Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Gay, Lesbian Teens at High Odds for Physical, Sexual Abuse

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

The warning stems from surveys of nearly 29,000 teens, aged 14 to 18, conducted in 2015 and 2017 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Overall, LGBQ teens (lesbian, gay, bisexual and teens who are questioning their sexuality) face roughly twice the risk of physical violence compared with straight youth, the surveys revealed. And that risk can come from a romantic partner -- or anyone else.

Lead author Theodore Caputi said the study is the first to use a recent, nationally representative sample to gauge the scope of physical and sexual violence among LGBQ teens. He described the findings as "striking."

Caputi is a research consultant with the Health Equity Research Lab at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

"Unfortunately, physical and sexual violence are commonplace in the daily lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and questioning adolescents," he said.

Over one in 10 LGBQ teens reported intimate partner violence in the past year, Caputi said. And more than one in five said they had been sexually assaulted.

"Given the severe physical, mental and emotional health consequences of violence victimhood, this high prevalence represents a public health crisis," he said.

In both 2015 and 2017, survey respondents were asked to indicate their sexual orientation, and whether they had experienced violence in the prior year at the hands of a partner or someone else. In 2017, participants were also asked if they had been sexually assaulted.

In total, about 87% of respondents identified as straight, just over 2% as gay or lesbian, 7% as bisexual and nearly 4% said they were unsure.

Lesbian and bisexual girls had nearly twice the risk for engaging in a physical fight, either at school or elsewhere, compared with straight girls, the surveys revealed.

Gay and bisexual boys, meanwhile, appeared to be particularly vulnerable to sexual violence. They faced nearly five times the risk for sexual assault or forced intercourse, compared to their straight peers, the findings showed.

Meanwhile, teens who identified as bisexual were found to face a high risk for both physical violence in an intimate relationship and sexual assault in general.

Caputi stressed that his team did not investigate the specific underlying causes.

The findings were published online as a research letter in JAMA Pediatrics.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/public-health-information-30/violence-health-news-787/gay-lesbian-teens-at-high-odds-for-physical-sexual-abuse-755616.html

Deaths Due to Suicide, Homicide on the Rise Among U.S. Youth

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

More teens and young adults are coming to a violent end in recent years, either at their own hand or another's, new federal data show.

Both suicide and homicide death rates are rising among 10- to 24-year-olds, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

"Recently, in the last few years, they're both trending upward. Suicide began to turn upward earlier, in 2007, and now in 2014, homicide turned around as well," said Sally Curtin, an NCHS statistician. "These are leading causes of death, and they both are increasing now."

The suicide rate for young people aged 10 to 24 rose 56% between 2007 and 2017, with the pace increasing of late, the researchers said.

Suicide deaths increased 7% annually from 2013 to 2017, compared with 3% annually between 2007 and 2013, the investigators found.

Meanwhile, homicide deaths among 10- to 24-year-olds rose 18% between 2014 and 2017, after nearly a decade in decline, the researchers said.

Accidental deaths -- car crashes, drug overdoses, and drownings -- remain the leading cause of death in this age group, Curtin said. But deaths due to suicide and homicide are right behind and rising.

It's impossible to nail down any single cause for this increase in violent deaths among the young, said Dr. Alex Crosby, chief medical officer for the division of injury prevention at the CDC.

Homicide and suicide rates differed slightly between specific age groups of young people, the researchers reported.

For example, the suicide rate for 10- to 14-year-olds nearly tripled between 2007 and 2017, while their homicide rate declined 18% during the period between 2000 and 2017.

But people in the 15 to 19 and 20 to 24 age ranges have experienced increases in both suicide and homicide rates.

The report was published in the October issue of the CDC's NCHS Data Brief.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/general-health-information-16/suicide-health-news-646/deaths-due-to-suicide-homicide-on-the-rise-among-u-s-youth-751349.html

Movie Violence Doesn't Make Kids Violent, Study Finds

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

Parents often worry that violent movies can trigger violence in their kids, but a new study suggests PG-13-rated movies won't turn your kids into criminals.

Researchers found that as PG-13 movies became more violent between 1985 and 2015, overall rates of murder and violence actually fell.

"It doesn't appear that PG-13-rated movies are having any impact on viewers," said lead researcher Christopher Ferguson. He's a professor of psychology at Stetson University in DeLand, Fla.

Kids may re-enact things they see in films during play, Ferguson said, but their playful re-enactments don't turn into real-life violence, like bullying or assaults.

But the report came under fire from Dan Romer, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Adolescent Communication Institute. He said the data studied can't be used to draw conclusions about movies' effects on violence.

"The authors have a very simplistic model of how the mass media work, and they have an agenda that attempts to show that violent media are salutary rather than harmful," Romer said. "What is needed is dispassionate analysis rather than cherry-picking of convenient data."

