Even when they include them, gifted programs aren't serving Black or low-income kids
May 10, 2021
Science Daily/University of Florida
After years of criticism for their lack of diversity, programs for high achievers may not be adequately serving their Black and low-income students, a new study shows.
"The potential benefits aren't equally distributed," said lead author and University of Florida College of Education professor Christopher Redding, Ph.D., who evaluated data from gifted programs in elementary schools nationwide. "The conversation up to this point has been about access, with less emphasis on how students perform once in gifted programs."
While academic achievement gains for students overall were modest -- going from the 78th to 80th percentile in reading and rising only a third as much in math -- low-income and Black gifted students, on average, saw no achievement gains. When the researchers looked at factors beyond scores, including engagement, attendance, and whether a student left or stayed in a school, they found little evidence to suggest gifted participation influenced those measures for any group.
"We're not saying these programs don't have benefits," Redding said. "But as states and school districts evaluate them, we need to ask, 'How can we do this best both for all gifted students and for diverse student populations?'"
A barrier to effectively serving a diverse gifted population could be the programs' content. If the curriculum only reflects the affluent, predominantly white population that gifted has traditionally served, it might not meet the needs of its other students, Redding says. As a success story, he points to the example of Illinois' second-largest school district, which diversified its curriculum -- but the impetus for that shift was a federal class-action suit.
"Unfortunately, unless there's this strong pressure from the courts, lots of districts aren't taking these steps that could be taken," Redding said.
Another culprit could be the structure of the programs. While some students receive all-day gifted instruction, others might only get an hour every other week. In "light touch" programs like those, a better option might be what education researchers call acceleration: skipping a grade or taking fifth grade math while in fourth grade, for example.
Redding doesn't want to see gifted programs go away, but he wants educators to take a hard look at how their curriculum meshes with the students they're trying to reach -- and for policymakers to have a better understanding of what the programs are actually achieving.
"It's not just about access," he said.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210510161515.htm
Managing children's weight, blood pressure and cholesterol protects brain function mid-life
May 10, 2021
Science Daily/American Heart Association
Managing weight, blood pressure and cholesterol in children may help protect brain function in later life, according to new research published today in the American Heart Association's flagship journal Circulation. This is the first study to highlight that cardiovascular risk factors accumulated from childhood through mid-life may influence poor cognitive performance at midlife.
Previous research has indicated that nearly 1 in 5 people older than 60 have at least mild loss of brain function. Cognitive deficits are known to be linked with cardiovascular risk factors, such as high blood pressure, obesity, type 2 diabetes, smoking, physical inactivity and poor diet, as well as depression and low education level.
Many diseases that cause neurological deficits, such as Alzheimer's, have a long preclinical phase before noticeable symptoms begin, so finding links between childhood obesity and other cardiovascular risk factors is important for cognitive health. The researchers noted that there are currently no cures for major causes of dementia, so it is important to learn how early in life cardiovascular risk factors may affect the brain.
"We can use these results to turn the focus of brain health from old age and midlife to people in younger age groups," said the study's first author Juuso O. Hakala, M.D., a Ph.D. student at the Research Centre of Applied and Prevention Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Turku, in Turku, Finland. "Our results show active monitoring and prevention of heart disease and stroke risk factors, beginning from early childhood, can also matter greatly when it comes to brain health. Children who have adverse cardiovascular risk factors might benefit from early intervention and lifestyle modifications."
The Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study is a national, longitudinal study on cardiovascular risk from childhood to adulthood in Finland. Researchers followed the participants' cardiovascular risk factor profiles for 31 years from childhood to adulthood. Baseline clinical examinations were conducted in 1980 on approximately 3,600 randomly selected boys and girls, ranging in ages from 3 to 18, all of whom were white. More than 2,000 of the participants, ranging in ages from 34 to 49, underwent a computerized cognitive function test in 2011. The test measured four different cognitive domains: episodic memory and associative learning; short-term working memory; reaction and movement time; and visual processing and sustained attention.
Researchers found:
Systolic blood pressure, total blood cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, as well as body mass index, from childhood to midlife are associated with brain function in middle age.
Consistently high systolic blood pressure or high blood total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol were linked to worse memory and learning by midlife when compared with lower measures.
Obesity from childhood to adulthood was associated with lower visual information processing speed and maintaining attention.
Having all three cardiovascular risk factors was linked to poorer memory and associative learning, worse visual processing, decreased attention span, and slower reaction and movement time.
These results are from observational findings, so more studies are needed to learn whether there are specific ages in childhood and/or adolescence when cardiovascular risk factors are particularly important to brain health in adulthood. Study limitations include that a definite cause-and-effect link between cardiovascular risk factors and cognitive performance cannot be determined in this type of population-based study; cognition was measured at a single point in time; and because all study participants are white, the results may not be generalizable to people from other racial or ethnic groups.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210510085857.htm
How bullying and obesity can affect girls' and boys' mental health
May 7, 2021
Science Daily/Uppsala University
Depressive symptoms are more common in teenage girls than in their male peers. However, boys' mental health appears to be affected more if they suffer from obesity. Irrespective of gender, bullying is a considerably greater risk factor than overweight for developing depressive symptoms. These conclusions are drawn by researchers at Uppsala University who monitored adolescents for six years in a questionnaire study, now published in the Journal of Public Health.
