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	<title>Health &#38; FamilyCategory: Adolescence &#124; Health &#38; Family &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>Health &#38; FamilyCategory: Adolescence &#124; Health &#38; Family &#124; TIME.com</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com</link>
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		<title>Why Personality May Matter in Preventing Alcoholism</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/28/why-personality-may-matter-in-preventing-alcoholism/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/28/why-personality-may-matter-in-preventing-alcoholism/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 28 Jan 2013 21:00:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Alcohol]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Drugs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Teens]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Addiction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Adventure prevention program]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[alcohol]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[alcohol prevention]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[alcoholism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[anxiety disorders]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Depression]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Patricia Conrod]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teen alcohol prevention]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teen drug prevention]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teens]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=78908</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A program that takes personality into account may help to identify and reduce teen-drinking rates. Researchers studied 2,643 ninth-graders in England, ages 13 or 14 years old, for a project known as the Adventure trial. Teachers were trained to provide alcohol-abuse interventions to children with four personality traits that put them at high risk of problem drinking and drug use: being sensitive to anxiety, feeling hopeless, being impulsive and seeking thrills. Each of the 21 schools the students attended was randomly assigned to either provide an Adventure intervention, which was specifically targeted at children with these profiles, or the standard drug-education programs that relied on a national addiction-prevention curriculum. The students were asked about their drinking habits — such as binge drinking and how often they drank — every six months for two years. By the end of the study, all of the students who attended the schools using the targeted interventions showed a 29% lower rate of drinking compared with the children in schools relying on the traditional drug-education programs. The high-risk teens also had a 43% lower rate of binge drinking than similarly at-risk adolescents at the control schools. Having symptoms of an actual drinking problem — like difficulties in school or dangerous behavior — was reduced by 42% among high-risk students receiving targeted interventions and by 24% among the low-risk group who attended the targeted school, compared with those receiving the traditional drug-prevention programs. (MORE: Study: Men and Women Benefit in Different Ways from AA) That&#8217;s a significant reduction in drinking, say the authors. In contrast, typical prevention programs like D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) either don’t reduce drinking at all or only cut binging by around 10%, according to a recent Cochrane review. What&#8217;s more, these programs generally fail to address the cause of teen drinking, which means they often can&#8217;t provoke long-term changes in drinking behavior. “A mental-health approach to alcohol and drug prevention looks like it’s much more effective and promising than simple drug education or alcohol education,” says Patricia Conrod, who is affiliated with<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=78908&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Alcohol</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/alcohol-medicine/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/ab70580.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/0a5ac57e99124922fa628492ad3db6b2?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>How Effective Are Tactics Used on TV Shows to Treat Troubled Teens?</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/25/how-effective-are-tactics-used-on-tv-shows-to-treat-troubled-teens/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/25/how-effective-are-tactics-used-on-tv-shows-to-treat-troubled-teens/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jan 2013 13:00:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Body & Mind]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Recovery]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Addiction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Beyond Scared Straight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Drugs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[evidence based therapy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Norcross]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Josh Shipp]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Scared Straight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Teen Trouble]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[troubled teens]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=78669</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Terrifying teens by making them lie in coffins, forcing them to spend a night on a frigid street or a bare prison cell— these harsh measures are used in reality shows in an attempt to put delinquents back on the straight and narrow.  But the strategies may make for better TV than treatment. On A&#38;E’s Beyond Scared Straight and Lifetime’s Teen Trouble, producers document some extreme methods to address adolescents who act out. The shows intend to educate while entertaining, and some of the tough love strategies certainly make for riveting TV. But unfortunately, decades of research show that such extreme measures are at best ineffective and at worst, harmful. Take Scared Straight, a strategy that is supposed to deter juvenile delinquents from a life of crime by briefly placing them in adult prisons, where hardened prisoners confront them with the brutal realities of incarceration. A documentary on the original initiative, founded at Rahway Prison in New Jersey, won an Oscar in 1978.  A&#38;E&#8217;s Beyond Scared Straight, now in its third season, follows teens through such programs, zooming in as inmates literally get in the teens’ faces and attempt to break them emotionally. (MORE: Why Juvenile Detention Makes Teens Worse) It’s not like there’s a shortage of data or any scientific controversy over Scared Straight’s actual results.  In fact, a Cochrane review — the gold standard for evidence-based medicine — concluded that kids sent to Scared Straight were 68-71% more likely to commit crimes than those randomized to receive no intervention at all. Teen Trouble’s approach is similarly problematic.  Most of the adolescents who appear on the show have drug problems and some have mental illnesses like depression, but are not given treatment proven to work for these conditions. Instead, Teen Trouble relies on inducing fear through confrontation, supposedly to show teens the potential consequences of their actions: disfigurement, disability, homelessness, death. In one episode, for example, a girl is forced to lie down in a coffin and touch dead bodies; in another, a boy is put in casts and a<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=78669&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Adolescence</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/adolescence-mental-health/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/04-justin-listens-to-an-inmate-e1359076354492.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/0a5ac57e99124922fa628492ad3db6b2?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Childhood Trauma Leaves Legacy of Brain Changes</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/16/childhood-trauma-leaves-legacy-of-brain-changes/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/16/childhood-trauma-leaves-legacy-of-brain-changes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 16 Jan 2013 13:00:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Laura Blue</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Behavior]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Brain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Child Development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Depression]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Genetics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Psychology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Trauma]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[abuse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[aggression]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[aggressive tendencies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[amygdala]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[antidepressants]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[behavioral problems]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[child abuse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MAOA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[orbitofrontal