Bhubaneswar: A boy strikes a stick to a vessel, another suddenly turns hyper--rushing in to performs a vault in the air preceded by a handstand and tries to contort his agile, slender body into impossible acrobatics. Another kid tries to catch attention of the passers by to the act on the busy streets of Bhubaneswar and gather whatever money they throw in a bag.
Meet Siba, Ankit and their younger brother. The trio hailing from Gwalior of Madhya Pradesh have resorted to begging in the lane and by-lane of State Capital by performing acrobatic skills. All of them are school dropouts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFJgqoC-yls&feature=youtu.be
Even though huge resources are spent to protect the rights of children and for their development, enormous numbers of children can be still found on the city roads performing various acrobatic tricks to earn a living.
The scene has become rampant in the city by the days even as the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) has expressed helplessness in absence of proper government step.
Driven by acute poverty, their parents, who are also involved in similar activities to earn their daily bread and butter, have never thought of the future of their kids. "Our parents perform the tricks-locally called Baunsa Rani- and we also resort to similar things as a source of income", said the minor boy Siba, who is the
drummer to the two performing kids.
Asked about their education and future, they remained mute and shifted attention saying- “We can earn better in this job”.
Not these three minor boys, but many like them have resorted to begging or are forced for begging at bus stops and railway platforms. “As it has become an easy way of earning. They and their parents do not think of something else as a better source of income. The mindset of the guardians towards their wards needs to be changed first,” CWC
member Benudhar Senapati said.
“The parents who engage their kids in begging could be arrested under existing laws. But,it will not resolve the children’s issues, rather would aggravate the situation. So, their parents should be rehabilitated properly by the government under poverty alleviation programme which would lead to the rehabilitation of the kids”, Senapati added.
Echoing same what the three siblings revealed, the CWC member said the Child Line (Bhubaneswar) had conducted a survey taking the case of 250 children. It found out that 67% parents are engaged in begging so also their children.
“The Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) has been launched by the government to help secure the rights of children. However, the benefit of the scheme failed to reach the vulnerable children”, the CWC member pointed out.
Moreover, an inter-departmental convergence is needed. “Taking Childline, the departments of Labour and Employment, Education, Home and Child & Women Welfare departments should form a special panel to address the children’s issues”.
Fluorosis is a condition that affects the teeth caused by overexposure to fluoride during the first eight years of life.
Fluoride is a mineral found in water and soil. More than 70 years ago, scientists discovered that people whose drinking water naturally had more fluoride also had fewer cavities. That led to addition of fluoride to tap water, toothpaste, mouthwash and other products.
However, the study showed that when teeth are forming, too much fluoride can lead to tooth streaking or spottiness or dental fluorosis.
In addition, the study found that although experts recommend no more than a pea-sized amount, about 40 per cent of kids aged three to six used a brush that was full or half-full of toothpaste.
"Fluoride is a wonderful benefit but it needs to be used carefully," Mary Hayes, pediatric dentist in Chicago was quoted by Daily Mail.
For the study, the researchers from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention included parents of more than 5,000 kids ages three to 15.
Although the researchers did not determine how many kids developed streaked or spotty teeth as a result of using too much toothpaste, they recommended children under three are only supposed to use a smear of toothpaste the size of a grain of rice, reported Daily Mail.
Kids aged three to six should keep it to a pea-sized amount.
Young kids may push for independence in brushing their teeth, but kids' toothpaste tastes sweet, according to the team.
"You don't want them eating it like food. We want the parent to be in charge of the toothbrush and the toothpaste," noted Hayes.
A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch late Friday that it was experimenting with the "LOL" hub for kids. "We are running a small scale test and the concept is in the early stages right now," the spokesperson said in a statement.
Divided into categories like "For You", "Animals", "Fails" and "Pranks", "LoL" will be a special feed of funny videos and GIF-like clips.
The company is yet to decide if "LOL" will become a stand-alone app or be available in the main Facebook app.
"'LOL' is currently in private beta with around 100 high school students who signed non-disclosure agreements with parental consent to do focus groups and one-on-one testing with Facebook staff," said the report.
According to social media experts, this is yet another attempt by Facebook -- embroiled in several data breach and privacy violation cases -- to get into a yet-to-be-tapped market to boost its stalled user growth.
"It may not be a good idea to again start some specific social media platform for tender minds especially when the content is not guided. There has been a call globally to limit the screen time for kids and Facebook is somehow trying to hook them onto screens," Anoop Mishra, one of the nation's leading social media experts, told IANS on Saturday.
Despite call for withdrawal by experts, Facebook has decided to expand the reach of its Messenger Kids by introducing the video calling and messaging app designed for children under 13. The Messenger Kids app was launched in the US in 2017.
In 2018, more than 100 child health experts wrote an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, urging him to discontinue the app.
"At a time when there is mounting concern about how social media use affects adolescents' well being, it is particularly irresponsible to encourage children as young as pre-schoolers to start using a Facebook product," the authors wrote.
British Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt also warned the social media giant to stay away from his children.
"Facebook told me they would come back with ideas to PREVENT underage use of their product, but instead they are actively targeting younger children. Stay away from my kids please Facebook and act responsibly!" Hunt had posted on Twitter.
Responding to the backlash that Facebook's Messenger Kids is facing, a top executive of the social network said that families would be better off because the video calling and messaging app designed for the under 13s exists. "I firmly believe that it is a good product," said David Marcus, Facebook's Vice President of Messaging Products.
