South Carolina Women Works to Give Teen Moms Brighter Futures

A Jan. 25 article by Leigh Brock of digitriad.com profiled a South Carolina woman who is working to give teen moms a better chance at a brighter future:

[Sebrina] Cooke-Davis works with Good Beginnings for Teen Parents -- a program of the Family Life Council and a Division of the Children's Home Society of NC. Designed to prevent child abuse and neglect through an 8-week series, it served 394 young parents in 2006/2009.

• 95 percent of Good Beginnings Participants delivered a healthy, full-term baby.
• 100 percent of participants from 2008/2009 remained in school for the entire year.
• 99 percent of Good Beginnings Participants did not have a repeat teen birth.

Cooke-Davis goes into high schools and mentors teen moms by sharing her positive outlook on ... pretty much everything! She has quite a few success stories. She recently mentored a teen mom in Guilford County who not only stayed in school, but went on to be the valedictorian. She's now doing well in college.

Mom's Work Burnout Can Impact Daughter's School Performance

If a parent is burned out at work, a child of the same sex is more likely to be burned out at school, according to a new study from the Academy of Finland.

• Professor Katariina Salmela-Aro and her colleagues studied 515 ninth grade students and their parents, and discovered that "burnout" could be a shared experience.
  
• Burnout was defined as a stress syndrome that includes fatigue, cynicism about school or work, and feelings of inadequacy.

"Experiences of burnout were shared, most particularly between adolescence and parents of the same gender, i.e., between daughters and mothers and between sons and fathers," Dr. Salmela-Aro wrote. "The parents of the same gender seems to serve as a role model for the development of burnout."

The transition between grammar school and high school is a particularly susceptible time for school burnout. Burnout for both parents and children was associated with financial worries.

Philly Court of Appeals to Rule on 'Sexting'

The Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia is determining whether teens should face prosecution when they distribute sexual pictures of themselves or others by cell phone or over the Internet.

• The case before the court concerns three teenage girls who had broadcast pictures of themselves wearing bras or with exposed breasts.
  
• District attorney George Skumanick, Jr. of Wyoming County, PA had directed these girls along with 12 other teens to take a class about the dangers of sexting and to write an essay on the same subject.
  
• The other teens complied, but the parents of these three girls with help from the American Civil Liberties Union took the case to a higher court. They argue that these classes represent "re-education" and are unconstitutional.

A recent study from Pew Institute found that 4 percent of teens send such messages and 15 percent have received them.

More Screening, Better Treatment Not Reducing Chlamydia Rates Among Teen Girls

Frequent screening and better treatment for chlamydia did not reduce the number of teens infected with this sexually transmitted disease, according to a new study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

• Researchers studied 365 girls between the ages of 14 and 17 years old, screening them for chlamydia every three months for eight years and providing treatments.
• At the beginning of the study, 10.9 percent of the girls had the infection.
• After 18 months, the rate was 10.6 percent
• After four years the rate was 10.4 percent, even though the girls received frequent screenings and treatments for infections.

"Our analysis suggests that frequent testing and treatment will not suffice to reduce prevalence of high risk populations, highlighting the need for methods to expedite partner treatment in screening and treatment in networks of young men at high risk," said Dr. Byron Batteiger, of Indiana University, the lead author of the study.

Dangerous Dieting Becoming More Popular Among Young Women

Young women who diet too much face certain health dangers. Nevertheless, dangerous dieting is on the increase worldwide.

Fat mass is important in building bones, so teenage girls who diet too intensely put themselves at risk for osteoporosis, according to a new study from Bristol University in Great Britain.

• Bristol researchers followed 4,000 people from age 15 years old and found that those who had more fat mass also had longer and thicker bones.
  
• The scientists concluded that fat plays an important role in female bone development, with a positive influence 70 percent greater in girls than boys.
  
• This study appeared in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

A second study, this time from the University of Arizona, found that women in the United Arab Republic have views on slenderness similar to Americans:

• Dr. Sarah Trainer studied 50 Emirati women and found that 46 were afraid of becoming fat, and 43 were on a constant diet for weight reduction.
• Dr. Trainer said that their fear of being fat was not about health issues but rather about maintaining an acceptable appearance, and all of them blamed that on Western media.
  
• The study subjects said they had been influenced by celebrities such as Victoria Beckham and Heidi Klum.
  

Cultural Expectations Affect Girls' Math Performance

Girls are just as good at mathematics as boys are. However, if they are growing up in a culture that devalues them, they tend to perform more poorly than males in mathematics, according to a new study from Prof. Nicole Else-Quest.

"We showed that even something that may seem unrelated -- like women's representation in government-- is an indication of how much a society values women and their achievements and that value trickles down to things like girls math scores and high school," said Dr. Else-Quest, a professor of psychology at Villanova University.

Her research indicated that girls in Iceland outperform boys in mathematics. However, in Korea, boys do better. In Canada and the United States, both sexes perform equally.