cortex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[violence]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=78042</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Painful experiences early in life can alter the brain in lasting ways. A difficult reality for psychiatrists and counselors of child abuse is that young victims are at high risk of becoming offenders themselves one day, although it&#8217;s unclear why. But now a team of behavioral geneticists in Switzerland report a possible reason: early psychological trauma may actually cause lasting changes in the brain that promote aggressive behavior in adulthood. Writing this week Translational Psychiatry, the researchers describe a series or experiments conducted in rats that led them to that conclusion. Animals placed in traumatic, fear-inducing situations around the time of puberty show high and sustained levels of aggression later in life. And while rats cannot substitute for humans, the scared rats also showed changes in hormone levels, brain activity, and genetic expression that appear very similar to traits observed among troubled and unusually violent people. MORE: Watching Mean People on TV Might Turn You Into One The main implication of the research, says study co-author Carmen Sandi, is that it links two previously observed phenomena: the higher rate of aggression among those experiencing early-life stress, and the blunted activation of a brain region known as the orbitofrontal cortex among people with pathological aggression. Social learning, it seems, may not be the only thing that makes abused kids more likely to grow up aggressive. &#8220;This is a key finding which highlights the importance of not only developing social programs and politics, but also of reinforcing research that could offer valid [medical] treatments for individuals that have been victimized early in life,&#8221; says Sandi, the director of the Brain Mind Institute at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, in an email discussing the study. &#8220;We need to understand the neurobiological mechanisms to offer better solutions to break &#8216;the cycle of violence.&#8217;&#8221; In the study, Sandi and colleagues tested the rats for changes in specific regions of the brain following long periods of fear, and then tested a potential treatment to determine if it was possible to undo those brain changes. They began<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=78042&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Trauma</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/trauma-mental-health/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/6484-000046.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/6484-000046.jpg?w=240" />
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			<media:title type="html">6484-000046</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/a069e8b4ff0dc386def0882f71bbfee6?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Laura Blue</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Lasting Legacy of Recessions: Behavior Problems Among Teens</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/03/lasting-legacy-of-recessions-behavior-problems-among-teens/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/03/lasting-legacy-of-recessions-behavior-problems-among-teens/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Jan 2013 13:00:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Olivia B. Waxman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Addiction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Behavior]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Child Development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Childhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Infancy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Teens]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Work & Life]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=77111</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Fiscal cliff negotiations tested everyone&#8217;s patience, but even young children who don&#8217;t understand national budgets may show signs of strain during such economic insecurity. The latest research shows that financial crises such as recessions can adversely affect infants and young children who grow up in an environment of economic instability. Unemployment and reduced household income levels can cause emotional distress among adults and that anxiety can in turn affect how well parents provide for their children — especially if families have fewer resources to provide for their children&#8217;s education as well as attend to their social and physical well-being. (MORE: Unemployment is Hard on the Health, and The Harm May Add Up) A study published this week in the online edition of JAMA Psychiatry finds that infants born during and after the 1980 and 1981-1982 recessions were more likely to develop behavioral problems in adolescence, such as substance abuse and delinquency, than infants born during periods of low unemployment. The data on adolescents was gathered from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, backed in part by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and considered to be a representative sample of U.S. adolescents in that year. Led by Dr. Seethalakshmi Ramanathan of the State University of New York&#8217;s Upstate Medical University, researchers collected information from about 8,984 youth born between January 1, 1980, and December 31, 1984, including data on their family, community, criminal and delinquent backgrounds. Two recessions occurred during this time, pushing national unemployment rates from 6.6% to 11.4%. The adolescents, aged 12-16 years, answered questions about a range of behaviors, including past marijuana abuse, smoking, alcohol consumption, illegal drug use, arrests, handgun use, gang affiliation, property destruction, assault-related behavior, and both major and petty theft. Even after the researchers accounted for factors that could influence behavior problems, such as the participants&#8217; sex, ethnicity, mother&#8217;s age at birth, parenting environment, experience with foster care, and siblings who are gang members, the connection between being born during the recession and later behavioral problems remained. Adolescents who were exposed to even<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=77111&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Adolescence</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/adolescence-mental-health/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/babies.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">babies</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">timeolivia</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>Sibling Rivalry: Squabbling May Lead to Depressive Symptoms, Anxiety, Among Teens</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/12/21/sibling-rivalry-squabbling-may-lead-to-depressive-symptoms-anxiety-among-teens/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/12/21/sibling-rivalry-squabbling-may-lead-to-depressive-symptoms-anxiety-among-teens/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Dec 2012 17:30:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Laura Blue</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Child Development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Childhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Depression]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Psychology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Teens]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[adolescents]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[anxiety]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[brothers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[depressive mood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[depressive symptoms]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[equality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fairness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[home]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[household chores]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[personal space]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[self-esteem]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sibling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sibling conflict]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sibling rivalry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sisters]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=76560</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Anyone with a brother or sister can attest to the inevitability of conflicts during childhood, but frequent clashes may take a toll. Squabbling over two topics in particular, researchers say, may put adolescents at risk for depressive symptoms and anxiety. Psychologists at the University of Missouri reached that conclusion after surveying 145 adolescent sibling pairs over the course of a year. The researchers quizzed the kids on their sibling relationships, and also asked them to answer questionnaires to measure their self-esteem and symptoms of depression and anxiety. They found that kids with high self-esteem at the beginning of the study typically had fewer conflicts with their siblings one year later. But those who reported sibling conflict at the beginning of the study were much more likely to develop new mood problems over the following year. &#8220;There are definitely aspects that are going both ways,&#8221; says researcher Nicole Campione-Barr, an assistant professor of psychological sciences at the University of Missouri, about the