But experts feel that the app's overall impact on families and society is likely to be negative, and it could normalise social media use among young children by creating peer pressure.
"With the growing incidences of child trafficking, wrong marketing messaging amid absence of proper guidelines, such new apps meant for kids can be another cause of concerns for parents," stressed Mishra.
With over a billion users, Facebook-owned photo-sharing platform Instagram is currently very popular among teenagers.
Facebook has over 2.2 billion users globally, including 300 million in India.
The company last year launched a short-form video app called "Lasso" but the app did not gained much popularity.
The results, led by researchers from the Brown University in Rhode Island, US, suggested that mothers who used marijuana increased their children's risk for its early use, at a median age of 16, as compared with age 18 for children whose mothers did not use the drug.
While marijuana has been recognised as a therapeutic benefit for a number of health conditions, including a safer alternative to opioids, it has been linked with negative consequences among children.
Early usage of cannabis may lead to conditions such as impairments in concentration and decision-making, increased impulsivity, as well as reductions in IQ.
The younger a child begins using marijuana, the more severe the effects would be. Therefore, delaying marijuana initiation may be an important public health goal, the researchers said.
"Beginning marijuana use at a young age has been linked with negative cognitive and behavioural consequences," said Natasha Sokol, a postdoctoral student at the varsity.
"It's important to better understand how these changes may impact children's early marijuana use so that we can better identify at-risk youth and implement effective prevention strategies," she added.
For the study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the team assessed the timing and extent of marijuana use and initiation among 4,440 children and 2,586 mothers.
They tested the effect of a mother's marijuana use between a child's birth and age 12 on that child's subsequent risk of marijuana initiation and controlling for factors related to the child's early life behaviour.
The researchers also analysed the impacts of mother's marijuana use on child's cognitive skills, family's socio-economic position and social environment.
Such resistance training, which allows muscles to contract and enables muscles and bones to strengthen, helps reduce children's body fat percentage, lowers their body mass index (BMI) as well as boosts metabolism, said researchers who examined 18 studies across eight countries including the US, Australia and Japan to reach this conclusion.
The study, published in the journal Sports Medicine, examined the effects of resistance training on body weight for the 9-18 age group.
"The results showed positive effect resistance training can have on maintaining a healthy weight and reducing body fat for young people," said Helen Collins, doctoral student at Britain's University of Edinburgh.
While resistance training decreased body fat, it had no overall effect on other measures, including lean muscle mass, body mass index and waist circumference.
"Treatment, and more importantly, prevention, of child obesity is a growing concern," Collins said. "Our findings highlight the need for more robust research into the role strength-based exercises can play in helping everyone make healthy life choices and be more physically active".
Also Read: Struggling to Lose Weight… Know The Mistakes You Might Be Doing
An increase in muscle mass -- gained from strength-based exercises -- could also help boost children's metabolism and energy levels, the researchers added.
The effects were small but meaningful, prompting calls for further research to investigate how resistance training could treat and prevent the growing issue of child obesity.
Known as "Older", the setting is targeted towards children between ages eight to 12, the Google-owned content sharing platform said in a blog post on Friday.
"We have launched a new experience geared toward eight-12 year olds that includes additional new content, like popular music and gaming videos," the post said.
"We've launched parent-approved content to allow parents to handpick every video and channel available to their child in the app. It is available today globally on Android and coming soon to iOS," it added.
Parents can choose the "Older" version, while setting up a new profile or updating an existing profile.
They can also search for a specific creator or video for content they wish to show their kids.
"However, once parents choose to enable this mode, their kids will not be able to search for content on their own," the firm said.
YouTube had launched the "parent-approved content" system in April.
The company promised to roll out three options under YouTube Kids -- collections by trusted partners, parent approved content and improved search-off control for an even more contained experience.
The "Younger" version -- focussed on children below eight years -- is the default content experience and will continue to have a wide selection of sing-alongs and age-appropriate learning videos.
Parents can change between "Younger," "Older" and parent-approved content at any time, the company said.
The company has begun to roll-out the "Older" feature in the US and plans to expand it globally.
She revealed all to Vogue magazine as the couple holidayed in the South of France.
The couple sat down with seven-year-old daughter Harper, and her three teenage brothers to reassure them their marriage was solid after David was falsely linked to another woman.
The interview with the magazine was initially intended to mark her 10 years in fashion. But she wanted to address claims which swept social media three months ago that she was divorcing, reports thesun.co.uk.
The fashion designer, 44, requested her husband to join her for the cover photograph - though a "sultry" solo one of Victoria was also taken.
A friend said the Beckhams are always "transparent" with their children.
Sources said: "Allegations about the state of their marriage and ridiculous claims about David are extremely hurtful, and obviously potentially very distressing for the kids.
"Whilst publicly they maintained a united front by laughing off the rumours, behind closed doors they've taken them much more seriously. They sat the children down and addressed these horrific, hurtful whispers.
"Both David and Victoria are very transparent with the kids to ensure they hear things directly from them - and not from the playground. After the latest furore, they once again took the decision to be open and honest with them, reassuring them Daddy is not a cheat."
The 34-year-old professional wrestler called off her engagement to Cena earlier this year over their differing views about parenting.
Bella now says hanging out with her 15-month-old niece Birdie has been like "birth control" for her, reports pagesix.com.
"She (Birdie) has been the best form of birth control for me. Here I was dying to be a mom. Now I want to push it back. Can my clock tick until my 40s?" Bella told The Post.