Previous studies have suggested parents may become desensitized to violence in PG-13 movies, making it more likely they will let children see them -- especially when gun violence is portrayed as justified.

But researcher Ferguson said media are simply an easy target for people who want to claim the moral high ground. Blaming media gives people a false sense of control.

"It's nice to say, 'Let's get rid of this thing and then that would make all these problems go away,'" he said. "It's kind of a simplistic answer."

Dr. Michael Rich, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Boston Children's Hospital, reviewed the findings. He said the new study attempts to simplify a complex issue.

"While violence has declined, it doesn't warrant the conclusion that we are not affected by violence in our media," Rich said. "As a pediatrician, I am more concerned about the violence that children experience every day, which is not reflected in crime stats."

What people experience most is micro-aggressions, like bullying, Rich said. While he considers movies a reflection of society, he added that the causes of violence and aggression are numerous. "It's a complex issue," he said.

But it's clear that violence in media has a numbing effect, making viewers less bothered by it, he said. "That is, in part, why violent media always needs to up the ante," Rich explained.

Media violence teaches kids that the world is more violent than it really is, and most react by becoming more fearful, not more violent or aggressive, he said.

"Violence is much rarer than fear and anxiety," Rich said. "We find that most kids who carry a weapon into school do it for protection."

For the study, Ferguson and Villanova University psychology professor Patrick Markey reviewed other researchers' data on PG-13 movies, along with U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation data on violent crime and the National Crime Victimization Survey.

But Romer said that data can't be used to draw conclusions about movies' effects on violence.

The report was published in the journal Psychiatric Quarterly.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/public-health-information-30/violence-health-news-787/movie-violence-doesn-t-make-kids-violent-study-finds-741747.html

Teens Who Hurt Themselves More Likely to Hurt Others

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

Teens who harm themselves are three times more likely to commit violent crimes than those who don't, a new study reveals.

"We know that some individuals who self-harm also inflict harm on others," said study author Leah Richmond-Rakerd, from Duke University.

"What has not been clear is whether there are early-life characteristics or experiences that increase the risk of violent offending among individuals who self-harm," she added in a university news release. "Identifying these risk factors could guide interventions that prevent and reduce interpersonal violence."

The investigators also found that adolescents who harm themselves and commit violent crimes are likely to have been mistreated in childhood and have poor self-control.

Incidents of teens cutting or burning themselves have substantially increased in recent years, both in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Among teen girls, about one in four tries to harm herself, as do one in 10 teen boys. In the United Kingdom, the incidence of self-injury among teen girls has risen nearly 70 percent in three years, the researchers found.

For the study, Richmond-Rakerd and colleagues compared young people who engage in "dual-harm" behavior -- self-harm plus violent crime -- with those who only self-harm.

The study participants included more than 2,200 U.K. twins born in 1994 and 1995, who took part in the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study.

The twins were followed across their first 20 years of life.

The findings showed that self-harm and violent crime didn't go together because of genetics or family risk factors, according to Terrie Moffitt, founder of the E-Risk Study.

"This means that young people who self-harm may see violence as a way of solving problems and begin to use it against others as well as themselves," Moffitt said.

The study authors advised that teens who harm themselves should be evaluated for the risk of suicide and the risk that they might harm others. In addition, helping self-harmers learn self-control might help prevent violent crime and reduce other harmful behavior.

The report was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/public-health-information-30/violence-health-news-787/teens-who-hurt-themselves-more-likely-to-hurt-others-741168.html

Just Witnessing School Violence Can Leave Psychic Scars

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

For middle school students, witnessing school violence can be as bad as being bullied, new research suggests.

An international team of researchers found that young witnesses face many of the same challenges later on as those who are direct victims of campus violence. Notably, eighth-grade witnesses are at higher risk for social and academic problems by the time they're high school sophomores.

"It is clear that approaches to prevention and intervention should include witnesses as well victims and perpetrators and target all forms of school violence," said study leader Michel Janosz. He's director of the School of Psycho-Education at the University of Montreal.

Janosz said supportive family and community relationships help young people cope after they're exposed to these traumatic events. "These also prevent emotional desensitization to violence which also contributes to aggressive behavior in youth," he said in a university news release.

The study involved nearly 4,000 students in Quebec. The researchers wanted to know how witnessing violence at age 13 affected their social and academic behavior. The study looked at students' use of drugs, delinquency and school performance, as well as their emotional well-being two years later.

The researchers also compared the long-term effects of witnessing violence with those experiencing violence directly.

The study, published recently in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, found most students had observed violence at school.

Those who had seen physical assaults or someone carrying weapons in the eighth grade had a higher risk of drug use and delinquency later on, the study found. The same was also true for those who had witnessed thefts and vandalism, which the researchers described as hidden or veiled violence.