possibility that sibling conflict may contribute to future emotional changes, as well as the potential that existing emotional changes may also fuel more squabbles . &#8220;But we believe that there are particular types of conflict that are setting kids up for problems,&#8221; she says. MORE: The Power of Birth Order In particular, Campione-Barr and her colleagues have identified two common themes among the sibling arguments that they studied. Kids who clash with their brothers and sisters about &#8220;equality and fairness issues&#8221; (things like who&#8217;s hogging the bathroom and whose turn it is to do the dishes) appear to be at unusually high risk of depressed mood one year later. Conversely, arguing over &#8220;personal domain conflicts&#8221; (like borrowing items without asking, or hanging around when the other sibling&#8217;s friends are over) is associated with anxiety symptoms and lower self-esteem one year later. The findings are published this week in the journal Child Development. Campione-Barr says the results are somewhat surprising since in previous research, experts had looked at sibling trust and communication, but only found an association between the personal<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=76560&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Teens</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/family-parenting/teens-family-parenting/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/new-image.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Sisters arguing</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">Laura Blue</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>In a Rush to Mature: Study Finds Boys Hitting Puberty Earlier than Ever</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/22/in-a-rush-to-mature-study-finds-boys-hitting-puberty-earlier-than-ever/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/22/in-a-rush-to-mature-study-finds-boys-hitting-puberty-earlier-than-ever/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Oct 2012 18:00:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Laura Blue</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Child Development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gender]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sexual Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sexuality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BPA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[environmental estrogens]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[estrogen]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[first period]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[menarche]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[menses]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[puberty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sexual maturity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sexuality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[testosterone]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=72089</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Puberty usually hits boys later than girls, at an average age of 11. But according to new research published in the journal Pediatrics, U.S. boys are now experiencing the first signs of sexual maturation &#8212; genital growth, testicular enlargement, and the appearance of pubic hair &#8212; roughly 6 months to 2 years earlier than boys at similar ages just a few decades ago. Pediatricians now find that the earliest stage of male puberty occurs, on average, at age of 10.14 years among non-Hispanic whites, at 10.4 years among Hispanics, and at just 9.14 years among African Americans. &#8220;All parents need to know whether their sons are maturing within the contemporary age range, but, until now, this has not been known for U.S. boys,&#8221; pediatrics researcher and study author Richard Wasserman said in a statement. MORE: Girls, Interrupted This new research comes from the very same group that showed, almost 15 years ago, that girls in the U.S. are hitting puberty earlier than they used to as well. In a landmark paper in 1997, scholars and clinicians from the Pediatric Research in Office Settings program (PROS) showed that girls were reporting their first menstrual period and breast development 6 months to a year earlier than outdated clinical textbooks were listing as the average maturation age at the time. That trend toward earlier puberty in girls is now widely accepted. But, until now, it hasn&#8217;t been clear whether boys were part of the earlier sexual maturity as well. That&#8217;s because boys don&#8217;t have the same kind of clear, easily measured marker of puberty onset as the first period, or menarche.  For boys, the first signs of puberty appear more gradually, including those outcomes measured in this new Pediatrics study: testicle growth, penis growth, and the emergence of pubic hair. Testicular growth, for example, is much harder for the pediatrician to assess quickly by sight alone than, say, breast development is in girls. For these reasons, until now, researchers have simply had less data about puberty timing among males than among females, and researchers<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=72089&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Adolescence</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/adolescence-mental-health/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/143176169.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Little boy shaving</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/a069e8b4ff0dc386def0882f71bbfee6?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Laura Blue</media:title>
		</media:content>
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		<title>How Teen Rejection Can Lead to Chronic Disease Later in Life</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/18/how-teen-rejection-can-lead-to-chronic-disease-later-in-life/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/18/how-teen-rejection-can-lead-to-chronic-disease-later-in-life/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:00:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Depression]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Diabetes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Heart Disease]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[inflammation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rejection]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social effects on health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social rejection]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social status]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social status and immune response]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stroke]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teen depression]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teens]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=71727</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Teens may not be wrong when they see their social troubles as matters of life and death. Being excluded, rejected, dissed by friends or otherwise ostracized by your peers is practically a rite of passage of adolescence, but these social challenges— particularly when they are repeated — can have a lasting legacy on health. A new study of teenage girls shows that “targeted rejection,” in which students are singled out for taunting or personally rejected by a friend, can have measurable effects on the immune system. If sustained, these changes can increase risk for diabetes, heart disease, stroke, mental illness and some cancers later in life, even among those considered to be at the top of the teen social hierarchy. Researchers have long known that early life negative experience can translate into later mental and physical illness:  the more types of trauma people endure during childhood, the higher their risks for all psychiatric illnesses and many physical diseases, too, including cardiovascular disease. (MORE:  Child Trauma Can Lead to Obesity, Heart Attacks, Even Cancer) How could being rejected, abused or bullied as a child or teen make an adult more likely to have a heart attack?  One link seems to connect the chronic stress from teen social situations to a more sensitive immune system, which can trigger an inflammatory state that can damage the brain and body by sustaining a near-constant state of anxiety or of feeling threatened. To try to tease out how social stress could affect immune response, researchers led by Michael Murphy of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, studied 147 young women aged 15 to 19, who were at high risk of becoming depressed because they either had a parent or sibling with depression or because they scored high on a test of attitudes linked to depressive thinking. Previous research showed that targeted rejection leads to depression three times faster than other equally depressing life events— and the researchers wanted to determine what role immune response has in these connections and how a teen’s social<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=71727&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Adolescence</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/adolescence-mental-health/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/200386545-001rejectioncrop.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Teen girls ostracizing another girl</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