Instead of children, the she now believes ambition is what is keeping her and the "Blockers" actor apart.
"One person had to sacrifice their career (for us to be together), but I'm not willing to do that. I'm just not the girl who hangs out on set. I have my own career. I want to be one of Forbes' top entrepreneurs."
The former couple had previously pledged to try and work on their relationship following their split - which came just weeks before they were due to tie the knot - but admitted a month later that they were over for good.
The study says that resilience buffers and protects the children against internalizing the harm intended through situations of adversities like bullying both at home or school as well as online.
"Resilience is a potent protective factor, both in preventing experience with bullying and mitigating its effect," said Sameer Hinduja, Professor at the Florida Atlantic University in Florida.
"Resilient kids are those, who for a variety of reasons, are better able to withstand external pressures and setbacks and are less negatively impacted in their attitudes and actions than their less-equipped peers when facing this type of victimization," Hinduja added.
Although, the ability to be resilient comes naturally, it needs to be nurtured through social and environmental factors. as it enables kids to "bounce back" and successfully adapt to stressful situations, the researchers noted.
The study, published in the journal Child Abuse and Neglect, stated that instead, of constantly seeking to protect and insulate children, parents should help bolster their self-confidence, problem-solving ability, autonomy, and sense of purpose - which are all innate strengths.
The researcher studied over 1,204 youth between 12-17 years by a validated biopsychosocial 10-item resilience scale including various questions of tackling bullying and related stress.
The results demonstrated that students with higher levels of resilience were bullied at school or online less often.
Their experience with various forms of interpersonal peer harm also varied inversely with the students' self-reported level of resilience.
Diarrhoeal disease is the second leading cause of death for children under the age of five. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 361,000 children die of diarrhoeal disease every year because of poor access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene.
A 30 per cent increase in upstream tree cover in rural watersheds would have a comparable effect to improved water sanitation, such as the addition of indoor plumbing or toilets, said the study published in the journal Nature Communications.
"This suggests that protecting watersheds, in the right circumstances, can double as a public health investment," said Brendan Fisher from the University of Vermont in the US.
"This shows, very clearly, how 'natural infrastructure' can directly support human health and welfare," Fisher said.
The research is the first to use a massive new database that will enable "big data" approaches to study links between human health and the environment, globally.
"Looking at all of these diverse households in all these different countries, we find the healthier your watershed upstream, the less likely your kids are to get this potentially fatal disease," Taylor Ricketts of Gund Institute for Environment, University of Vermont, added.
The findings suggest that forests and other natural systems can complement traditional water sanitation systems and help compensate for a lack of infrastructure, Diego Herrera from the Environmental Defense Fund, a US-based non-profit, added.
The researchers hope the findings will help governments and development agencies to improve the health and environment of children around the world.
The findings showed that children who owned cell phones were significantly more likely to report being a victim of cyberbullying, especially in grades 3 and 4.
The increased risk could be tied to increased opportunity and vulnerability.
Continuous access to social media and texting increases online interactions, provides more opportunities to engage both positively and negatively with peers, and increases the chance of an impulsive response to peers' postings and messages, the researchers said.
"Parents often cite the benefits of giving their child a cell phone, but our research suggests that giving young children these devices may have unforeseen risks as well," said Elizabeth K. Englander, Professor at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts.
For the study, the team collected survey data on 4,584 students in grades 3, 4 and 5. Across all three grades, 49.6 per cent of students reported owning a cell phone. Overall, 9.5 per cent of children reported being a victim of cyberbullying.
Researchers also noted that the older the student, the more likely s/he was to own a cell phone: 59.8 percent of fifth graders, 50.6 percent of fourth graders, and 39.5 percent of third graders.
The results, to be presented at the 2017 American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference and Exhibition in Chicago on Monday, are a reminder for parents to consider the risks as well as the benefits when deciding whether to provide their elementary school-aged child with a cell phone.
"At the very least, parents can engage in discussions and education with their child about the responsibilities inherent in owning a mobile device, and the general rules for communicating in the social sphere," Englander said.
Cisplatin is commonly used to treat childhood cancers but can lead to permanent or severe high frequency hearing loss in nine out of 10 children following treatment.
Steroids can reduce cisplatin-induced hearing loss but they may also reduce the effectiveness of cisplatin's ability to kill cancer cells.
This means they need to be directly delivered to the cochlea to be effective and to avoid this side-effect.
In the study, the researchers used magnetic fields to push drug-covered iron nanoparticles into the cochlea or the inner ear and reduced hearing loss in mice treated with the chemotherapy drug cisplatin by 50 per cent.
"It is great news that progress is being made towards finding new ways to protect children's hearing following cancer treatment with cisplatin which causes the sensory hair cells in the cochlea that detect sound to die and can leave cancer survivors who have already gone through a traumatic experience depressed and isolated," said Ralph Holme, Director of Research at Action on Hearing Loss -- a UK-based charity.
The approach, published in Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience, is significantly more efficient than a normal intra-tympanic injection and could be used to deliver any drug to the ear and can also be used to deliver drugs into eyes or into the skin, the researchers noted.
Researchers anticipate that the novel approach could also be used to deliver a wide range of drug, gene and stem cell-based treatments to ultimately treat many different types of hearing loss.
"Given the secrecy that surrounds domestic violence, it is important that parents, the extended family and service providers understand the protective effects that strong family bonds can have," said Catherine Naughton from the University of Limerick in Ireland.
