Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

A Poor Diet in College Can Lead to a Lifetime of Bad Health

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

University students often get a reputation of living on a diet of microwavable meals and energy drinks. While these questionable decisions are usually chalked up to the college lifestyle, a new study is stressing the importance of ditching these habits after graduation. Researchers from the University of British Columbia Okanagan suggest poor dietary habits established during college can contribute to future health issues years and even decades later — including obesity, respiratory illnesses, and depression.

Dr. Joan Bottorff, a professor with UBCO’s School of Nursing, is one of several international researchers involved with this multi-site study that assessed the eating habits of university students. Nearly 12,000 medical students from 31 universities in China took part in this project, which aimed to determine the association between eating behaviors, obesity, and various diseases.

We know many students consume high-calorie meals along with sugary foods and drinks and there is lots of evidence to show those kinds of eating behaviors can lead to obesity,” Dr. Bottorff says in a university release. “These are not the only habits that lead to obesity, but they are important and can’t be ruled out.”

A typical student diet consisting of high-sugar or high-calorie foods can be a long-term issue; these habits often lead to obesity. Dr. Bottorff adds there is evidence suggesting stress and anxiety can cause overeating, and overeating is also known to lead to stress and depression.

The study was published in the journal Preventive Medicine Reports.

Source: StudyFinds
https://studyfinds.org/poor-diet-college-bad-health/

Sharing Meals with Friends May Lower Depression, Anxiety, and Stress in Teens

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

Previous research shows that family meals influence mental well-being; however, limited studies have evaluated the relationship between social eating behavior and mental disorders in adolescents.

A recent Clinical Nutrition study investigated the impact of family meals and social eating behavior on anxiety, depression, and stress symptoms in adolescents.

The current cross-sectional study evaluated data from the Eating Healthy and Daily Life Activities (EHDLA) study. The EHDLA study obtained representative samples of adolescents between 12 and 17 years of age from Valle de Ricote, Spain. The study cohort included a total of 649 adolescents, 56.7% of whom were girls.

Mental disorders were evaluated by the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21), which considered 21 symptoms that were used to score participants on a four-point Likert-type scale. In this scoring system, zero was defined as "did not apply to me at all," with the gradual escalation in the score indicating an increase in depression, anxiety, and stress.

As compared to family meals, more social eating among friends was strongly associated with reduced anxiety, depression, and stress symptoms in Spanish adolescents. Family meals were also inversely associated with depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms.

Social eating behavior is associated with a reduction in depressive symptoms in adolescents and could be due to the protection and support that they receive from family/peers. Sharing a good meal with family and friends also improves communication with peers/family, which has a positive effect on anxiety.

Adolescents who generally eat in the company of their peers have greater peer acceptance, which prevents anxiety symptoms.

Source: News Medical
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20230503/Sharing-meals-with-friends-may-lower-depression-anxiety-and-stress-in-teens.aspx

Eating Walnuts Could Benefit Adolescents' Cognitive Development, Contribute to Psychological Maturation

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

Eating walnuts on a regular basis could benefit the cognitive development of adolescents and contribute to their psychological maturation. These are some of the conclusions reached by a study led by the Institut d'Investigació Sanitària Pere Virgili (IISPV), in which ISGlobal (a center promoted by "la Caixa" Foundation) and the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM) have collaborated. This is unprecedented research; while there have been previous studies on the effect of nuts on our health, the impact of their consumption at such a critical stage for cognitive development as adolescence has never been examined.

Walnuts are rich in alpha-linolenic fatty acid (ALA), a type of omega-3 that plays a fundamental role in brain development, especially at this life stage.

In the study, which has been published in the journal eClinicalMedicine, 700 secondary school students between 11 and 16 years of age from 12 different high schools in Barcelona participated voluntarily. They were randomly divided into two groups: the control group, which received no intervention of any kind, and the experimental group, which received sachets containing 30 grams of walnut kernels, indicating to the young people who participated that they could consume them daily for a period of 6 months.