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		<title>Should Teachers Be Allowed to Spank Students?</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/01/should-teachers-spank-students-a-texas-school-district-expands-its-corporal-punishment-policy/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/01/should-teachers-spank-students-a-texas-school-district-expands-its-corporal-punishment-policy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Oct 2012 17:01:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alice Park</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Behavior]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Child Development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Childhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[aggression]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[child behavior]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[corporal punishment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[discipline]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spanking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[springtown]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Texas]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=70424</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Spanking is one of the many things about which parents agree — passionately — to disagree. Most American parents swear by the old adage &#8220;Spare the rod, spoil the child,&#8221; but others are horrified by the very thought of raising a hand to a kid. And that’s why corporal punishment in schools is an even thornier issue, as highlighted by a Texas school district’s recent decision to change its spanking policy. After two parents complained that their daughters had been beaten hard enough to develop bruises and burnlike redness on their skin, the Springtown school board voted last week to amend its corporal-punishment rules. Rather than abolishing the practice, however, the board members took pains to preserve teachers’ ability to physically discipline students: parents must now opt in with written permission allowing their children to be paddled when teachers feel it&#8217;s justified; previously, parents had to opt out of corporal punishment. The school board also expanded its spanking policy overall by deciding to allow teachers to punish students of the opposite gender. Parents can now designate whether they&#8217;re O.K. with a male or female school official doling out the paddling. The initial complaints from the two parents had centered on the fact that their daughters were punished by a male teacher, violating Springtown’s then requirement that same-gender teachers carry out any physical punishment. (MORE: The First Real-Time Study of Parents Spanking Their Kids) A bigger question for many is why some states still allow corporal punishment in schools at all. Texas is one of 19 states that permit principals or teachers to put kids under the paddle. (However, 97 of the U.S.&#8217;s 100 largest school districts have banned corporal punishment.) While there isn’t much research specifically on the effects of corporal punishment in schools, the matter has been studied extensively in the home. And the consensus is that spanking isn&#8217;t effective in properly disciplining children, at least not if the goal is to control children’s behavior over the long term or help them understand what&#8217;s appropriate behavior. “There isn’t a<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=70424&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Parenting</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/family-parenting/parenting/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/143276826spankingcrop.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Mother spanking girl</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">apark7</media:title>
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		<title>Does Marijuana Use by Teens Really Cause a Drop in IQ?</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/28/does-weekly-marijuana-use-by-teens-really-cause-a-drop-in-iq/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/28/does-weekly-marijuana-use-by-teens-really-cause-a-drop-in-iq/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 28 Aug 2012 20:00:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Drugs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cannabis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[intelligence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[IQ]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marijuana]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teens]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=67503</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Heavy marijuana use is associated with cognitive decline in about 5% of teens, according to a new study, which suggests that the heaviest users could lose 8 IQ points. In the report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, research conducted in New Zealand showed that teens who started smoking marijuana before age 18 and were diagnosed as being addicted to cannabis by age 38 experienced an IQ drop in early adulthood. But users who began smoking after age 18 — even if they used heavily — did not show a significant decline. “The effect of cannabis on IQ is really confined to adolescent users,” says lead author Madeline Meier, a postdoctoral researcher at Duke University. “Our hypothesis is that we see this IQ decline in adolescence because the adolescent brain is still developing and if you introduce cannabis, it might interrupt these critical developmental processes.” The authors followed 1,037 children born in the town of Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1972 and 1973 — virtually every child. They defined adolescent use as at least weekly use before turning 18. In looking at the relationship between marijuana use and IQ, they controlled for factors like years of education, schizophrenia and use of alcohol or other drugs that might also have an effect on IQ. While education weakened the relationship, it still did not eliminate it. Researchers also had family members and friends of the participants confidentially rate them on attention and memory skills and those who had lost IQ points showed problems in these areas. Meier notes that an eight-point decline in IQ for someone with average intelligence (an IQ score of 100, the 50th percentile) would move that person down to the 29th percentile. “It&#8217;s fairly substantial but it does depend on where you start out,” she says. “I think this is the cleanest study I’ve ever read” exploring the long term effects of marijuana use, Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told the Associated Press. (MORE: Can Addictive Behaviors Be Predicted<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=67503&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Drugs</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/drugs/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/200273910-001a.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">200273910-001a</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
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		<title>Antipsychotic Prescriptions in Children Have Skyrocketed: Study</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/09/antipsychotic-prescriptions-in-children-have-skyrocketed-study/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/09/antipsychotic-prescriptions-in-children-have-skyrocketed-study/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 09 Aug 2012 18:46:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Child Development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Drugs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[antipsychotic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[antipsychotic drugs in children]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[antipsychotics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[drugging children]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[geodon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pharmaceutical marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pharmaceuticals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[risperdal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[zyprexa]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=66047</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Since 1993, the rate of antipsychotic drug prescribing to children increased by a factor of nearly eight, while prescribing to teens quintupled and in adults nearly doubled, according to a new study. Virtually all of this growth was seen in prescriptions for second-generation, or so-called atypical antipsychotic medications, which are often dispensed off label — meaning the drugs are prescribed for conditions that they are not specifically approved by the government to treat. Once a drug is allowed on the market, however, doctors are at liberty to use the drug for other conditions: antipsychotics were originally approved to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but these disorders are uncommon in adults and even more rare in children. There is much evidence that the vast increases in atypical antipsychotic prescribing in recent decades were fueled by the aggressive marketing tactics of drug companies. In recent years, every major manufacturer of atypical antipsychotics has been involved in the illegal marketing of the drugs (while doctors can prescribe drugs off label, it is against the law for drug makers to market them for off-label uses), each ultimately paying hundreds of millions to billions of dollars in fines for their sales and marketing tactics. The settlements with the U.S. government were among the largest in history. (MORE: Drugging the Vulnerable: Atypical Antipsychotics in Children and the Elderly) In June, for example, Johnson and Johnson reportedly agreed to pay up to $2.2 billion for illegally promoting a variety of drugs, primarily the atypical antipsychotic Risperdal — and even that giant settlement with the government doesn&#8217;t resolve several other state lawsuits against the company, seeking billions more, for related offenses. In 2009, Eli Lilly was similarly made to pay $1.4 billion in fines related mainly to the illegal marketing of its antipsychotic drug Zyprexa — $615 million of that to settle criminal charges. Further, as we reported last year: The charges against Lilly involved selling Zyprexa to doctors for use in children, despite the fact that it was not approved for this age group. Bristol Myers Squibb<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=66047&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Drugs</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/drugs/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/98877398a.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">98877398a</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
