DHSS Promotes Girls' Health with 'Best Bones Forever!' Website, Campaign

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has launched a new website that is designed to promote girls' health and reduce their risk of developing the bone disease osteoporosis later in life.

A Sept. 1 DHHS news release provided the following details about the website and associated promotional campaign:

• Childhood and adolescence are the key windows of opportunity for building strong bones and warding off osteoporosis.
• In girls, close to 90 percent of bone mass is built by age 18.
• Research shows that bone fracture rates are increasing, and few adolescent girls get the recommended amounts of calcium and vitamin D—the building blocks for strong bones.
• Osteoporosis is four times more common in women than in men, and adolescent girls consume calcium and participate in physical activity at lower rates than boys do.
• HHS recommends girls look for foods with calcium and vitamin D, which is necessary to help bones absorb calcium. One recent study found 70 percent of kids in the U.S. had below-normal levels of vitamin D, with deficiencies increasing as kids age from childhood to adolescence.

"We want girls to know that if you're older than nine, now's your time!" DHHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in the release. "Building strong bones now will help you stand tall for a lifetime."

South Carolina Schools Celebrate Successes of Single-Sex Classrooms

According to a Sept. 7 article by Anna Lee of Greenville.com, a number of administrators and parents are crediting single-sex instruction for improved test scores and better discipline in several South Carolina public schools:

The 11 public schools that now offer single-gender classes in Greenville County are seeing students better behaved with higher test scores than those in the coed classroom, and administrators are singing its praises.

In a coed classroom, some girls are reluctant to show how smart they are, and some boys slack off because it seems cool, said Lee Givins, principal at Northwest Middle, which was one of the first schools in Greenville County to test the waters of same-sex education in 2007.

By separating the genders, social distractions and peer pressure are reduced, especially at the middle school level where the relentless focus is on who’s cute and how you look, [Dr. Leonard Sax, founding director of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education] said.

Wisconsin YMCA Program Designed to Empower Young Girls

A YMCA in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, is offering a weekly program designed to boost the self-image and self-esteem of girls in grades 3 to 5.

A Sept. 10 article on northwestern.com provided the following details about "GET UP" (Girls Exercising Their Unlimited Potential):

• The program will be led by female volunteers from the YMCA and the community.
  
• Participants will develop self-awareness and positive body image through class sessions that vary each week.
  
• Each session will include principles of health & wellness, a healthy snack and activities that incorporate the weekly theme.
• GET UP sessions will be held Mondays, 4 to 5:30 p.m., in the 20th Avenue YMCA.
  
• For more information e-mail Shauna Coleman at shaunacoleman@oshkoshymca.org.
  

Even at the elementary and middle-school levels, girls who struggle with low self-esteem and poor self-image can experience setbacks that may impact their healthy development for years if not decades.

Atlanta Organization Working to Rescue Abused Girls, End Child Prostitution

Every day in the United States, young girls who are being abused or neglected at home decide to run away. But though this decision may provide temporary relief from their dysfunctional home life, the result may involve even greater degrees of abuse and violation at the hands of men who buy and sell them for sex.

According to a Sept. 4 article by Mashaun D. Simon of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, one Atlanta organization is working to rescue these girls and end the scourge of child prostitution:

According to the Governor’s Office for Children and Families, any where between 200 to 350 girls are prostituted each month in Georgia. And it is not just on the streets anymore. Today girls are also exploited over the Internet, through escort services and in hotels. ...

Some of the common risk factors are parental neglect, physical and sexual abuse, behavioral issues and substance abuse, said Jen Bennecke, executive director of the Governor’s Office for Children and Families.

While most major cities are working to eradicate this problem, a statewide effort has been in existence for the last couple of years to address this issue in Georgia. Created in 2007, A Future. Not A Past., a public-private partnership also led by the Juvenile Justice Fund, works to build a barrier between potential victims and those focused on exploiting young children. ...

During the first two years of the "A Future. Not A Past." effort, organizers focused on increasing awareness, raising funds, and developing more effective legislative solutions to the problem of child prostitution, Simon reported. During the next 12 months, the group will be working to educate doctors, law enforcement officials and other interested parties about ways to identify and report cases of suspected child victimization and prostitution.

Questions Remain about Purpose, Effectiveness of HPV Vaccine

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have recommended that all young girls receive the Gardasil HPV vaccine.

But comments that were featured in a Sept. 7 National Public Radio (NPR) story indicate that doctors and parents have a number of questions about the function and effectiveness of the inoculation:

• Brenda Wilson (NPR): Two-thirds of the physicians surveyed had no problem offering the vaccine to girls between the ages of 13 and 17. Other national studies had similar findings. But Kahn says physicians may not realize that the three-shot regimen has to be done before the girls are sexually active.

• Dr. Jessica Kahn (Director of trainee research, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center): They don't understand how common HPV infection is in adolescents, and how often adolescents acquire HPV within a few months of sexual initiation. And they may not understand that the vaccine is not effective in girls who are already infected with vaccine-type HPVs at the time of vaccination.