The research team found that adolescents who ate walnuts for at least 100 days (not necessarily continuously every day) increased their attention functions, and those who had some symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) improved their behavior significantly (in class, they paid more attention to the teacher and were less hyperactive).

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-04-walnuts-benefit-adolescents-cognitive-contribute.html

Erratic Sleep Patterns Linked to Elevated Blood Pressure in Teens with Extra Belly Weight

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by EurekAlert!

Staying awake later into the night and sleeping in on the weekends are hallmarks of adolescent behavior, however, erratic sleep patterns may have consequences for future heart health by increasing blood pressure among teens who have more abdominal fat, according to new research published in Hypertension, an American Heart Association journal.

The researchers evaluated sleep, visceral fat, and blood pressure in 303 adolescents from central Pennsylvania (average age 16.2 years) who returned for a repeat evaluation after participating as children in the Penn State Child Cohort study. Sleep was measured during one night in the sleep lab and at home over seven days by wearing a wristwatch-like sleep monitoring device. With this device, researchers tracked sleep duration and its variability (to capture how much and how little adolescents slept night-to-night), sleep midpoint (the midpoint between sleep and wake-up time), and its regularity (to capture their sleep patterns over time). A sleep midpoint at 2 a.m. or later is considered delayed for a typical adolescent during the school week, and night-to-night differences of 45 minutes or more in the sleep midpoint was considered highly irregular.

Overall, the participants had sleep habits typical of adolescents – going to bed later than they did during grade school and sleeping later on weekends and school breaks than on school days.

Among the adolescents studied during the school year and whose sleep varied by 45 minutes or more during the school week, each unit increase in visceral abdominal fat was linked to a 7 mm Hg higher systolic (top number) blood pressure and a 3 mm Hg higher diastolic (bottom number) blood pressure.

In contrast, among teens whose sleep varied less than 45 minutes during the school week, there was no link between visceral abdominal fat and elevated blood pressure.

In teens who described themselves as “evening people,” each unit increase in visceral abdominal fat was linked to about a 3 mm Hg higher diastolic blood pressure; however, among self-described “morning people,” there was no impact of visceral abdominal fat on blood pressure.

“These results suggest that keeping a regular sleep pattern may protect adolescents from the cardiovascular consequences of obesity,” said Natasha Morales-Ghinaglia, B.S., first author of the study and an American Heart Association predoctoral fellow at the Penn State College of Medicine Sleep Research & Treatment Center in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania.

Source: EurekAlert!
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/981240

Exercising Doesn’t Help Kids Looking at Screens All Day Offset Obesity Risk

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

Just staying active isn’t enough to help children avoid obesity, according to a team from the University of Toronto. Researchers report lots of exercise does not offset obesity risk among preteens who spend eight or more hours in front of a screen daily. Many have heard about the importance of “work-life balance,” but these findings suggest parents and caregivers need to be aware of their kids’ “exercise-screen balance” as well.

“Spending most of one’s free time in front of screens can replace time for other important activities including physical activity, socialization, and sleep,” says lead author Jason Nagata, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of California-San Francisco, in a media release.

Meanwhile, the study also finds that minimal screen time alone isn’t enough to offset obesity risk among teens who don’t exercise regularly.

Researchers reached these conclusions after asking 5,797 preteens (10-14 years old) how much time they usually spend on screens. Also, a Fitbit helped to track the participants’ daily steps. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, preteens reported an average of eight hours of recreational screen time per day.

It’s worth noting that in another study, also published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, Prof. Nagata collected compelling evidence suggesting screen time during adolescence has an association with obesity, diabetes onset, and larger waist circumference some 24 years later. That project assessed a nationally representative sample of 7,105 adolescents for over two decades.

Source: StudyFinds
https://studyfinds.org/exercise-kids-screen-time-obesity/

Correlation Between Teens' Social Media Time and Restrictive Eating

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

Researchers at Sainte-Justine Hospital in Montreal have found a correlation in teenagers between the amount of time spent on social media and restrictive eating behaviors or eating disorders.

