Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Cyberbullying is Pushing Teenage Girls Towards Cosmetic Procedures

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

Adolescent females subjected to appearance-related cyberbullying are more likely to feel ashamed of their bodies, a desire to change their appearance and suffer eating disorder symptoms, according to UniSC research published in the Journal of Eating Disorders.

University of the Sunshine Coast neuroscience researcher Taliah Prince said the results were concerning, given that appearance-related cyberbullying was the most common form of cyberbullying experienced by adolescent females.

"We found 98% of the adolescent females surveyed had experienced cyberbullying and that the majority of these incidents were appearance-related, where they were teased or insulted about their body weight, shape or physical features," Ms. Prince said.

"More than 96% of these appearance-related cyberbullying victims expressed a desire to change their appearance as a result—which can lead to harmful behaviors like extreme dieting and excessive exercise—while 81% felt the need to change their appearance through cosmetic procedures."

Ms. Prince, a Ph.D. candidate at UniSC's Thompson Institute, said it was believed to be the first study to comprehensively investigate the effects of appearance-related cyberbullying on girls' mental health and well-being.

"This is important because eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of all psychiatric disorders among adolescent girls, and body dissatisfaction is the leading risk factor for eating disorders," Ms. Prince said.

"Because appearance-related cyberbullying is associated with body dissatisfaction and eating disorder symptoms, we must understand its prevalence and impact and how it might be contributing to these serious mental health conditions."

The findings demonstrate the profound consequences of appearance-related cyberbullying at a particularly vulnerable time in brain development.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-09-reveals-cyberbullying-teenage-girls-cosmetic.html

Teens Often Bullied Online About Their Weight

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

Teenagers are frequently bullied about their weight on social media, and the bullying increases with each hour they spend on these sites, a new study reveals.

Nearly one in five teens (17%) said they’d experienced weight-related bullying online, according to results published April 17 in the journal PLOS One.

“This experience can have adverse effects, including poor body image, disordered eating behaviors and anxiety and depression symptoms,” said the research team led by David Hammond. He's a professor with the University of Waterloo School of Public Health Sciences in Ontario, Canada.

Further, each additional hour of social media use brought with it a 13% increase in weight-related bullying, researchers calculated.

Twitter, now known as X, was the most toxic site, with teens there 69% more likely to be bullied regarding their weight.

However, Twitter was also the least-used social media platform among teens, with only 22% saying they used it.

For the study, researchers analyzed survey data for more than 12,000 teens in Australia, Canada, Chile, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States. Overall, teens spent an average of 7.5 hours on recreational screen time every weekday.

Associations between screen time, social media use and weight-related bullying were strongest for teens in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom.

Source: HealthDay
https://www.healthday.com/health-news/child-health/teens-often-bullied-online-about-their-weight-study

Shocking Extent of Cyberbullying Among Kids Revealed in Major Report

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

Some 16 percent of children aged 11 to 15 were cyberbullied in 2022, up from 13 percent four years ago, a recent WHO Europe report covering 44 countries said.

"This report is a wake-up call for all of us to address bullying and violence, whenever and wherever it happens," WHO regional director for Europe Hans Kluge said in a statement.

Fifteen percent of boys and 16 percent of girls reported being cyberbullied at least once in recent months, according to the study entitled "Health Behaviour in School-aged Children".

"Virtual forms of peer violence have become particularly relevant since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, when young people's worlds became increasingly virtual during times of lockdown," the report said.

Other bullying has remained largely stable, with just a slight increase.

Eleven percent of boys and girls reported being bullied at school at least two or three times a month in the past couple of months, compared to 10 percent four years ago.

One adolescent in eight admitted cyberbullying others, an increase of three percentage points from 2018, the report said.

The study was based on data from 279,000 children and adolescents from 44 countries across Europe, Central Asia and Canada.

In most places, cyberbullying peaked when children were 11 years old for boys and 13 for girls.

Source: ScienceAlert
https://www.sciencealert.com/shocking-extent-of-cyberbullying-among-kids-revealed-in-major-report

More Mental Health Problems Seen for Teens Bullied in Childhood

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

Youth who are bullied in childhood develop more internalizing, externalizing, and total mental health problems in late adolescence, according to a study published online in Nature Mental Health.

