is It Cake?
5. Muscles & Mayhem: An Unauthorized Story of American Gladiators
Source: FlixPatrol

Adolescent Alcohol Dependency Linked With Later Depression Risk

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

A new study led by researchers from University College London (UCL) and the University of Bristol suggests that teenagers displaying symptoms of alcohol addiction have an increased likelihood of experiencing depression by their mid-20s.

Interestingly, the study, which was published in The Lancet Psychiatry, found that frequent alcohol consumption, even in large quantities, did not necessarily predict a higher risk of depression unless there were indications of dependency.

Co-lead author Dr. Gemma Lewis (UCL Psychiatry) said: “By using a large, longitudinal dataset, we have found evidence that problematic drinking patterns in late adolescence may increase the risk of developing depression years later.

“Problematic drinking patterns could be a warning sign of future mental health problems, so helping young people to avoid problematic alcohol use could have long-term benefits to their mental health.”

The study involved 3,902 people who are part of the Children of the 90s birth cohort study (Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children – ALSPAC), a longitudinal cohort of parents and their children born in the southwest of England in 1991 and 1992, who have been surveyed at regular intervals.

This paper looked at the association between alcohol consumption and signs of problematic drinking, or dependence, at age 18, and depression six years later at age 24. The researchers found that people who appeared to be dependent on alcohol at age 18 (or at any age from 17 to 22) were more likely than their peers to have depression at age 24.

Source: SciTechDaily
https://scitechdaily.com/adolescent-alcohol-dependency-linked-with-later-depression-risk/

Snooze or Lose: BYU Study Says Nighttime Routines Impact Teen Sleep Duration

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

A new study from BYU found that the activities teens do before bed significantly impact the quantity of their sleep.

The study, recently published in the Journal of Research on Adolescence, found that certain activities — spending time with friends, hanging out in public places, and low-effort entertainment such as viewing social media, snacking or watching TV — reduce teens’ sleep duration when done late in the evening. However, activities that require mental or physical effort, such as doing homework, talking to parents, or playing sports in the early evening, were associated with earlier sleep times.

“If the activities adolescents are doing in the evening shift bedtimes later, they get less sleep, and that can be harmful for teenagers,” said BYU family life professor Jocelyn Wikle, a co-author of the study.

The study notes that evening entertainment not only affects the time teens get to bed, but it also impacts how quickly they fall asleep. Teens who fell asleep before the average time of 10:40 p.m. slept an average of 90 minutes longer than those who went to bed later because they were able to increase their sleep duration.

The researchers said evening routines are one of the easiest things parents can adapt to help their teens get as much sleep as possible. Establishing such habits (and getting kids to buy into them) takes time and communication, said Wikle.

Source: BYU News
https://news.byu.edu/intellect/snooze-or-lose-byu-study-says-nighttime-routines-impact-teen-sleep-duration

Fewer Teens Now Perceive Themselves as Overweight

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

A study involving more than 745,000 adolescents from 41 countries across Europe and North America identified an increase in the amount of teenagers who underestimate their body weight.

Tracking data from 2002 to 2018, the findings, published in Child and Adolescent Obesity, demonstrate a noticeable decrease in those who overestimate their weight too.

The team of international experts, who carried out the research, warn these shifting trends in body weight perception could reduce the effectiveness of public health interventions aimed at weight reduction in young people.

"During this impressionable age, body weight perception may influence a young person's lifestyle choices, such as the amount and types of food they eat and their exercise habits," says lead author Doctor Anouk Geraets, from the Department of Social Sciences, at the University of Luxembourg.

"So it's concerning that we're seeing a trend where fewer adolescents perceive themselves as being overweight—as this could undermine ongoing efforts to tackle increasing levels of obesity in this age group. Young people who underestimate their weight and therefore do not consider themselves to be overweight may not feel they need to lose excess weight and, as a result, they may make unhealthy lifestyle choices."

The researchers examined survey data, from 746,121 11-, 13- and 15-year-olds from 41 countries, collected at four-yearly intervals between 2002 and 2018, for the International Health Behavior in School-Aged Children (HBSC), a WHO collaborative study.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-06-teens-overweight-international-adolescents.html