The findings were published in the journal Psychology & Health and followed 3,801 high school students over five years.

"Social media makes you feel less good about yourself and promotes a desire to be thinner, to have concerns about your weight, and potentially engage in restrictive behaviors," said lead author Patricia Conrod.

Her previous work researching a link between social media and depression was used during a 2021 Congressional hearing where Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was questioned about the link.

Conrod said it can fuel a downward spiral where looking at an app can generate negative emotions, but instead of turning away, it can lead to more time scrolling.

"The more you are in a lower mood, the more you'll turn to social media, and the more social media will impact on your mood in a negative spiral," she said.

Source: CTV News
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/correlation-between-teens-social-media-time-and-restrictive-eating-montreal-study-1.6245377

Children Who Don’t Get Enough Sleep Consume More Junk

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

When children don’t get enough sleep, parents don’t get enough sleep. Apparently, another thing these sleep-deprived children can’t get enough of is food. There appears to be a strong correlation with poor sleep affecting a child’s appetite in a not-so-healthy way, according to a recent study.

Scientists at the University of Otago in New Zealand reveal that children who don’t get enough sleep eat more calories than their well-rested peers. The study reports that sleep-deprived kids ate 96 more calories from junk food and slightly less healthy food than they otherwise would. After accounting for extra calories, the young ones burnt by being awake for longer ate 63 more calories in a day.

The little ones who lost the most sleep had even bigger changes to what they ate at mealtimes and how much junk food they consumed. Children who lounged around more ate more junk food and more in the evening while exercising, led them to eat more healthy food.

For the study, the team analyzed data on 105 eight to 12-year-old kids who took part in the Daily, Rest, Eating, and Activity Monitoring (DREAM) clinical trial. Just over three-fifths (61 percent) of participants were of a healthy weight, while the rest of them were overweight or obese.

The findings were presented at The International Congress on Obesity in Melbourne, Australia.

Source: StudyFinds
https://studyfinds.org/sleep-affecting-child-appetite/

Omega-3 Fatty Acids, and in Particular DHA, Are Associated With Increased Attention Scores in Adolescents

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

During adolescence, important structural and functional changes occur in the brain, especially in the prefrontal area, which plays a major role in controlling attention. On the other hand, omega-3 unsaturated fatty acids are known to be critical for proper brain development and function. The most abundant fatty acid in the brain, particularly in the prefrontal area, is DHA, which is mostly supplied by eating fatty fish.

According to new research, higher levels of Omega-3 fatty acids, and specifically DHA, are associated with greater selective and sustained attention and inhibitory attention in adolescents.

"Despite the established importance of DHA in brain development, few studies have evaluated whether it plays a role in the attention performance of healthy adolescents," says Jordi Júlvez, IISPV researcher, ISGlobal research associate and coordinator of the study. "In addition, the possible role of alpha-linoleic acid (ALA), another omega-3 but of plant origin, has not been as extensively studied," he adds. This is relevant, given the low fish consumption in Western societies.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether a higher intake of DHA and ALA was associated with an increased attention performance in a group of 332 adolescents from different schools in Barcelona.

The results showed that higher levels of DHA are associated with greater selective and sustained attention and inhibitory attention. In contrast, ALA was not associated with attention performance, but was associated with lower impulsivity.

"Our study indicates that dietary DHA most likely plays a role in attention-requiring tasks, but further studies are needed to confirm a cause-effect, as well as to understand the role of ALA," concludes Júlvez. In any case, the findings add to the already existing evidence on the benefit of consuming fatty fish (the main source of DHA) at a time when the brain is developing in its highest sophistication before reaching adulthood.

Source: ScienceDaily
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/09/220928075927.htm

'Gateway' Foods Like Candy, Pastries and Frozen Treats May Lead to Unhealthy Teen Eating

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

Certain ultra-processed foods, such as candy, pastries, and frozen desserts, may be "gateway" foods for adolescents, leading them to eat higher quantities of other unhealthy foods, according to new research.

