5 Words of Advice for Raising Healthier, Happier Teens

Despite the negative news that swirls around adolescence, a team from Tufts University has found that positive attributes like confidence and compassion can be developed during the teen years.

A Nov. 23 article by Debbie Glasser of examiner.com provided the following details on the Tufts research -- and what it can mean for parents who are looking for guidance in their efforts to raise happier and healthier teens:

Instead of focusing on negative teen behaviors, Richard M. Lerner, Ph.D. and his colleagues decided to examine teens' strengths. What they found was encouraging.

"Rather than defining kids as doing well because they 'lacked problems,' we wanted to explore their strengths and capacity to thrive," Lerner explained. He and his colleagues questioned 1,700 children about their confidence, compassion and contributions towards others. "We found the vision of positive youth development is, in fact, a reality," Lerner said.

When teens are involved in their home, school and community, they are more likely to experience success in life. The Tufts researchers identified five key characteristics ("5 C's") that contribute to positive youth development: Connection, Caring, Character, Competence and Confidence.

All British Students to Learn About Domestic Violence, Gender Equality

The British government has announced plans to teach all students about the dangers of domestic violence and the value of gender equality.

A Nov. 25 BBC article provided the following information about the educational effort:

Under the plans, from 2011 children will be taught from the age of five how to prevent violent relationships. …

From 2011, lessons in gender equality and preventing violence in relationships will be compulsory in the personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education curriculum.

Before qualifying, trainee teachers will have to learn about teaching gender awareness and domestic violence.

Schools minister Vernon Coaker said lessons would be age appropriate.

Adult Mentors Improve Teens' College Chances

Teenagers who have adults in their lives who provide positive help and attention are much more likely to go to college, according to a new study from Brigham Young University.

• Dr. Steve McDonald and his colleagues studied data from more than 14,000 teenagers who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
  
• Having an adult mentor doubled the chances of a disadvantaged student attending college -- but less than half the disadvantaged teens in the study had such mentors.
  
• Having a mentor increased the likelihood of college for all students in the study by 50 percent.

Dr. McDonald found that teachers were particularly effective as mentors.

This study appeared in the journal Sociology of Education.

CDC Report Contains Troubling Stats for Health of Girls, Young Women

A report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates that the prevalence of sexually transmitted infections remains disturbingly high in the United States. As Mary Elizabeth Williams noted in her Nov. 16 post on Salon.com, the report contains particularly bad news regarding the health of girls and young women:

In 2008, we clocked in an all-time high of 1.2 million new cases of chlamydia and an estimated 6.2 million of HPV. Syphilis, which once looked to have gone the way of Prohibition and ragtime, has also mounted an impressive comeback with 13,500 new cases last year.

The CDC says 19 million new cases of STDs are transmitted annually in the U.S., almost half of which are in people under the age of 24. And chlamydia and gonorrhea are highest among girls aged 15-19.

And thanks to far-reaching potential side effects like cervical cancer and pelvic inflammatory disease, the report noted that "Women and infants disproportionately bear the long term consequences of STDs."

Indiana Event Helps High School Girls Explore Tech-Related Careers

Thousands of teen girls traveled to 18 college and university campuses across Indiana Nov. 12 to learn about career opportunities in fields that have been historically dominated by men. Marion Star writer Kurt Moore reported on the effort in a Nov. 14 article:

About 3,000 junior high and high school girls converged on the campuses to participate in We Are IT Day. The objective of the event was to increase girls' interest in traditionally male-dominated programs in information technology and similar careers.

About 140 students from school districts in Marion and surrounding counties headed to the Marion campus, where they got a look at such technology as the photo editing software Adobe Photoshop and GPS devices.

"It promotes the fact that technology fields aren't just for males but for females too," Cardington-Lincoln High School student Julya Faulkner said. "Just because you are a girl it doesn't mean you can't be successful."

Scout-Sponsored Program Helps Washington Girls Develop Healthy Self-Image

A school-based program that is sponsored by a Washington state chapter of the Girls Scouts of America is helping adolescent and teen girls resist media-generated pressures and develop a healthy self-image.

In a Nov. 14 Spokesman-Review article, writer Marcy Stamp described the program and interviewed program coordinator Keely Eschenbacher:

The program helps girls from 8 to 17 years old "embrace a wider definition of beauty" than they absorb from the culture. It focuses on mentoring, education and activities to foster self-esteem, with four programs geared to different ages.

Activities led by volunteers from Gonzaga University and Whitworth University help girls recognize their strengths and attributes; handle peer pressure; identify their values and interests; develop positive body images, healthy eating habits, personal hygiene, general wellness and physical fitness; and engage in community service.

"A teenage girl looks at TV and thinks it shows how life should be or how she should look. Most girls think they do not look good enough," Eschenbacher said …

"Girls see news about Britney Spears and think that’s how they should be," she said. "Middle-school girls are obsessed with celebrities who party and do stupid things. Girls receive mixed messages about what is acceptable."

PBS Documentary Takes Honest Look at Romantic Lives of Teen Girls

When a television show or film is advertised as featuring the intimate relationships of teen girls, the result is unfortunately often salacious or sensational. A new PBS documentary, Boyfriends, takes a decidedly different approach, according to an Oct. 27 article by Robert Philpot of The Star-Telegram:

"We wanted to do a project about girls and mental health," says Sujata Dand, who directed and co-produced the documentary. "I thought that maybe for the documentary piece, we would have something that followed five girls as they make different choices in their relationships: How did they come to these choices, what led them to make these choices, how did these choices impact their well-being and their self-confidence and their mental health?"