Success in mathematics is somehow linked to girls' confidence in their abilities, Dr. Else-Quest believes. "If they believe they are not as good at math as boys, they feel anxious about their abilities. They don't pursue that path, even though they are capable."

This research appears in the bulletin of the American Psychological Association.

One in Four U.S. Teen Girls Involved in Violent Behavior

A survey from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that 25 percent of teenage girls in America exhibited some form of violent behavior.

"The girls least likely to get involved with the violent behavior are those from families with higher incomes, those who achieved higher grades, and those who don’t use drugs or alcohol, according to the results of the survey" (Source: HealthDay News)

The survey found that about 19 percent of girls got into serious fights at school or work, 14 percent participated in group fights and nearly 6 percent attacked another person with intent to harm them.

More Girls Using Violence to ‘Solve’ Conflicts

According to a Jan. 8 article by Marika Motiwalla that was posted on the website of Canada’s London Free Press newspaper, girls are increasingly using violence in response to interpersonal conflicts:

"Adolescent girls are the fastest-growing group with respect to violence," said Alan Leschied, a professor in the faculty of education at the University of Western Ontario.

"Boys perpetrate violence to establish dominance whereas girls use physical violence in efforts to settle scores, and so the motive is different," he said. …

If girls show signs of relational violence at a young age -- through such behaviour as gossiping, spreading rumours and socially isolating others -- they are at a higher risk of becoming physically violent by adolescence, [Leschied] said.

Treating underlying problems key to stopping female violence, Leschied said.
For example, girls who are violent are more likely to suffer from depression, he said.

Early Menstruation May Raise Risk of Heart Disease

Women who menstruate before they are 12 years old are 23 percent more likely to develop heart disease and 28 percent more likely to die of heart attacks, stroke, or other cardiovascular causes, according to a new study from Cambridge University in Great Britain.

Researchers followed 16,000 middle-aged women for over 10 years and found the risk may be related to being overweight as well as early menstruation.

"One key message is that tackling overweight, early on in the next generation may be important to avoid early menarche and to reduce long-term disease," said Dr. Rajalakshmi Lakshman. Excess weight in adolescence may even "program" later diseases even if a person loses weight as an adult.

The study appeared in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Author Advocates Empowering Girls About Their Bodies

Jennifer Ashton, a medical correspondent with CBS News and the author of The Body Scoop for Girls: A Straight-Talk Guide to a Healthy, Beautiful You, has embarked upon a publicity campaign to encourage girls to learn about their bodies.

A Jan. 6 article on the CBS News website reported on Ashton’s efforts:

Ashton added on "The Early Show" there's a recommendation by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists that girls should first see a gynecologist between the ages of 13 and 15.

"That has absolutely nothing to do with sex or contraception or birth control. That has to do with teaching our teenage daughters about their overall health and wellness," Ashton said.

She said a gynecologist can also address breast health, bone health, acne, and problems with periods -- as well as sexual education.

"It's a huge topic," she said. "They need a pediatrician and a gynecologist."

Former Astronaut Encouraging Girls to Study Science, Math, Technology

Dr. Sally K. Ride, who in 1983 became the first American woman in space, is now an advocate of science, math and technology education among U.S. students – especially girls. A Dec. 28 blog post by Gerry Shih of the New York Times provided the following information about Dr. Ride’s efforts:

Dr. Ride said children ages 10 to 12, especially girls, are the most susceptible to being “pushed off the track” of pursuing science by negative stereotypes. Ten years down the line, at the gates of colleges and graduate schools, the effects are stark:

Today, more than half of the students in American graduate programs in the physical sciences and engineering are foreign-born, Dr. Ride said. …

Since leaving the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the late 1980s, Dr. Ride has been steadily advocating for science education. …

"We need higher expectations for our students," she said. "Schools need to expect their kids to be taking science and math and we need to measure how they’re doing."

Study Says Diets May Put Teen Girls at Higher Risk for Bone Disorder

A research team led by Prof. Jonathan Tobias of Bristol (England) University has concluded that adolescent girls who diet excessively may be at increased risk for the bone density disorder osteoporosis later in life.

A Jan. 7 article by Pankhuri Kapoor of themedguru.com provided the following information about the study:

More than 4,000 teenage boys and girls participated in the study and the researchers measured the hard outer layer of the bone called the ‘cortical bone mass’ in all of them.

The analysis of these measurements that detailed the density and shape of the bones in the participants showed that fat mass influenced the bone mass by more than 70 percent in girls.

Tobias explains, "Girls clearly have more fat mass than boys and our findings show that whereas the greater lean mass in boys contributes to their greater cortical bone mass, this effect is partly counteracted by the greater fat mass in girls."

"Fat mass in girls during puberty may have a long-term impact on bone health as they grow into adulthood. Excessive reduction in fat mass could have adverse effects on the developing skeleton particularly in girls, leading to an increased risk of osteoporosis later in life," he adds.