"This way, they can encourage young people affected to maintain the inherent sense of belonging within the extended family which, ultimately, can provide positive psychological support," Naughton added.
The study involved 465 young people aged between 17 and 25 years. They completed an online survey which asked about their experiences of parental/caregivers' domestic violence, family bonds and psychological well-being.
Analysis showed that exposure to parental/caregivers' domestic violence was associated with reduced self-esteem, increased anxiety and weaker family bonds in young adults when compared to those who grew up in non-affected homes.
However, the presence of strong family bonds did have a buffering effect in that, despite growing up in a home affected by domestic violence, some young adults who described strong family bonds also showed increased self-esteem and reduced anxiety.
This buffering effect of family bonds was seen when the domestic violence between their parents/caregivers was reported as either physical or psychological violence.
The findings were presented at the British Psychological Society's annual conference in Windsor.
Doctors caution against common swimming pool infections that are rampant during this time of the year.
Children with their not-fully-developed immune systems are more prone to catch infections at the swimming pools, though elders are equally at risk.
"Swimming pools, if not properly cleaned, can be the hub for many kinds of infections. Children usually get infections of ears, nose and throat during these days as they go swimming," Neeraj Kamboj, a Meerut-based senior paediatrician who has been dealing with such cases every day, told IANS on the phone.
"I almost every day get to see a few cases of children who go for swimming complaining of pain in their ears. Then there are cases of throat and nose infections too. Children also get conjunctivitis and skin diseases while swimming in the pools shared by other children," Kamboj added. But this can be prevented if a few things are kept in mind.
"Parents should go and inspect the swimming pool themselves for the hygiene and safety levels before they allow the children to join one. Also, never allow your child to go swimming if he has running nose or cough, etc," Kamboj advised.
"People should also use ear plugs during swimming," he adds.
The key to avoid infections is to look for a good swimming pool.
"A swimming pool should be properly cleaned and maintained to avoid infections. Those going into the pool must have a shower before entering the pool as well as after coming out," Manoj Mudgal, manager of swimming facilities at the YMCA here, told IANS.
There are also cases of some people urinating in the pool during swimming. Can this be avoided?
"Perhaps there is no way to check this, but the effects of urine in the pool can be neutralised through judicious use of chemicals like alum and chlorine," Mudgal added.
"The level of chlorine in the pool water should be low when people are using it," he explained.
Mudgal said that they always carry out a physical check-up of people before allowing them in the pool. "People usually have infections in the toes, between the fingers. So we keep potassium permanganate solution ready for people to wash their feet thoroughly before using the pool," Mudgal said.
However, all this should not deter parents from sending their children to a swimming pool. Swimming is not only a good exercise but also a life-saving skill.
"Every child should learn to swim. Parents should not be overtly worried and should not instruct too much to the child saying 'Don't do this or you will drown'. Just let them be and they would be fine," Mudgal suggested.
So, let your child enjoy the splash and learn an essential skill - with some precautions though.
Cellphone use at playgrounds is a significant source of parental guilt, as well as a powerful distraction when children try to get caregivers' attention, the researchers noted.
"Concerns on this topic are very prevalent, and a lot of people report feeling guilty about their own behaviours," said lead author Alexis Hiniker, doctoral student at University of Washington.
Among 466 adult caregivers studied, the largest group of parents, nannies and adult babysitters 44 percent felt they ought to restrict cellphone use while watching children at playgrounds but felt guilty for failing to live up to those ideals, the researchers found.
They also observed that caregivers absorbed in their phones were much less attentive to children's requests as comapred to their chatting with friends or caring for other children.
The most common cellphones on playgrounds were texting with friends and family, taking pictures and emailing. The study documented more than 40 hours of interactions at US playgrounds and collected data from 466 adult caregivers.
The researchers found that boredom often trumped guilt or fear of being judged and was the single biggest driver prompting people to dig cellphones out of their pockets or purses.
The findings were presented recently at the Association for Computing Machinery's CHI 2015 conference in Seoul, South Korea.
The researchers found that when garden grown vegetables were slipped into school salads, kids were over four times as likely to take a salad.
"This is a small study, but it suggests gardens can help children's diets," said lead author Brian Wansink from Cornell University.
This pilot study, conducted in the US, measured the change in vegetable selection and plate waste when school grown salad greens were incorporated in the cafeteria school lunch. The researchers measured the selections and plate waste of a total of 370 enrolled high school students over three separate days.
When the salad bar contained produce grown by students, the percentage of those who selected salads with their meals increased from two percent to 10 percent and on average, students ate two-thirds of their salads.
Overall, salad consumption for the entire student body increased from approximately five to 12 servings per day. This study implies the larger potential benefits of the school garden programmes.
"We see great promise with this research. The first hurdle in increasing vegetable consumption is simply getting kids to put them on their plate," co-author Drew Hanks from Ohio State University noted.
The study was published in the journal Acta Paediatrica.
"Over the past year we synthesised hundreds of studies and found evidence of strong correlations between antibiotic use, changes in gut bacteria, and disease in adulthood," said the study's senior author Dan Knights, assistant professor at University of Minnesota.
Antibiotics are by far the most common prescription drugs given to children. Other studies have shown profound short- and long-term effects of antibiotics on the diversity and composition of the bacteria in our bodies, called our microbiome.
In the current study, the researcher developed a framework to map how antibiotics may be acting in the gut to cause disease later in life.
In the case of allergies, for example, the use of antibiotics may eradicate key gut bacteria that help immune cells mature.