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		<title>Severely Obese Kids Have Heart Disease Risk Factors as Early as Age 2</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/24/severely-obese-kids-have-heart-disease-risk-factors-as-early-as-age-2/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/24/severely-obese-kids-have-heart-disease-risk-factors-as-early-as-age-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 24 Jul 2012 13:45:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Laura Blue</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Child Development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Childhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Diabetes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Diet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Diet & Fitness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Exercise]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Heart Disease]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obesity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Prevention]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=64495</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s well-known that obesity can be linked to high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and ultimately to death. But now a new Dutch study is linking severe obesity to cardiovascular risk factors even among kids as young as 2 years old. The nationwide study in the Netherlands found that two-thirds (67%) of severely obese kids already have at least one heart disease risk factor: high blood pressure, high LDL (&#8220;bad&#8221;) cholesterol, low HDL (&#8220;good&#8221;) cholesterol, or high total cholesterol, high triglycerides, high fasting blood glucose or Type 2 diabetes. The data come from doctors&#8217; clinical records across the country. From July 2005 to July 2007, every pediatrician working in a general hospital in the Netherlands was asked to report all new cases of severe obesity among children aged 2 to 18 (with the definition of &#8220;severe obesity&#8221; varying by age and gender). Then, a group known as the Dutch Pediatric Surveillance Unit tabulated the numbers and asked the pediatricians to report each case&#8217;s age, sex, ethnicity and family circumstances, as well as measurements of blood pressure, fasting blood glucose, cholesterol and triglycerides. In total, 500 cases of severe childhood obesity were reported. Of course, in the U.S. too, there are signs of early heart-disease development among overweight young people. A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that, just as in the Netherlands, roughly two-thirds of obese U.S. teens have at least one cardiovascular risk factor. More alarmingly, that study found that among all U.S. teens, even those who are not currently overweight, roughly one quarter have diabetes or pre-diabetes. What&#8217;s most remarkable about the new Dutch study, however, is that it finds signs of heart disease even among much younger children still. Among the severely obese Dutch boys and girls aged 2 to 12, 62% showed one or more risk factors. Roughly half of those youngsters were hypertensive. Writing in the medical journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, the Dutch researchers note that out of the hundreds of children diagnosed as severely obese, &#8220;Only one<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=64495&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Prevention</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/prevention/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/600_obese-kid.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">600_obese kid</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">Laura Blue</media:title>
		</media:content>
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		<title>New Abuse Allegations Arise at Drug Treatment Programs Owned by Bain Capital</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/20/new-abuse-allegations-arise-at-drug-treatment-programs-owned-by-bain-capital/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/20/new-abuse-allegations-arise-at-drug-treatment-programs-owned-by-bain-capital/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 20 Jul 2012 17:26:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[abusive teen programs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[aspen education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bain Capital]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[child abuse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CRC health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mitt romney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mount bachelor academy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sexual abuse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teen rehab]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teen treatment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tough love]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[troubled teens]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=64301</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In an extensive expose published this week, Salon uncovered new allegations of abuse and neglect of teenagers and adult patients — some leading to death — at drug-treatment centers owned by CRC Health, which is in turn owned by Bain Capital, the private equity firm formerly managed by presidential candidate Mitt Romney. In previous reports, TIME has also investigated the so-called troubled-teen industry, revealing maltreatment at the residential treatment center Mount Bachelor Academy (now closed), where counselors subjected residents to sexualized role play under the guise of treatment, and the Sage Walk wilderness program, where neglect led to the death of a teen in 2009. Both programs are owned by Aspen Education, a subsidiary of CRC Health. Now, Salon&#8217;s Art Levine reports that new allegations of abuse have arisen at Aspen programs and other CRC-owned centers: Our investigation found previously unreported allegations of abuse and neglect in at least 10 CRC residential drug and teen care facilities across the country, including three I visited undercover in Utah and California. With rare exceptions, such incidents have largely escaped notice because the programs are, thanks to lax state regulations, largely unaccountable. Court documents and ex-staffers also allege that such incidents reflect, in part, a broader corporate culture at Aspen’s owner, CRC Health Group, a leading national chain of treatment centers. Lawsuits and critics have claimed that CRC prizes profits, and the avoidance of outside scrutiny, over the health and safety of its clients. (We sent specific questions on these basic allegations to CRC and owner Bain Capital. CRC would answer only general questions; Bain did not reply.) And CRC’s corporate culture, in turn, reflects the attitudes and financial imperatives of Bain Capital, the private equity firm founded by Mitt Romney. (The Romney campaign also did not reply to written questions.) Bain is known for its relentless obsession with maximizing shareholder value and revenues. (MORE: Teens Made to Do Lap Dances as &#8216;Therapy&#8217; at Mount Bachelor Academy) The systemic nature of abuse at these programs also stems from the ideology behind most addiction treatment programs in America, which<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=64301&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Adolescence</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/adolescence-mental-health/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