In addition, exposure to less serious acts such as threats and insults was associated with increased drug use, social anxiety, symptoms of depression and less involvement at school, the researchers noted. But only an association rather than a cause-and-effect link was observed.

Study co-author Linda Pagani is also a professor at the School of Psycho-Education. "There were several take-home messages. First, witnessing school violence in Grade 8 predicted later impairment at Grade 10. Second, bystander effects were very similar to being victimized by violence directly," she said in the news release.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/public-health-information-30/violence-health-news-787/just-witnessing-school-violence-can-leave-psychic-scars-737804.html

Parents More Lenient If PG-13 Movie Violence is 'Justified'

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

Parents are more likely to let their kids see violent PG-13 movies if they feel the mayhem is "justified," a new study suggests.

The study, of 610 U.S. parents, found that moms and dads were less disturbed by gun violence in PG-13 movies when they deemed it justified. That included the typical action-movie scenario where a hero defends others from the bad guys.

In general, parents were more lenient about letting their own kids see that kind of violence, versus "unjustified," random violence.

In addition, most said that movies with justified gun violence were suitable for a 15-year-old. Films with unjustified violence, meanwhile, were typically deemed suitable for a 16-year-old.

What does it all mean? It's not clear, the researchers said.

But one worry is that kids who see a lot of supposedly justified gun violence might learn that gun use is acceptable when you feel threatened, according to lead researcher Daniel Romer.

"We're concerned there is a risk that kids might be influenced by this, especially if there's a gun in the house," said Romer, who is research director of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center, in Philadelphia.

Right now, there is no evidence that is the case, he stressed. "We can't say that these movies are harmful to kids," Romer said.

But, he added, that's a question for future studies to look into.

Romer and his colleagues published their findings online May 14 in Pediatrics.

Christopher Ferguson is a professor of psychology at Stetson University, in Florida, who has studied the correlation between media violence and kids' aggression -- and found it lacking.

He said it's no surprise that parents would have different attitudes toward senseless violence and violence coming from a hero defending the innocent masses, for example.

The question is whether that matters to kids. "There's no evidence, from this study, that these movies are bad for kids," Ferguson said.

For the study, Romer's team recruited 610 parents who had at least one child between the ages of 6 and 17. The parents watched short clips from several movies online; most were PG-13 and all featured relatively "sanitized" gun violence -- free of the blood and graphic content that would typically earn a film an R rating.

Parents were asked whether they thought the violence in each was justified; what their emotional reaction was; whether they would let their own child watch it; and what they thought was a generally appropriate viewing age for the movie.

Overall, parents were more lenient when it came to violence they deemed justified. But most still thought that even justifiable violence was too much for 13- and 14-year-olds.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/general-health-information-16/media-health-news-760/parents-more-lenient-if-pg-13-movie-violence-justified-733840.html

Youth Violence Declines, But Remains a Serious Issue

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

Far fewer young people are turning up in U.S. emergency rooms with assault injuries, but youth violence remains a serious issue, a new government study shows.

The good news: The number of nonfatal assault patients aged 10 to 24 dropped 28 percent between 2011 and 2015, reaching the lowest level in the 15 years studied, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

Still, almost 486,000 youths were treated in ERs for assault-related injuries in 2015. Most were males in their early 20s, the researchers found.

More than 81 percent had been intentionally struck. Stabbing, cutting and piercing accounted for more than 8 percent of the injuries. Guns led nearly 6 percent to seek treatment.

"Youth violence remains a major public health problem," said psychiatrist Dr. Victor Fornari, who wasn't involved in the research.

"The underpinnings of this violence include mental health problems, substance abuse and histories of childhood adversity," said Fornari. He's director of child and adolescent psychiatry at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, N.Y.

For the study, David-Ferdon and her colleagues examined data from a nationally representative sample of emergency rooms between 2001 and 2015. They focused on nondeadly assault injuries, excluding sexual assault, among patients aged 10 to 24.

Overall, they found a significant decline in assault injuries during those years.

Still, about 9.6 million young people received emergency room treatment for assault injuries over the 15-year period. About 10 percent were hospitalized.

These numbers may be unrealistically low, the researchers noted, because many other victims may have sought treatment in different types of medical centers or not needed medical care.

The findings were published Feb. 9 in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a CDC publication.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/public-health-information-30/violence-health-news-787/youth-violence-in-u-s-declines-but-the-war-s-not-over-730960.html

Study: Movie Violence Accompanied by Smoking, Drinking, Sex

The findings are obvious to most observers, but nonetheless, a new study finds that violent movie characters are also likely to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes and engage in sexual behavior in films rated appropriate for children over 12.