• Dr. Diane Harper (Family Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Missouri-Kansas City): What I tell them is that the vaccine is proven effective. And I tell them that for most women it is safe, but there are real risks associated with it and that there have been some young women, a very small number, that have died. And so, they need to understand that it's not a risk-free vaccine.

Texas Woman Helps Girls Discover 'Beauty Within'

Holly Myers was "that girl" in high school; the cute, bubbly cheerleader whom all the boys liked and all the girls envied -- but she wasn't always thrilled with how she looked or who she was Twenty years later, Holly is married, has two kids, and is finally able to celebrate who she is.

Her experience prompted her to start an event called "Searching for the Beauty Within," and her program was featured in a Sept. 11 column in the Gaston (Tex.) Gazette:

"Growing up I was so involved in dancing, so involved in cheerleading and clogging and doing those things I never even identified that I struggled with self-image," Myers said. "Even though I wasn’t overweight, there was something inside of me that when I looked in the mirror, I didn't see, pretty, I didn't see a masterpiece. I saw gross. I saw ugly."

This year's [Searching for the Beauty Within] seminar takes place Sept. 19 at Gaston College. The daylong event, for girls ages 12-19, will include dramas, worship and singing, giveaways, goodie bags and more. It will also feature female speakers talking frankly about issues ranging from relationships to eating disorders to depression to self-image.

The theme is "I’m a Masterpiece," which was inspired by Ephesians 2:10: "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."

Study Says UK World's Worst for Alcohol Abuse by Teen Girls

According to a Sept. 1 article on the BBC News website, drinking by underage girls occurs more often in the United Kingdom than in any other nation.

This revelation, the BBC reported, was contained in a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD):

Drunkenness in the UK is the highest among 24 OECD countries, measured in terms of the proportion of 13 and 15-year-olds having been drunk at least twice.

The UK's figure for these under-age drunks - 33 percent - is more than double the rate for countries such as the United States, France and Italy.

Among girls the gap between the UK and other countries is even wider. One in five 13-year-olds in the UK reports having been drunk twice - four times higher than countries such as the United States, Sweden and the Netherlands.

Among 15-year-old girls in the UK, 50 percent reported getting drunk, almost three times higher than their counterparts in France. The rate for boys in the UK in this age group getting drunk is 44 percent.

Expert Advises Caregivers to Be on Lookout of Symptoms of Eating Disorders

Eating disorders can affect boys, girls, men and women of virtually every age. But teen girls and young women comprise the majority of disordered eaters.

Because few individuals are able to ask for help with their eating disorder, it is important that parents, teachers and other caregivers identify symptoms that a girl may be struggling with an eating disorder.

In an Aug. 31 article in the Salisbury (N.C.) Post, health and fitness expert Ester Marsh advised being on the lookout for the following signs:

• Obsession with weight
• Weighing oneself numerous times a day, especially before and after eating
• Eating very little
• Eating a lot, then immediately disappearing to the bathroom
  
• Extreme unhappiness with appearance
• Brushing teeth many times per day
• Exercising more than three hours or more a day most days of the week

People with eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia or binge eating disorder have an illness that can kill them. If you suspect that someone you know is experiencing symptoms of an eating disorder, contact a physician or other trained health care provider immediately.

Parental 'Food Interference' Can Contribute to Girls' Weight Problems

Girls with poor impulse control at age seven are more likely to be overweight by age 15. If their parents impose rules around food, such as forbidding them to eat certain foods, the situation gets worse and their chances of being overweight increase even more.

• Stephanie Anzman and Leanne Birch of the Center for Childhood Obesity Research at Pennsylvania State University reached these conclusions after studying 97 non-Hispanic Caucasian girls starting at age five.
• The researchers checked up on them every two years until they were 15 years old.
• Girls who gained the most weight had the highest levels of parental food restrictions and the lowest levels of self-control.

Dr. Anzman said it may be better for parents to allow children to choose from a variety healthy options and not keep restricted food in the house.

"Parental attempts to help children with lower self-control by restricting access to their favorite snack foods can make the forbidden foods more attractive, thereby exacerbating the problem," she said.

This study and Dr. Anzman's comments appeared in the Journal of Pediatrics.

SAT Scores Continue to Drop in U.S.; Girls Trail Boys Slightly

Male high school students in the United States scored higher than their female counterparts did during the last round of SAT college entrance exams.

The difference was 27 points, mostly due to higher scores in the math section by males. The average SAT score dropped one point in both the reading and writing sections, but remained steady for math.

Average SAT scores have been trending downward since 2004 because the pool of test takers has widened to include more children of parents who had never graduated from college, and more students who report that English was not their first language at home.

The average score for students whose family income is over $200,000 a year was 1702, an increase of 26. A perfect score on the SAT is 1800.