Dimitris I. Tsomokos, Ph.D., from the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom, and George M. Slavich, Ph.D., from the University of California in Los Angeles, examined how peer bullying in childhood impacts adolescent mental health in 10,000 youth drawn from the U.K. Millennium Cohort Study.

The researchers found that youth bullied in childhood developed more internalizing, externalizing, and total mental health problems in late adolescence; interpersonal distrust during middle adolescence partially mediated this effect. Compared with those who developed less distrust, adolescents who developed greater distrust were about 3.5 times more likely to subsequently experience clinically significant mental health problems.

Source: HealthDay
https://www.healthday.com/healthpro-news/mental-health/more-mental-health-problems-seen-for-teens-bullied-in-childhood

Bullied Teens' Brains Show Chemical Change Associated with Psychosis

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

Researchers have found that adolescents being bullied by their peers are at greater risk of the early stages of psychotic episodes and in turn, experience lower levels of a key neurotransmitter in a part of the brain involved in regulating emotions.

The finding suggests that this neurotransmitter—a chemical messenger that transmits nerve impulses for communication by a nerve cell—may be a potential target for pharmaceutical interventions aimed at reducing the risk of psychotic disorders. The findings are published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

Recent studies investigating links between neurological and psychiatric features of certain disorders have found that individuals who experience their first episode of psychosis or have schizophrenia that remains treatable have lower-than-normal levels of glutamate, a neurotransmitter in the brain's anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) region.

Researchers at the University of Tokyo used magnetic resonance spectroscopy, or MRS, a type of radiological imaging applied to depict brain structure and function, to measure glutamate levels in the ACC region of Japanese adolescents.

They then measured the glutamate levels at a later point, allowing them to assess changes over time and compare these changes to experiences with bullying or lack thereof, as well as with any intention on the part of those experiencing bullying to seek help.

Bullying victimization was tracked via questionnaires completed by the adolescents.

They found that bullying was associated with higher levels of subclinical psychotic experiences in early adolescence—those symptoms come close to psychosis but do not meet the full criteria for a clinical diagnosis of a psychotic disorder, such as schizophrenia. These symptoms or experiences can include hallucinations, paranoia, or radical alterations in thinking or behavior and can have a significant impact on well-being and functioning, even in the absence of a psychotic disorder diagnosis.

"Studying these subclinical psychotic experiences is important for us to understand the early stages of psychotic disorders and for identifying individuals who may be at increased risk for developing a clinical psychotic illness later on," said Naohiro Okada, lead author of the study and project associate professor at the University of Tokyo's International Research Center for Neurointelligence (a research center under Japan's World Premier International Research Center Initiative program).

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-02-bullied-teens-brains-chemical-psychosis.html

One in Four Adolescents Have Been Cyberbullied

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MSN/The Canadian Press.

A new Statistics Canada report says one in four adolescents have been cyberbullied, and it's taking a toll on their mental health.

The study says youth who have been victimized online have a greater risk of depression, anxiety, eating disorder symptoms, and thoughts of suicide or suicide attempts.

The report is based on data from more than 13,000 adolescents who were between 12 and 17 years old.

Source: MSN/The Canadian Press
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/lifestyle/smart-living/1-in-4-adolescents-have-been-cyberbullied-statcan-says/

Does Cyberbullying Affect Adolescents' Risk of Developing Eating Disorders?

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

In a study of US adolescents, both victims and perpetrators of cyberbullying were more likely than other youth to experience eating disorder symptoms. The findings are published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.

In the study of 10,258 adolescents aged 10–14 years, participants answered questions about whether they had experienced cyberbullying victimization and perpetration, as well as whether they had experienced eating disorder symptoms.

Cyberbullying victimization was associated with worrying about weight gain, tying self-worth to weight, inappropriate compensatory behaviors to prevent weight gain, binge eating, and distress with binge eating.

Cyberbullying perpetration was associated with worrying about weight gain, tying self-worth to weight, and distress with binge eating.

"Adolescents experience cyberbullying related to appearance and weight. Cyberbullying can lead to low self-esteem, body dissatisfaction, and the development of an eating disorder," said senior author, Jason M. Nagata MD, of the University of California, San Francisco.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-09-cyberbullying-affect-adolescents-disorders.html

Bullying Could Help Bring on Headaches for Teens

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

So, your high schooler has been complaining of headaches. Should you worry?