Related to obesity, antibiotic-induced changes in the gut microbiota resulted in increased levels of short-chain fatty acids that affect metabolism, the findings showed.
The researchers demonstrated that an infant's age could be predicted within 1.3 months based on the maturity of their gut bacteria.
The findings may lead to recommendations for antibiotic usage and a clinical test for measuring gut microbe development in children.
"We think these findings help develop a roadmap for future research to determine the health consequences of antibiotic use and for recommendations for prescribing them," Knights said.
The study appeared in the scientific journal Cell Host & Microbe.
The children do not even have to be bilingual themselves; it is the exposure to more than one language that is the key for building effective social communication skills, the study noted.
"Children in multilingual environments have extensive social practice in monitoring who speaks what to whom, and observing the social patterns and allegiances that are formed based on language usage," explained Katherine Kinzler, associate professor of psychology at University of Chicago.
Effective communication requires the ability to take others' perspectives and the researchers have discovered that children from multilingual environments are better at interpreting a speaker's meaning than children who are exposed only to their native tongue.
"These early socio-linguistic experiences could hone children's skills at taking other people's perspectives and provide them tools for effective communication," Kinzler noted.
The researchers had 72 four- to six-year-old children participate in a social communication task. In a test, the researchers found that the monolingual children were not as good at understanding the adult's intended meaning. But mere exposure to another language improved children's ability to understand the adult's perspective.
The study was published online in the journal Psychological Science.
Besides keeping children from being sedentary, physical activities such as structured sports have the potential to be enriching, both physically and mentally, said the study, published in the journal Pediatric Research.
"The elementary school years are a critical time in child development, and every parent wants to raise a well-adjusted child," said study lead author Frederic N. Briere, Professor at the University of Montreal in Canada.
For the study, the researchers took data from a cohort of children born in 1997 or 1998. They examined whether consistent participation in organised sport from ages six to 10 would minimize risks associated with emotional distress, anxiety, shyness, and social withdrawal at age 12.
"The results revealed that children who participated consistently from ages six to 10 showed fewer instances of those factors at age 12 than their counterparts who did not engage in physical activity in a consistent way," said Briere.
"Getting kids actively involved in organised sport seems to promote global development. This involvement appears to be good on a socio-emotional level and not just because of physical benefits," he added.
Being less emotionally distressed at the juncture between elementary and high school is a priceless benefit for children as they are about to enter a much larger universe with bigger academic challenges, said the researcher.
A study published in the journal Developmental Psychology shows that children tend to distribute their attention broadly, while adults use selective attention to focus on information they believe is most important.
According to the researchers, distributing attention may be adaptive for young children, and by being attentive to everything, they gather more information which helps them learn more.
The research suggests that this difference can actually help kids do better than adults in some learning situations.
For the study, 34 adults and 36 four-year-old children were analysed. Researchers provided adults and the children information that was irrelevant at the beginning of the experiment but suddenly becomes important for a task they had to complete.
"Adults had a hard time readjusting because they didn't learn the information they thought wouldn't be important," said Vladimir Sloutsky, Professor at The Ohio State University in the US.
"Children, on the other hand, recovered quickly to the new circumstances because they weren't ignoring anything. I'm sure a lot of parents will recognize that tendency of children to notice everything, even when you wish they wouldn't," he said.
Adding together all of a student's exam results, they found that students who said they rarely ate breakfast achieved nearly two grades lower than those who rarely missed their morning meal.
For the study, published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health, researchers from the University of Leeds demonstrated a link between eating breakfast and GCSE performance for secondary school students in the UK.
"Our study suggests that secondary school students are at a disadvantage if they are not getting a morning meal to fuel their brains for the start of the school day," said study lead researcher Katie Adolphus from the University of Leeds in UK.
"This research suggests that poor nutrition is associated with worse results at school," Adolphus said.
For the findings, the researchers surveyed 294 students from schools and colleges in West Yorkshire in 2011, and found that 29 per cent rarely or never ate breakfast on school days, while 18 per cent ate breakfast occasionally, and 53 per cent frequently.
Their figures are similar to the latest national data for England in 2019, which found that more than 16 per cent of secondary school children miss breakfast.
GCSE grades were converted to point scores using the Department for Education's 2012 system, where A* = 58, A = 52, B = 46, and so on.
Adding up students' scores across all subjects gave students an aggregated score.
Those who rarely ate breakfast scored on average 10.25 points lower than those who frequently ate breakfast, a difference of nearly two grades, after accounting for other important factors including socio-economic status, ethnicity, age, sex and BMI.
Looking at performance for each individual GCSE, they found that students who rarely ate breakfast scored on average 1.20 points lower than those who frequently ate breakfast, after accounting for other factors.
Each grade equates to six points, so the difference accounted for a drop of a fifth of a grade for every GCSE an individual achieved, the study said.
The increased rates were more pronounced among children of mothers with a history of CVD or diabetic complications, said the study published in the journal The BMJ.
"Our study provides evidence that children of mothers with diabetes, especially those with a history of CVD or with diabetic complications, had increased rates of early-onset CVD throughout the early decades of life," said study researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark.
If this association is shown to be causal, preventing, screening, and treating diabetes in women of childbearing age could be important not only for improving the health of the women but also for reducing long term risks of CVD in their offspring, the researchers added
The number of women diagnosed with diabetes before or during pregnancy has increased globally, and children of these women are more likely to have risk factors for future CVD, such as high blood pressure and high blood sugar levels.
