5 December 2019
THURSDAY, Dec. 5, 2019 (HealthDay News) -- The more often young teens turn to social media, the more prone they are to eating disorders, new research suggests.
While the study does not prove social media use causes eating disorders, it raises a red flag, said study author Simon Wilksch. He's a senior research fellow in psychology at Flinders University, in South Australia.
The study looked at close to 1,000 middle school students and their use of four social media networks: Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and Tumblr. The researchers found the teens favored use of Instagram and Snapchat, which use video and photos to communicate.
"The core cognitive [mental] component of disordered eating is the placing of great importance on one's body shape, weight, food intake or exercise," Wilksch...
2 December 2019
MONDAY, Dec. 2, 2019 (HealthDay News) -- Fifteen million kids attend high school in the United States, and around 1 in 18 goes armed with a gun, a new study finds.
That's nearly 1 million teens taking a potentially deadly weapon to school. But researchers say universal background checks can put a dent in those numbers.
While gun-toting teens were found in every state, 83% were in states that did not have universal background checks, the research team found.
Why do so many teens feel they must have a gun? The answer may be fear.
"After accounting for student demographics as well as state laws and characteristics, we found that high school students who reported feeling threatened were over four times more likely to carry a gun than students who did not report being threatened,"...
21 November 2019
THURSDAY, Nov. 21, 2019 (HealthDay News) -- Forty-one states and territories have seen drops in obesity rates among young children enrolled in a U.S. nutrition program, a new study shows.
"Improvements in national, state and caregiver guidance around nutrition and physical activity may be contributing to this decline in childhood obesity," said Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"We are moving in the right direction, and helping parents make healthy choices for their children is reducing the potential for complications posed by childhood obesity later in life," he added in a CDC news release.
In the study, U.S. federal government researchers analyzed obesity trends from 2010 to 2016 among more than 12.4 million children, aged 2 to...
20 November 2019
(HealthDay News) -- The chickenpox vaccine is the best way to prevent chickenpox, says the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Since the start of the U.S. chickenpox vaccination program, there has been a 90 percent drop in cases of chickenpox, the agency says.
If you or a loved one does get chickenpox, the CDC has this advice:
Use calamine lotion and a cool bath to relieve itching.
Avoid scratching, which can trigger infection.
Keep fingernails trimmed short to help curtail scratching.
Do not use aspirin products to relieve fever from chickenpox. Instead, use a non-aspirin medication, such as acetaminophen.
For advice on other treatment options for chickenpox, see your doctor.