Note: this is just one part of our series on Sports: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, where we discuss all the ways athletic participation can influence teens. Read our previous articles here and here. The most aggressive sports player in history might arguably be Jack Tatum. Tatum was a football player with the Oakland Raiders. He was so violent that his nickname was “Assassin.” In 1978, Tatum collided
When Do Kids Stop Liking PE? A group of researchers in Switzerland studied a group of 1,200 kids age 8-12 for two years to determine their feelings about their physical education (PE) classes. The researchers launched the study to examine possible explanations for the worldwide trend in youth obesity and overweight. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there were over 41 million children under the age of five who
A story published by National Public Radio (NPR) in May caught our attention. Here’s the headline: “Playing Teen Sports May Protect From Some Damages of Childhood Trauma” Like many things we see in the media that intersect with our specialty – helping adolescents struggling with mental health and/or substance use disorders – we thought to ourselves: “Hmmm. Interesting – if true.” It turns out that this interesting piece of news
Increasing Prevalence of ADHD Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has been a hot topic in education, pediatric medicine, and parenting for decades. The condition has been known in various forms by various names for at least a hundred years, but the current definition was crystallized in the year 2000 by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in their definitive publication “The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition” (DSM-IV)
If you have been diagnosed with depression, there are a number of lifestyle changes you can make that can help your treatment progress. One is diet. Specifically, the Mediterranean diet. A Spanish study analyzed the effects of the Mediterranean diet on almost 10,000 participants. Results found a correlation of the diet to a reduced risk of depression. This diet, inspired by the culinary fares of Italy, Greece, and Spain, emphasizes
Exercise and You If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a million times: a regular exercise regimen keeps you healthy, strong, emotionally balanced, and adds years to your life. Experts recommend at least an hour of activity a day for children, teenagers, adults, and people of retirement age. No matter how old you are, no matter what point in life you find yourself, you need to keep your body
When kids or teenagers tell adults they’re stressed, adults tend to take it with a grain of salt. After all, how stressed can they be? They don’t pay the bills, they’re not planning for retirement, and they don’t have to deal with overbearing bosses, annoying coworkers, or paying taxes. However. Here’s a dose of science-based fact: stress – and the resulting anxiety – doesn’t know or care how old you
Cortisol and Stress: A Quick Primer Cortisol is something we can’t live without. It’s a hormone produced by our endocrine system, essential to both our daily functioning and our long-term survival. It has three primary functioons in our body: it helps us eat, sleep, and handle stress. It’s more complex than that, of course. It’s possible to spend years in graduate school studying the action of cortisol and other hormones
Movement and Children Children love to move. Take them to the playground and just watch. They run, jump, climb, swing, hop, twirl, roll and fling their bodies around in any way they can think of. They always seem to be creating fun ways to exercise their bodies. Anyone who has any experience working with children knows that they rarely take the simplest path between point A and point B. A
The National Report Card: Hard Facts In 2016, the non-profit organization The National Physical Activity Plan Alliance published a comprehensive report on the current state of children’s health in the U.S. called “The United States 2016 Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth.” The goal of the report was to offer an objective take on how the United States, as a country, is doing in its effort to keep
A Brief History of Lead and Humans Human beings have a long relationship with lead. Historical evidence shows we first mined lead around 6,500 B.C.E. in the area of modern-day Turkey. Because of its low melting point and workability, lead has been used for countless purposes since ancient times. We use it as a food preservative and condiment. It’s an ingredient in makeup and pigment in paints. It’s also a
A recent article from Reuters led with the following headline: “Teen night owls more prone to emotional and behavioral problems.” This piqued our interest. Let’s get something out of the way immediately. Although the information in the article is based on a scientific survey of almost 5,000 students age 12-18, the data is correlative, rather than causative. Here’s a quick refresher on the difference between correlation and causation, from a