It is unclear, however, whether or to what extent exposure to diabetes in the womb increases the risk of developing CVD in offspring over a lifetime.
So an international team of researchers set out to evaluate associations between diabetes diagnosed before or during pregnancy and early onset CVD in children during their first four decades of life.
They base their findings on national registry data for over 2.4 million children born without congenital heart disease in Denmark from 1977 to 2016.
Diabetes was categorised as pregestational (before pregnancy) or gestational (during pregnancy) and women with diabetic complications were identified.
Other potentially influential factors, such as mother's age, education, lifestyle and medical history were also taken into account.
During up to 40 years of follow-up, children of mothers with diabetes had a 29 per cent increased overall rate of early-onset CVD compared with children of mothers who did not have diabetes (cumulative risks: 17.8 per cent vs 13.1 per cent ).
The researchers also found higher rates for specific types of CVD children of mothers with diabetes, particularly heart failure (45 per cent), hypertensive disease (78 per cent), deep vein thrombosis (82 per cent), and pulmonary embolism (91 per cent).
Increased rates were seen in each age group in childhood (before 20 years of age) and early adulthood (from 20 to 40 years of age), regardless of the type of diabetes they were exposed to (pregestational or gestational) and rates were similar for both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, the study said.
The study, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, analysed 28 studies from seven countries that explored the relationship between children drinking cow's milk and the risk of being overweight or obese.
All studies together involved almost 21,000 children between age one and 18 and showed that children who drank reduced-fat milk have a lower risk of being overweight or obese.
Eighteen of the 28 studies suggested children who drank whole milk were less likely to be overweight or obese, the study said.
"All of the studies we examined were observational studies, meaning that we cannot be sure if whole milk caused a lower risk of overweight or obesity. Whole milk may have been related to other factors which lowered the risk of overweight or obesity," said study lead author Jonathon Maguire from St. Michael's Hospital in Canada.
The findings challenge Canadian and international guidelines that recommend children consume reduced-fat cow milk instead of whole milk starting at age two to reduce the risk of obesity.
"The majority of children in Canada and the United States consume cow's milk on a daily basis and it is a major contributor of dietary fat for many children," Maguire said.
"In our review, children following the current recommendation of switching to reduced-fat milk at age two were not leaner than those consuming whole milk," Maguire added.
(IANS)
Kids who watched a child-oriented cooking show featuring healthy food were 2.7 times more likely to make a healthy food choice than those who watched a different episode of the same show featuring unhealthy food, said the study published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behaviour.
"The findings from this study indicate cooking programmes can be a promising tool for promoting positive changes in children's food-related preferences, attitudes, and behaviours," said lead author Frans Folkvord of Tilburg University in the Netherlands.
For the study, the researchers asked 125 children between 10 to 12 years of age at five schools in the Netherlands to watch 10 minutes of a Dutch public television cooking programme designed for children and then offered them a snack as a reward for participating.
Children who watched the healthy programme were far more likely to choose one of the healthy snack options -- an apple or a few pieces of cucumber -- than one of the unhealthy options -- a handful of chips or a handful of salted mini-pretzels.
This study was conducted at the children's schools, which could represent a promising alternative for children learning healthy eating behaviours.
Prior research has found youth are more likely to eat nutrient-rich foods including fruits and vegetables if they were involved in preparing the dish, but modern reliance on ready-prepared foods and a lack of modelling by parents in preparing fresh foods have led to a drop in cooking skills among kids.
"Providing nutritional education in school environments instead may have an important positive influence on the knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviours of children," Folkvord said.
This study suggests the visual prominence of healthier options in both food choice and portion size on TV cooking programmes leads young viewers to crave those healthier choices then act on those cravings.
But the effect that exposure to healthier options has on children is strongly influenced by personality traits.
For example, children who don't like new foods are less likely to show a stronger desire for healthier choices after watching a TV programme featuring healthier foods than a child who does enjoy trying new foods.
As they grow older, though, they start to feel more responsible for their eating habits and can fall back on the information they learned as children.
Researchers believe this may indicate watching programmes with healthier options can still have a positive impact on children's behaviour, even if it is delayed by age.
(IANS)
Schizophrenia is a chronic and severe mental disorder that affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves.
"The study shows that the higher the level of air pollution, the higher the risk of schizophrenia. For each 10 µg/m3 (concentration of air pollution per cubic metre) increase in the daily average, the risk of schizophrenia increases by approximately 20 per cent," said study researcher Henriette Thisted Horsdal from Aarhus University in Denmark.
"Children who are exposed to an average daily level above 25 µg/m3 have an approx. 60 per cent greater risk of developing schizophrenia compared to those who are exposed to less than 10 µg/m3," Horsdal added.
According to the study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, the research team included 23,355 people in total, and of these, 3,531 developed schizophrenia.
"The risk of developing schizophrenia is also higher if you have a higher genetic liability for the disease. Our data shows that these associations are independent of each other," Horsdal said.
The association between air pollution and schizophrenia cannot be explained by a higher genetic liability in people who grow up in areas with high levels of air pollution, the researcher said.
According to the study, the researchers combine genetic data from iPSYCH with air pollution data from the Department of Environmental Science for the results.
Though the results demonstrate an increased risk of schizophrenia when the level of air pollution during childhood increases, the researchers cannot comment on the cause.
Instead, they emphasise that further studies are needed before they can identify the cause of this association, they concluded.
(IANS)
The findings, published in the journal Autism Research, show that despite growing awareness about autism, it is still under-diagnosed, particularly in the black and Hispanic people in the US.