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		<title>Is This Teen Angst or an Uncontrollable Anger Disorder?</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/03/is-this-teen-angst-or-an-uncontrollable-anger-disorder/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/03/is-this-teen-angst-or-an-uncontrollable-anger-disorder/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 03 Jul 2012 14:15:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alexandra Sifferlin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Behavior]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Teens]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[anger]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[IED]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[intermittent explosive disorder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teens]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=63204</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[With all those raging hormones, every teenager is bound to &#8220;lose it&#8221; at one time or another. But a recent study suggests that adolescents&#8217; attacks of anger may indicate something more serious than your standard puberty-related mood swings: nearly two-thirds of youth report having had a bout of uncontrollable anger that involved threatening violence, destroying property or engaging in violence toward others, and nearly 8% — or close to 6 million teens — meet the criteria for intermittent explosive disorder (IED), which is characterized by persistent, out-of-control anger attacks that can&#8217;t be explained by a mental or medical disorder or substance use. The findings, by researchers at Harvard Medical School, came from national surveys of nearly 6,500 American teens, aged 13 to 17, and their parents. The researchers found that IED was more common than thought, and that it is severe and persistent; kids usually start showing signs of IED in late childhood and the disorder persists through adolescence, the authors say. IED in teens is also linked with later problems, like depression and substance abuse in adulthood. The study found, however, that many teens weren&#8217;t getting the help they needed. Among the study participants, 38% of those with IED received treatment for emotional problems in the year prior to the survey, but only 17% of these teens — or just 6.5% of all teens who had diagnosable IED — had received treatment specifically for anger. (MORE: Study: Playing a Video Game Helps Teens Beat Depression) If IED could be detected and treated early, however, clinicians could help prevent a substantial amount of future violence and related mental harms, said senior author Ronald Kessler, professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School. To meet the definition of IED, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a person must have three episodes of &#8220;impulsive aggressiveness grossly out of proportion to any precipitating psychosocial stressor,&#8221; at any time during their lives. In the current study, the researchers also used narrower definitions of IED that required attacks of anger within the previous<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=63204&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Teens</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/family-parenting/teens-family-parenting/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/108221074.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">108221074</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/dd9dc95ff828efb70c16a5a509a75150?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">asifferlin</media:title>
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		<title>Teens Taking ADHD Drugs to Get Good Grades: How Big a Problem Is It?</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/11/kids-taking-adhd-drugs-to-get-good-grades-how-big-a-problem-is-it/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/11/kids-taking-adhd-drugs-to-get-good-grades-how-big-a-problem-is-it/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 11 Jun 2012 18:24:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Drugs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Teens]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[adderall]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[amphetamine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cognitive enhancement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[performance enhancement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prescription drugs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prescription stimulants]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ritalin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[speed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stimulants]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[study drugs]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=61626</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There&#8217;s an epidemic afoot in the country&#8217;s selective high schools: ambitious students under pressure to succeed are increasingly abusing stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall, which they consider as essential as SAT tutors for getting into an Ivy League college. At least that&#8217;s the case according to a most-emailed front page story in Sunday&#8217;s New York Times. But the data on stimulant use from national surveys tells a very different story. The Times&#8216; Alan Schwarz writes: At high schools across the United States, pressure over grades and competition for college admissions are encouraging students to abuse prescription stimulants, according to interviews with students, parents and doctors. Pills that have been a staple in some college and graduate school circles are going from rare to routine in many academically competitive high schools, where teenagers say they get them from friends, buy them from student dealers or fake symptoms to their parents and doctors to get prescriptions. The story contends that an estimated 15% to 40% of students at high-achieving high schools use prescription stimulants to get ahead; these drugs, designed to ease symptoms of ADHD, can sharpen focus and enhance performance in people without the disorder. But national statistics don’t really support the idea that misuse of these drugs among high-school students is growing. Indeed, according to the data, it would be hard to believe that modern-day kids are even approaching the rate of misuse of their parents&#8217; or grandparents&#8217; generations. The National Institute on Drug Abuse’s Monitoring the Future (MTF) study has gathered annual statistics on high school and college drug use from tens of thousands of people since 1975. The sampling is randomized and the questions are carefully designed to get the most accurate picture possible and avoid differences between those who are willing to be surveyed and those who are not. The Times, in contrast, contacted 200 students, parents and school officials for its story, only 40 of whom agreed to talk — a 20% response rate that, at least for a scientific publication, wouldn&#8217;t be acceptable as unbiased.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=61626&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Drugs</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/drugs/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/stuents-taking-exams.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">students taking exams</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/0a5ac57e99124922fa628492ad3db6b2?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
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		<title>Teens Improve on Most Risky Behaviors, but 1 in 3 Text While Driving: CDC</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/07/teens-improve-on-most-risky-behaviors-but-1-in-3-text-while-driving-cdc/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/07/teens-improve-on-most-risky-behaviors-but-1-in-3-text-while-driving-cdc/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Jun 2012 19:55:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[adolescents]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CDC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cigarettes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Drugs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marijuana]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sexual behavior]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teens]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[texting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[texting-while-driving]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[youth risk behavior survey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[yrbs]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=61399</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Despite constant fears that each generation of teens behaves more dangerously than the last, a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests that overall, the kids are all right — at least compared with their older siblings and parents’ generations. The 2011 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey, released on Thursday, finds dramatic declines in risky behaviors, including thoughts of suicide and binge drinking, over the last two decades. However, new risk behaviors, such as texting while driving, have risen. (MORE: Distracted Teen Driving: The Hazards of Having Friends in the Car) The survey, which has been conducted every other year since 1991, includes data on 15,000 high school students. First, the good news: —Drinking before driving by youth fell from 17% in 1997 to just 8% last year, and the percentage of teens who rode in a car driven by someone who drank fell from 40% to 24% over the last 20 years —The percentage of youth who rarely or never wear seatbelts is down from 26% two decades ago to 8% last year —Smoking is down dramatically: in 1991, 70% of youth reported ever trying a cigarette, while in 2011, just 45% did —Even binge drinking has declined — last year 22% of high-schoolers reported binging (having five or more drinks within several hours) at least once in the previous month, compared with 31% in 1991 —The percentage of youth reporting having four or more sexual partners fell, going from 19% in 1991 to 15% in 2011 (MORE: More Deadly Crashes after Dark Linked to Teen Cell Use) “This shows that we’re making great progress in helping our nation’s youth,” said Howell Wechsler, director of the CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health, in a teleconference announcing the results. However, for the first time ever in this survey, more kids reported past-month marijuana smoking than cigarette smoking: 23% to 18%. Marijuana use rose slightly between 2009 and 2011, going from 21% of high-school kids to 23%. Perhaps more worrying is another statistic reported for the<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=61399&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Adolescence</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/adolescence-mental-health/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/texting-while-driving.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">texting while driving</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/0a5ac57e99124922fa628492ad3db6b2?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