The research suggests that reducing the consumption of key gateway foods may make an impact in the overall consumption of ultra-processed foods, which are high in sugar, salt, unhealthy trans fat, and artificial flavors and colors. Ultra-processed foods such as bread, cereals, desserts, sodas, and processed meats comprise more than 60% of the calories Americans eat each day. Previous research has linked high consumption of ultra-processed foods with hypertension, weight gain, increased risk of heart disease, and premature death.

"Ultra-processed foods are designed to be hyper-palatable, or engineered to be as addictive as possible," said Maria Balhara, lead researcher of this study and a student at Broward College in Davie, Florida. "They're also cheap and convenient, which makes them hard to resist. Most people are eating too many of these foods without realizing it."

Balhara gathered data on how frequently adolescents consumed 12 ultra-processed food products during the previous 8 weeks. Ultra-processed foods included prepackaged cookies, candy, chips, chocolate, energy drinks, frozen desserts, soda, store-bought pastries, store-bought smoothies, syrup-sweetened coffee or tea, white bread and processed meat. Study participants included 315 teens, ages 13-19 recruited from 12 high schools in South Florida between February and April 2022. Their scores for 2022 consumption were compared to their scores for estimated 2019 pre-pandemic consumption.

Candy, prepackaged pastries and frozen desserts were found to act as a possible "gateway" to drive increased (or decreased) consumption of other processed food products. Teenagers who changed their consumption of these "gateway" foods were more likely to change their consumption of all other ultra-processed foods as well.

The analysis found that among the identified gateway foods:

• increased consumption frequency of frozen desserts was associated with an 11% increase in consumption of all other ultra-processed foods;
• increased consumption of pastries was associated with a 12% increase in consumption of all other ultra-processed foods; and
• increased consumption of candy was associated with a 31% increase in consumption of all other ultra-processed foods.

"For teenagers whose consumption of ultra-processed foods has not yet been established, certain gateway foods such as candy, store-bought pastries and frozen desserts should be avoided, since increased consumption of these foods appears to lead to increased consumption of other processed foods," Balhara said.

"The good news," she adds, "is that even small changes, such as reducing how often you eat a few gateway foods, may reduce overall consumption of unhealthy foods and have a big impact on your overall health."

The study was presented at the American Heart Association's Hypertension Scientific Sessions 2022, Sept. 7-10, 2022, in San Diego, CA.

Source: ScienceDaily
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/09/220907105453.htm

Parents’ Who Reward Kids With Food, Restrict Their Diet May Turn Them Into ’Emotional Eaters’

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

Parents who reward children with food or restrict their diet risk their kids becoming “emotional eaters” who use food to regulate their feelings.

Researchers investigated how various feeding and eating practices used by parents, such as restriction, food as a reward, and child involvement can influence the eating behavior of their children. The data revealed that emotional eating among teens is more likely if their parents use food as a reward or monitor their diets.

It is even more likely with teens who use eating to regulate their emotions. Studies show that emotional eating, or eating as a coping mechanism for negative, positive, or stress-driven emotions, displays a connection with unhealthy dietary patterns and weight gain.

However, parents who involve their child in their meals have the opposite effect. Being involved helps with emotional regulation and therefore makes teens less likely to emotionally eat. A parent’s restrained eating behavior also displayed a link to less emotional eating in adolescents.

“Emotional eating was previously found to be more learned than inherited. This study examined not only the interaction between parents when feeding their children, but also what children learned from watching their parents eat,” says lead author Joanna Klosowska, MSc, from Ghent University in a media release.

The study found there was a large increase in emotional eating among teens during this time. The study, published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, was conducted in 2017 with 218 families. The researchers also used data collected in 2013.

The researchers measured the teens' emotion regulation and their weight and height. They used this information to reach their conclusion that a parent’s eating habits are hugely influential on their children’s relationship with food.

The study was published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.

Source: StudyFinds
https://studyfinds.org/parents-teens-emotional-eaters/