"There may be various reasons for the disparity, from communication or cultural barriers between minority parents and physicians to anxiety about the complicated diagnostic process and fear of stigma," said study co-author Walter Zahorodny, Associate Professor at Rutgers University in the US.
"Also, many parents whose children are diagnosed later often attribute their first concerns to a behavioural or medical issue rather than a developmental problem," Zahorodny added.
According to the study, researchers analysed the education and medical records of 266,000 children who were 8 years old in 2014, seeking to determine how many of those who showed symptoms of the disorder were not clinically diagnosed or receiving services.
Of the nearly 4,500 children identified, 25 per cent were not diagnosed.
Most were black or Hispanic males with deficits in mental abilities, social skills and activities of daily living who were not considered disabled, the research said.
Screening all toddlers, pre-school and school-age children for autism could help reduce the disparities in diagnosis, according to the researchers.
In addition, experts can overcome communication barriers by using pictures and employing patient navigators to help families understand the diagnosis process, test results and treatment recommendations, the study suggested.
"States can help improve access to care by requiring insurance companies to cover early intervention services when a child is first determined to be at risk rather than waiting for a diagnosis," Zahorodny said.
The research was conducted through the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, a surveillance programme funded by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention that tracks the prevalence of the developmental disorder in 11 states.
(IANS)
Early life stress is common in youth from disadvantaged backgrounds who also often live in areas with greater exposure to air pollution, according to the study, published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
"Prenatal exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a neurotoxicant common in air pollution, seems to magnify or sustain the effects of early life social and economic stress on mental health in children," said study first author David Pagliaccio from Columbia University in the US.
"Air pollutants are common in our environment, particularly in cities, and given socioeconomic inequities and environmental injustice, children growing up in disadvantaged circumstances are more likely to experience both life stress and exposure to neurotoxic chemicals," said senior author Amy Margolis.
Air pollution has negative effects on physical health, and recent work has begun to also show the effects on mental health. Life stress, particularly in early life, is one of the best-known contributors to mental health problems.
This new study examined the combined effects of air pollution and early life stress on school-age children.
According to the researchers data were collected from the CCCEH Mothers and Newborns longitudinal birth cohort study in Northern Manhattan and the Bronx, which includes many participants who self-identify as African American or Dominican.
Mothers wore an air monitoring backpack during the third trimester of pregnancy to measure exposure to air pollutants in their daily lives.
When their children were 5 years old, mothers reported on stress in their lives, including neighbourhood quality, material hardship, intimate partner violence, perceived stress, lack of social support, and general distress levels.
Mothers then reported on their child's psychiatric symptoms at ages 5, 7, 9 and 11.
The combined effect of air pollution and early life stress was seen across several measures of thought and attention problems/ADHD at the age 11.
The effects were also linked to PAH-DNA adducts--a dose-sensitive marker of air pollution exposure.
The researchers said that PAH and early life stress may serve as a "double hit" on shared biological pathways connected to attention and thought problems.
Stress likely leads to wide-ranging changes in, for example, epigenetic expression, cortisol, inflammation, and brain structure and function.
The mechanism underlying the effects of PAH is still being interrogated; however, alterations in brain structure and function represent possible shared mechanistic pathways, the study said.
(IANS)
Published in the journal Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics, the study shows link between multiple metabolic disorders in mothers during pregnancy and children's BMI later in life.
"Diet, exercise, and genetics are familiar with risk factors in childhood obesity. Prenatal origins also play a role, yet they are underexplored," said study researcher Yonglin Melissa Huang from The Graduate Centre, the City University of New York in US.
Childhood obesity is a growing problem in the US. For children, obesity is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) at or above the 95th percentile, and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 18.5 per cent of children between the ages of 2 and 19 meet these criteria.
For the findings, the research team asked how pregnancy conditions can play a role in childhood obesity.
The researchers have previously studied the associations of gestational diabetes and preeclampsia, independently, with children's BMI.
According to the researchers, when a pregnant woman has gestational diabetes, a hormone produced by the placenta stops the body from effectively using insulin, causing blood sugar to rise.
Preeclampsia is a more serious and potentially life-threatening complication in which the mother experiences high blood pressure and often damage to the kidneys or liver, the study said.
In the new study, the team explored what happens when a pregnant mother has both conditions at once since those two illness are relatively common and often comorbid.
The team monitored the children of 356 mothers from 18 to 72 months.
The results showed that the combination of both gestational diabetes and preeclampsia during pregnancy was especially effective in driving high BMI during early childhood -- more so than either condition alone.
Confirming previous findings, the researchers also saw that children born from mothers with only one of these conditions are also at risk for a higher BMI, though the trend for gestational diabetes was not as strong.
(IANS)
By age four, children can become established picky eaters, according to findings published in the journal Pediatrics.
"Picky eating is common during childhood and parents often hear that their children will eventually 'grow out of it.'
But there's a silver lining for worried parents -- while fussy eaters have a lower body mass index, most are still in the healthy range and not underweight, researchers said.
They may also be less likely to be overweight or experience obesity than peers.
"We still want parents to encourage varied diets at young ages, but our study suggests that they can take a less controlling approach," Pesch said.
The study followed 317 mother-child pairs from low-income homes over a four-year period.
Families reported on children's eating habits and mothers' behaviours and attitudes about feeding when the children were four, five, six, eight and nine.
Picky eating was stable from preschool to school-age, indicating that any attempts to expand food preferences may need to occur in the toddler or preschool years to be most effective.