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		<title>Do Family Dinners Really Reduce Teen Drug Use?</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/07/do-family-dinners-really-reduce-teen-drug-use/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/07/do-family-dinners-really-reduce-teen-drug-use/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Jun 2012 14:25:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Drugs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Teens]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[delinquency]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Depression]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[drug prevention]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[family dinner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[family dinners]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teen depression]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teen drug use]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teens]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=61203</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Few would disagree that sitting down to dinner together as a family is a good thing. It can help families eat healthier, encourage meaningful conversation and according to some addiction researchers, it even keeps kids from using drugs. Indeed, dining together has been so widely touted as a critical anti-drug measure that the fourth Monday in September has been designated &#8220;Family Day — A Day to Eat Dinner with Your Children&#8221; and is observed in all 50 states. In 2009, President Barack Obama even recognized Family Day in an official proclamation. “America’s drug problem is not going to be solved in courtrooms or legislative hearing rooms by judges and politicians. It will be solved in living rooms and dining rooms and across kitchen tables — by parents and families,” declares Joseph Califano, the founder of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, which created Family Day, on the center&#8217;s website. (SPECIAL: &#8216;Healthy&#8217; Foods that Really Aren&#8217;t: Nutritionists Weigh In) Problem is, the data don&#8217;t clearly show that family dinners alone are what matter. According to a large new study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, teens who dine together with their families aren&#8217;t any less likely to use drugs or become delinquent in the long run, compared with teens who eat fewer family dinners. The reason previous studies found such a strong association, the researchers say, is that they didn&#8217;t last long enough to gauge the full effect or they failed to control for family-related factors other than dinner that can influence children&#8217;s drug and delinquency risk. For instance, consider the kinds of families who are least likely to share meals regularly: those with actively addicted or alcoholic parents, families with disengaged parents, those in which parents are in the midst of intense family conflict, and families with demanding jobs or economic hardships that simply don’t permit parents and kids to spend much time together. All of these factors are independently linked with problematic teen behavior. In contrast, parents who have high-quality relationships with their children, those who are<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=61203&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Drugs</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/drugs/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/88583885.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Family Dinner</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
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		<title>Profanity in Teen Novels: Characters Who Curse Are Often the Most Desirable</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/18/profanity-in-teen-novels-characters-with-foul-language-are-often-the-most-desirable/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/18/profanity-in-teen-novels-characters-with-foul-language-are-often-the-most-desirable/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 18 May 2012 16:00:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alexandra Sifferlin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[books]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[curse words]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[profanities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[profanity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reading]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teen literature]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teen novels]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=59763</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In a recent analysis of best-selling teen novels, researchers from Brigham Young University report that young readers encounter about seven instances of profanity per hour — and those characters with the dirtiest mouths are often the richest, most popular and best-looking. As with so many things, surmise the researchers, parents are probably in the dark about the trash their kids are reading. Brigham Young University professor Sarah Coyne and her colleagues analyzed profanity use in 40 teen novels on the New York Times&#8217; best-seller list of children’s books published in 2008. All the books reviewed targeted children age 9 or older. (MORE: TV On in the Background? It’s Still Bad for Kids) The researchers defined profanity as any language considered obscene, offensive, taboo or vulgar by the American public. They categorized profanities into five groups: The Seven Dirty Words: Words the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) considers unspeakable for broadcast television. Sexual Words: Words describing body parts or sexual behavior in a coarse way. Excretory Words: Words that have direct or literal reference to human waste. Strong Others: Words defined as strong based on their level of offensiveness or “taboo-ness.” Mild Others: Words that are mild based on their level of offensiveness or “taboo-ness.&#8221; (MORE: Children Who Hear Swear Words on TV Are More Aggressive) The researchers found that on average, teen novels contain 38 instances of profanity, which translates to nearly seven curse words per hour of reading. Of the 40 books in the study, 88% contained at least one &#8220;bad word.&#8221; Some books were especially laden with dirty words. For instance, the novel Tweak contained 500 instances of profanities. The “F-word” alone appeared 139 times in Tweak, 50 times in Gossip Girl–The Carlyle and 27 times in the novel Tempted. The novels with the foulest language were typically aimed at older adolescents ages 14 and up. Five of the novels did not contain any profanity, with all but one of those falling in the reading category for 9- to 11-year-olds. “I had no clue there would be that type of content in those books,&#8221; says Coyne. &#8220;If<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=59763&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Adolescence</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/adolescence-mental-health/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/96572538.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">96572538</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">asifferlin</media:title>