Maybe, claims new research that finds bullying and suicidal thoughts are both linked to more frequent headaches in teens.

"Headaches are a common problem for teenagers, but our study looked beyond the biological factors to also consider the psychological and social factors that are associated with headaches," said study author Dr. Serena Orr, of the University of Calgary, in Canada. "Our findings suggest that bullying and attempting or considering suicide may be linked to frequent headaches in teenagers, independent of mood and anxiety disorders."

This isn't proof that bullying causes headaches but shows an association between the two. A study limitation is that headaches were self-reported.

The research included more than 2.2 million teens who were an average age of 14. About 0.5% of all the participants self-reported being gender-diverse, including transgender or nonbinary.

The participants answered questions about their headaches, including if they had them in the past six months and how often.

The teens also answered questions regarding mental health, including whether they had diagnosed mood or anxiety disorders or both; about bullying in the past year and about suicidal thoughts and attempts.

About 11% of participants reported having frequent, recurring headaches, defined as headaches occurring more than once a week.

About 25% of the participants reported being victims of frequent overt bullying, including physical and verbal aggression, being called names or insulted, and being threatened virtually. About 17% said they were victims of frequent relational bullying, including having rumors spread about them, being excluded and having harmful information posted about them on the internet.

About 17% of the teens surveyed said they had considered or attempted suicide in their lifetime.

Those with frequent headaches were nearly three times more likely to experience bullying than their peers. Meanwhile, teens who had been bullied or had suicidal tendencies were nearly twice as likely to have frequent headaches as their peers. Those with mood and anxiety disorders were 50% and 74% more likely, respectively, to have frequent headaches than their peers.

The study also found that 34% of teens with frequent headaches reported being victims of relational bullying at least once a month, compared to 14% of teens who had headaches less than once a week. About 34% of teens with frequent headaches had made one or more suicide attempts or had suicidal thoughts, compared to 14% of teens with headaches less than once a week.

Teens who reported being gender-diverse were more likely to have frequent headaches, but that link was not a factor after adjusting for being bullied or having a diagnosed mood or anxiety disorder.

The findings were published online in the journal Neurology.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/bullying-2662644676.html

Researchers Find Adolescent Cyberbullies Also More Likely to be Victims

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

Early adolescents who engage in cyberbullying are more likely to become victims, according to new research from the University of the Sunshine Coast.

In a recent journal article supervised by researchers at UniSC's Thompson Institute, lead researcher Lia Mills said the study originally set out to establish if there were any direct links between cyberbullying 12-year-olds and gender, social connectedness, and impulsivity.

The results painted an entirely different picture.

"We didn't find any significant relationship between cyberbullying and social connectedness, impulsivity, or gender, but we did find that low social connectedness predicted high levels of impulsivity," Mills said.

"We also found that those who participate in cyberbullying perpetration are also more likely to be cyber victims—and vice versa."

This group is at particularly high risk for depression, anxiety, and less engagement with school.

"The good news is that our sample of 12-year-olds reported having very low levels of cyberbullying experience and involvement," Mills said.

The work is published in the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-02-adolescent-cyberbullies-victims.html

Teens With Asthma Face More Bullying

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

New research from Columbia Nursing shows that rural teens with asthma are more likely to be bullied—and that having more severe symptoms also increases risk.

Bullying victimization among adolescents is associated with a number of psychological and social problems that can last a lifetime, Professor Jean-Marie Bruzzese, Ph.D., and her colleagues note in their report, published online in the Journal of Asthma.

While chronic illness, including asthma, is known to increase the risk of being a bully target, the association between asthma and bullying in rural teens has been overlooked in research, according to the authors.

The primary findings from the study, in 1,905 rural high schoolers, included the following:

• 28.6% of students with asthma reported bullying victimization due to asthma
• having asthma was associated with an increased risk of bullying victimization
• more severe asthma was associated with an increased risk of bullying victimization

"The physical manifestation of symptoms and use of medication in front of peers may place these vulnerable adolescents at higher risk for bullying victimization. It is imperative that school administrators create inclusive environments that are accepting of all students' abilities and statuses, but also that healthcare providers provide proper asthma management education to these adolescents," the researchers conclude.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-02-teens-asthma-bullying.html