The findings showed that high picky eating was associated with lower BMIs and low picky eating was associated with higher BMIs.
The pickiest eaters also were often associated with increased pressure to eat and restriction on certain types of foods.
Certain child characteristics, including sex, birth order, and socioeconomic status, also have been associated with persistence of picky eating.
"We found that children who were pickier had mothers who reported more restriction of unhealthy foods and sweets," Pesch said.
"These mothers of picky eaters may be trying to shape their children's preferences for more palatable and selective diets to be more healthful. But it may not always have the desired effect," Pesch added.
(IANS)
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Dr Neil Chanchlani from University of Exeter in the UK has described a range of potential adverse effects and contributing factors for kids and young people as well as mitigation strategies for health care providers and health systems.
"We should anticipate that they will experience substantial indirect physical, social and mental health effects related to reduced access to health care and general pandemic control measures," said Chanchlani.
Forced isolation and economic uncertainty may lead to increases in family violence, contributing to mental and physical trauma.
School cancellations may heighten food insecurity for children who depend on meal programmes and increase vulnerability with the loss of school as a safe place.
"Lost social interaction and lack of structured routines may lead to increased screen time, decreased physical activity, lack of concentration, anxiety and early depression," the authors wrote in the paper that appeared in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ).
Families living in inadequate or crowded housing may experience heightened stress or conflict, which can affect the mental and physical health of children.
Refugees, some indigenous communities and low-income families living with financial strain and food insecurity are particularly vulnerable.
Restrictions and cancellations of child welfare visits to at-risk families can reduce visits of birth parents and children in foster care, leading to harms.
The adverse effects also include widespread delays or omissions of routine childhood vaccinations, which can threaten herd immunity; missed detection of delayed development milestones, which are usually identified during routine child health checks and delays in seeking care for non-COVID19-related illnesses, which can lead to severe illness and even death.
"Delays in bringing children and young people to medical attention may be due to parental fears of exposure to Covid-19 in hospitals or on public transit, lack of childcare for other children, lack of access to primary care due to closures, or changes to hospital visitation policies," explained Dr Peter Gill from The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), Toronto, Canada.
We owe it to our children and young people to proactively measure the Covid-19 pandemic's indirect effects on their health and to take steps to mitigate the collateral damage," the authors wrote.
(IANS)
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The differences in antibodies suggest the course of SARS-CoV-2 infection and immune response is distinct in children and most children easily clear the virus from their bodies, the study published in journal Nature Immunology reported.
"Our study provides an in-depth examination of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in kids, revealing a stark contrast with adults," said study author Donna Farber from Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in the US.
"In kids, the infection course is much shorter and probably not as disseminated as in adults. Kids may clear this virus more efficiently than adults and they may not need a strong antibody immune response to get rid of it," Farber added.
One of the striking manifestations of the Covid-19 pandemic is that the majority of children cope well with the virus while older people struggle.
Among the 47 children in the study, 16 were treated for Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children or MIS-C and 31 children of similar ages had tested positive for the virus after visiting the medical centre for the treatment of other conditions.
Half of the children without MIS-C had no Covid-19 symptoms.
The 32 adults in the study ranged from severely affected patients admitted to the hospital to those with milder disease who recovered at home.
Both groups of children produced the same antibody profile, the study found, which differed from that of adults.
Compared with adults, children produced fewer antibodies against the virus's spike protein -- which the virus uses to infect human cells.
The children's antibodies had the least neutralising activity, while all adults, including young adults in their 20s, produced neutralising antibodies.
The sickest adults had the most neutralising activity.
In contrast to adults, children also produced very few antibodies against a viral protein that is only visible to the immune system after the virus infects human cells.
"That suggests that in kids, the infection doesn't really spread a lot and doesn't kill a lot of their cells," Farber said.
Also, the antibody responses found in children do not suggest that children will have a weaker response to a vaccine, the researchers stressed.
(IANS)
"The concern from a public health perspective is that there is probably a lot of Covid-19 circulating in the community that people don't even realize," said study author Finlay McAlister from the University of Alberta in Canada.
For the study, published in the journal CMAJ, the research team analysed results for 2,463 children who were tested during the first wave of the pandemic--March to September--for Covid-19 infection.
All told, 1,987 children had a positive test result for Covid-19 and 476 had a negative result. Of children who tested positive, 35.9 per cent--reported being asymptomatic.
"As far as we know, kids are less likely to spread disease than adults, but the risk is not zero," McAlister said.
"Presumably asymptomatic spreaders are less contagious than the person sitting nearby who is sneezing all over you, but we don't know that for sure," he added.
The researchers also found that although cough, runny nose and sore throat were three of the most common symptoms among children with Covid-19 infection--showing up in 25, 19 and 16 per cent of cases respectively.
They were actually slightly more common among those with negative Covid-19 test results, and therefore not predictive of a positive test.
"Of course, kids are at risk of contracting many different viruses, so the Covid-specific symptoms are actually more things like loss of taste and smell, headache, fever, and nausea and vomiting, not runny nose, a cough and sore throat," McAlister said.
He added that if people have any symptoms at all, they should stay home and get tested, while even those who feel well should still be doing everything, they can to stay safe--wearing a protective mask, frequent handwashing, keeping distance, and avoiding meeting indoors.
"Some people with Covid feel well and don't realize they have it so they socialize with friends and unintentionally spread the virus, and I think that's the big issue," the author noted.
(IANS)