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		<title>Distracted Teen Driving: The Hazards of Having Friends in the Car</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/25/distracted-driving-additional-passengers-hinder-teen-drivers/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/25/distracted-driving-additional-passengers-hinder-teen-drivers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:00:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alexandra Sifferlin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[car accident]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[children's hospital of philadelphia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[distracted driving]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[driving]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[passengers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[State Farm]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[state laws]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teens]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=52188</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s a well-known fact that driving with friends can increase a teen’s crash risk, which is why many states have laws restricting the number of passengers that teen drivers can transport. Now researchers from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and State Farm insurance have shed light on why teens&#8217; driving skills can spin out of control when friends are in the car. Car accidents are the No. 1 cause of death among U.S. teens, who are four times as likely as adult drivers to be involved in fatal crashes. Two new studies published in the Journal of Adolescent Health pinpoint which teens are likely to drive with friends and how extra passengers can hinder their driving before a crash. In one study that surveyed 198 teen drivers, researchers found that those teens most likely to drive with multiple passengers were “thrill-seekers&#8221; who didn&#8217;t accurately perceive the risks inherent in driving and suspect that their parents are not monitoring their behavior. MORE: More Deadly Crashes after Dark Linked to Teen Cell Use Thankfully, these teens are in the minority, says study author Jessica Mirman, behavioral researcher at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP) at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Most teens reported an understanding for driving risks and rules set by their parents, according to the research. In a second study, researchers analyzed a nationally representative sample of 677 teen drivers involved in serious crashes. They compared the likelihood of driver distraction and risk-taking just before the crash, when teens were driving with additional passengers and when they were solo. Both male and female drivers were more likely to be distracted before a crash if they were accompanied by passengers. Of those drivers who reported being distracted by activity inside their car before a crash, 71% of males and 47% of females said they were distracted directly by their passengers. When compared with males driving alone, males with passengers were almost six times more likely to perform an illegal maneuver and more than twice as likely to drive aggressively before a crash. Overall, females rarely drove aggressively<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=52188&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Adolescence</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/adolescence-mental-health/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/driver.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">driver</media:title>
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		<title>Brain Changes in Video Gamers: Addiction or Just People Having Fun?</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/18/brain-changes-in-video-gamers-addiction-or-just-people-having-fun/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/18/brain-changes-in-video-gamers-addiction-or-just-people-having-fun/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 18 Nov 2011 18:32:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Addiction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[behavioral addiction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gambling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gambling addiction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gaming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[striatum]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teens]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[videogame addiction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[videogames]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=47531</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A new study finds changes in brain regions associated with addiction in frequent video gaming teenagers. But the findings raise questions about whether such research is really relevant to the understanding of true addiction. Led by psychologist Simone Kuhn of the University of Ghent in Belgium, scientists studied 154 normal 14-year-old videogamers. About half were frequent gamers who played at least 9 hours of video games a week. The others were less frequent gamers whose playing time didn&#8217;t reach that amount. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the researchers scanned the teens&#8217; brains and found that frequent gamers had a greater volume of gray matter — indicating a higher number of brain cell bodies — on the left side of a brain region called the ventral striatum, which is known to play a role in reward and addiction. Further, while inside a functional MRI scanner, participants performed a task that involved pushing buttons to get varying levels of points for correct responses. Teens were advised in advance of how many points the correct answer would earn on each trial and were kept informed of their scores. The task was designed to gauge brain activity as the participants&#8217; anticipated and received (or lost) a reward. Frequent gamers showed higher levels activity in the left ventral striatum when they received feedback about losing points — activity that mirrors that seen in addicted gamblers. Outside of the scanner, the teens were also tested on a gambling task, in which they had to bet on the color of a hidden object, under conditions of greater or lesser probability of a correct answer. Frequent gaming teens made decisions more quickly during this task. MORE: Why Kids With High IQs Are More Likely to Take Drugs Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of studies have associated the striatum with reward, motivation and desire. This brain region is rich in dopamine cells and helps guide decision-making and the pursuit of desired experiences and goals. Changes in this region have also been seen in drug addictions, sometimes showing increased volume, sometimes<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=47531&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Adolescence</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/adolescence-mental-health/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/video_games.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">video_games</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">MaiaSzalavitz</media:title>
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		<title>Teens&#8217; IQ May Rise or Fall Over Time</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2011/10/21/teens-iq-may-rise-or-fall-over-time/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2011/10/21/teens-iq-may-rise-or-fall-over-time/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Oct 2011 16:54:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maia Szalavitz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adolescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[adolescent]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cathy Price]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ed Yong]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[intelligence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[IQ]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[labeling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Robert Sternberg]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teen]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teens]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=45408</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The brain undergoes more change in adolescence than at any other time of life, save before birth and during infancy. That may help explain why teenagers&#8217; IQ can fluctuate significantly over time, as a new study finds, registering large enough changes to move a child from &#8220;average&#8221; to &#8220;gifted&#8221; or in the other direction, to below average intelligence. Cathy Price, a neuroscientist at University College London, led the research, imaging the brains of 33 teens, first in 2004 when they were aged 12 to 16, then again in 2007 or 2008 when they were 15 to 20 years old. The researchers also tested the teens&#8217; IQ. The group&#8217;s average IQ stayed the same, but 21% of teens showed large changes, as much as 20 points. &#8220;It&#8217;s a huge difference,&#8221; Price said. About the same number of teens saw IQ improvement as decline. &#8220;It was not the case that the young low performers got better and the young high performers averaged out. Some high performers got even better and some low performers got even worse,&#8221; says Price. &#8220;Initially we were concerned that it was measurement error,&#8221; Price says, explaining that IQ has largely been thought to remain constant over time. &#8220;But we found that the degree to which IQ changed matched the degree to which brain structure changed. Since the two measurements were independent, this cannot be explained by error.&#8221; MORE: New Efforts to Crack Down on Residential Programs for Troubled Teens Commenting on the new research, Oklahoma University professor Robert Sternberg, who was not involved in the study, told the Guardian&#8216;s Ed Yong that a &#8220;testing industry has developed around the notion that IQ is relatively fixed and pretty well set in the early years of life. This study shows in a compelling way that meaningful changes can occur throughout the teenage years.&#8221; Sternberg knows this from personal experience. As I wrote when I interviewed him for a story (paywalled article here) on the effects of labeling children for the Washington Post: Sternberg&#8230;did poorly on IQ tests. &#8220;The teachers thought I wasn&#8217;t<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=45408&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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