"Parents should be aware that youth who watch PG-13 movies will be exposed to characters whose violence is linked to other more common behaviors, such as alcohol and sex, and that they should consider whether they want their children exposed to that influence," said study lead author Amy Bleakley, a policy research scientist at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center.

The study, which was published in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics, sought to find out if violent characters also engaged in other risky behaviors in films viewed by teens.

The researchers analyzed almost 400 top-grossing movies from 1985 to 2010 with an eye on violence and its connection to sexual behavior, tobacco smoking and alcohol use. The movies in the sample weren't chosen based on their appeal to children, so adult-oriented films little seen by kids might have been included.

The researchers found that about 90 percent of the movies included at least one moment of violence involving a main character. Violence was defined as virtually any attempt to physically harm someone else, even in fun.

A main character also engaged in sexual behavior (a category that includes kissing on the lips and seductive dancing), smoked tobacco or drank alcohol in 77 percent of the movies.

It's not clear what this means for children who watch popular movies, however. There's intense debate among experts over whether violence on screen has any direct connection to what people do in real life. Even if there is a link, the new findings don't specify whether the violent characters are glamorized or portrayed as villains.

Source: HealthDay
http://consumer.healthday.com/kids-health-information-23/adolescents-and-teen-health-news-719/movie-violence-often-accompanied-by-sex-tobacco-and-booze-study-finds-682829.html

Forced Sexual Contact Common Among Teens

From a hastily forced kiss to outright rape, violent or at least coerced sexual contact may be worryingly common among teens and young adults, a new study reports.

Researchers found 9 percent of youths aged 14 to 21 admitted to some kind of forced sexual contact, using tactics from guilt to threats and actual physical force. Half blamed their victims.

Four percent of the more than 1,000 young men and women surveyed admitted to having raped someone else, the researchers report in the American Medical Association journal JAMA Pediatrics.

But most who tried or completed rape said they didn’t use physical force – 63 percent of those who said they had forced someone to have sex against their will said they used guilt as their main tactic, while 32 percent said they used arguments and other verbal pressure.

And the problem behavior tends to really begin at around age 16, said Michele Ybarra of the Center for Innovative Public Health Research in San Clemente, California and Kimberly Mitchell of the University of New Hampshire.

Ybarra says it is clear that many teens are not getting the message that ‘no’ means no.

“Nine percent of youths reported some type of sexual violence perpetration in their lifetime: 8 percent kissed, touched, or made someone else do something sexual when the youth knew the other person did not want to (ie, forced sexual contact); 3 percent got someone to give into sex when he or she knew the other person did not want to have sex; 3 percent attempted but were not able to force someone to have sex (ie, attempted rape); and 2 percent forced someone to have sex with him or her (ie, completed rape)," Ybarra said.

Youths who reported seeing more violent sex online, in magazines, on television or at the movies were more likely to commit violent sexual acts.

Ybarra said the findings show a lot more effort is needed to prevent sexual assaults. “We, as a society, need to take more responsibility to identify perpetrators and implement programs in schools,” she said. Parents need to teach kids about healthy sex, young people need to speak up when friends describe either being victims or perpetrators of forced sex and schools need more programs to help teach youngsters about acceptable behavior, she says.

Source: NBC News
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/forced-sexual-contact-common-among-teens-study-suggests-8C11350021

More Than One in Three Teens are Victims of Dating Abuse

More than a third of teen guys and girls say they've been physically, emotionally or sexually abused in their dating relationships, according to new, unpublished data from a nationwide survey. Similar numbers of both sexes say they've been abusers.

Additional new research shows teens who abuse their girlfriends and boyfriends often share a past as middle-school bullies.

These findings, to be presented today in Honolulu at a meeting of the American Psychological Association, are the latest to shed light on a problem that has only come out of the shadows in recent years.

In the new nationwide survey, which included 1,058 youths ages 14 to 20, 41% of girls and young women and 37% of boys and young men said they had been victims of dating abuse; 35% of girls and 29% of boys said they had physically, emotionally or sexually abused a partner, according to a news release from the association. Girls were more likely to say they had physically abused their partners; boys were "much more likely" to say they had sexually abused someone, the association says. But it did not provide specific numbers on those differences.

The survey also found that 29% of girls and 24% of guys said they had been both victims and abusers, in the same or different relationships.

The new survey results are in the line with some other findings, says Carlos Cuevas, a researcher from Northeastern University-Boston, who is presenting new data on dating violence among Latino youth at the conference. But he says the details behind the gender findings in various studies are important. When girls are the aggressors, he says, "it tends to be low-level behaviors, light hitting, name calling, things like that. When you look at serious sexual and severe physical assault, we tend to see a bit more from the boys than the girls."

Source: USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/31/teen-dating-violence/2596255/