Boyfriends shifts back and forth among the young women, all of whom are identified by first name only.

They include Kelly, who has a relatively stable relationship with her parents as well as her boyfriend, but isn’t sure she wants to stay with him; Asha, a pregnant 17-year-old who learns that her boyfriend is cheating on her; and Liliana, who began dating her current boyfriend when he was 25 and she was 13 (she told him she was 18). Now 18 with two children, she’s looking to get out of the relationship but isn’t sure how to go about it.

The film’s pieces fit together to form a cross section of various ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, with the girls having widely varying attitudes about sex and romance.

AIDS Remains World’s Leading Cause of Death Among Impoverished Young Women

A recently released report by the World Health Organization identifies AIDS-related illness as "the leading cause of death and disease among women of reproductive age in low and middle income countries.”

A Nov. 9 article about the report on the UNAIDS website provided the following information related to the WHO findings:

• Globally only 38 percent of young women are able to describe the main ways to avoid infection and they are less likely to know that condoms can protect against HIV than young men.
• Data from 16 countries in sub-Saharan Africa from 2001-2007 also show that HIV prevalence is generally higher among adolescent girls aged 15-19 than their male counterparts.
• A significant cause of this is young girls partnering with older men who are more sexually experienced and more likely to be infected.

“Violence against women is also a major cause of their increased vulnerability to HIV,” the UNAIDS article reported. “[Violence and other forms of intimidation] can make it difficult or impossible for [women] to control their sexual lives, abstain from sex or get their partners to use condoms.”

Study Says Obese Teen Girls May Have Greater Risk for Multiple Sclerosis in Adulthood

Researchers with the Harvard School of Public Health have discovered an association between teen obesity in girls and the risk of developing multiple sclerosis (an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system) in adulthood.

A Nov. 9 article by Caroline Wilbert of WebMD Health News provided the following details about the study:

• Researchers examined data on more than 238,000 women who participated in the Nurses' Health Study, which began in 1976, and the Nurses' Health Study II, which began in 1989.
• Participants self-reported what their height and weight were at the start of the study and what they had been at age 18. They also chose silhouettes to describe their body shapes when they were ages 5, 10, and 20 years old.
• The women's body mass index (BMI) at age 18 and the way they described their overall body shape at age 20 were linked to the likelihood of developing MS in adulthood.
• Women who had a BMI of 30 or larger (considered obese) at age 18 had more than twice the risk of women with a BMI between 18.5 and 20.9. Normal weight BMI is 18.5 to 24.9.

"Our results suggest that weight during adolescence, rather than childhood or adulthood, is critical in determining the risk of MS," researcher Kassandra Munger, ScD, said in a release.

N.C. Program Provides Financial Incentive for College-Bound At-Risk Girls Who Don’t Get Pregnant

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and the University of North Carolina Greensburg (UNCG) are among the leading sponsors of “College Bound Sisters,” a program that hopes to motivate at-risk girls to stay in school and not get pregnant.

The following information appears on the College Bound Sisters website:

Younger sisters of teen mothers are at risk for unplanned pregnancy. The College Bound Sisters Program is designed for them. Two groups of girls (ages 12-14 and 15-18) meet separately each week for 1.5 hours with adult leaders.

A girl is eligible for CBS if she meets the following criteria:

• Is between the ages of 12-16
• Has a sister who had a baby before age 18
• Has never been pregnant
• Wants to attend college
• Is willing to attend a 1.5 hour meeting each week at UNCG

Each member who attends the meetings, is not pregnant, and is still in school has $7.00 placed in her college fund weekly. The money is released upon enrollment in college

Members receive $5.00 transportation expenses when they attend a meeting. Other incentives are offered at intervals to encourage girls to stay in school and to continue participation in the program.

Teens Girls Form Team to Research Health Issues in Southern California

A group of teen girls in southern California has spent the past year researching topics related to teen health in the area. According to an Oct. 27 article by Leslie Griffy of TheCalifornian.com, the data that the girls collected will be used to support grant proposals for teen education programs:

The research program, Girls Health in Girls Hands, was conceived about a year ago, said Tobi Marcus, director of the Women's Fund of Monterey County. Teens applied to join the program, which was paid for largely through a $107,000 California Endowment grant. Women's Fund contributors covered the balance of the project's approximately $120,000 total cost.

The researchers found that girls have a hard time getting information about healthy relationships, maintaining a positive body image and eating well. The consequences of that lack of information are serious: A majority of the girls interviewed know peers who have been pregnant, suffered depression and battled eating disorders and addiction.

"Even though we are a couple of girls, we are speaking for every girl in the county." said one of the researchers, 17-year-old Maraia Vosaki.

Parents' Lifestyles, Relationships Influence Teens' Sexual Choices

Parental lifestyles influence teenagers’ sexual choices, according to a study from the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada.

• Strong, nurturing relationships with parents, attending worship services, and participating in volunteerism correlated with teenagers being sexually inactive.
• Children of parents who smoked and drank tended to be sexually active.
• Boys who lived with unmarried couples and girls who came from divorced and separated homes were also more likely to be sexually active.

"A large body of research reveals that a parenting style that is warm, communicative, supportive, and involves supervision and setting limits, protects teenagers against risk behavior and helps young people develop into healthy, autonomous adults," the report's authors wrote.