"The purpose of our study was to investigate the connection between body mass index (BMI) and depressive symptoms, and to take a close look at whether being subjected to bullying affects this relationship over time. We also wanted to investigate whether any gender differences existed," says Sofia Kanders, a PhD student at Uppsala University's Department of Neuroscience.
In the study young people, born in Västmanland County, replied to questions about their height, weight and depressive symptoms on three separate occasions (2012, 2015 and 2018). The respondents' mean age was 14.4 years on the first occasion and 19.9 years on the last.
Based on BMI, the adolescents were divided into three groups: those with normal weight, overweight and obesity respectively. They were also grouped according to the extent of their depressive symptoms.
Overall, regardless of their weight, the girls stated more frequently that they had depressive symptoms. In 2012, 17 per cent of the girls and 6 per cent of the boys did so. By 2015, the proportions of adolescents with these symptoms had risen to 32 per cent for the girls and 13 per cent for the boys. The corresponding figures for 2018 were 34 and 19 per cent respectively.
A higher BMI did not, as far as the researchers could see, affect the girls' mental well-being to any great extent. Among the boys, however, the pattern observed was entirely different.
"When we analysed girls and boys separately, we saw that for boys with obesity in 2012, the risk for having depressive symptoms in 2015 was, statistically, five times higher than for normal-weight boys. In the girls we found no such connection," Kanders says.
The study has been unable to answer the question of what causes this gender difference, and the researchers think more research is needed in this area.
The young respondents were also asked about bullying -- for example, to state whether, in the past year, they had been physically exposed to blows and kicks, teased or excluded, subjected to cyberbullying (abusive texting or other electronic or web bullying), or bullied by an adult at school.
In every analysis, exposure to bullying was associated with a higher risk of depressive symptoms. This connection was also evident six years later, especially in overweight boys. The researchers believe that these results seem to indicate a gender difference in how BMI and bullying together drive development of future depressive symptoms.
"One key conclusion and take-home message from our study is that bullying can affect mental illness for a long time to come, which therefore makes preventive measures against bullying in schools extremely important," Kanders says.
Facts about the study
This study is a sub-project in the much larger SALVe (Survey of Adolescent Life in Vestmanland) study. In SALVe, teenagers born in 1997 and 1999, and residing in Västmanland County (to the west of Uppsala), were asked in 2012 to answer questions about various ailments, well-being, sleep, computer habits, gaming, enjoyment of school and other aspects of their lives. The purpose is to follow this cohort for 20 years in order to gain knowledge of how inheritance and environment affect mental and physical health.
In this sub-project, 1,729 adolescents (962 girls and 767 boys) replied to the researchers' questions on the first occasion, in 2012. In 2015 there were 1,481 respondents, and in 2018 1,111. This decrease in numbers over time was due to drop-out, with slightly more boys than girls leaving the study.
The adolescents were grouped on the basis of their BMI and prevalence of depressive symptoms. Every answer to a question about the extent of their subjection to bullying was given a point score from 0 to 3. The researchers then compared the various groups' total scores; that is, they did not explore the results at individual level.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210507112020.htm
Online learning doesn't improve student sleep habits
Students working/studying from home sleep later but not longer, according to new study
May 6, 2021
Science Daily/Simon Fraser University
New research from Simon Fraser University suggests that students learning remotely become night owls but do not sleep more despite the time saved commuting, working or attending social events.
The study, led by psychology professor Ralph Mistlberger, Andrea Smit and Myriam Juda, at SFU's Circadian Rhythms and Sleep Lab, compared self-reported data on sleep habits from 80 students enrolled in a 2020 summer session course at SFU with data collected from 450 students enrolled in the same course during previous summer semesters. The study results were recently published in the journal PLOS ONE.
"There is a widespread belief among sleep researchers that many people, especially young adults, regularly obtain insufficient sleep due to work, school, and social activities," says Mistlberger. "The move toward remote work and school during COVID-19 has provided a novel opportunity to test this belief."
The student participants kept daily sleep diaries over a period of two-to-eight weeks, completed questionnaires and provided written reports. Fitbit sleep tracker data was collected from a subsample of participants.
The team found that students learning remotely in the summer 2020 session went to bed an average of 30 minutes later than pre-pandemic students. They slept less efficiently, less at night and more during the day, but did not sleep more overall despite having no early classes and 44 per cent fewer work days compared to students in previous semesters.
"One very consistent finding is a collective delay of sleep timing -- people go to bed and wake up later," says Mistlberger. "Not surprisingly, there is also a marked reduction in natural light exposure, especially early in the day. The lack of change in sleep duration was a bit of a surprise, as it goes against the assumption that young adults would sleep more if they had the time."
Self-described night owls were more likely to report a greater positive impact on their sleep, getting to sleep in, instead of waking up early for that morning class, while morning types were more likely to report a negative response to sleeping later than usual.
Sleep plays an important role in immune functioning and mental health, which is why good sleep habits are crucial.
"My advice for students and anybody working from home is to try to get outside and be active early in the day because the morning light helps stabilize your circadian sleep-wake cycle -- this should improve your sleep, and allow you to feel more rested and energized during the day," says Mistlberger.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210506163618.htm
Youngest children in class more likely to be diagnosed with learning disability
May 6, 2021
Science Daily/University of Turku
Children born in December, in school districts with a December 31 cut-off date, are almost twice as likely to be diagnosed with a learning disorder as those born in January. ADHD was found not to affect the association between month of birth and the likelihood of a learning disability diagnosis.
The new, register based study included children born in Finland between 1996 and 2002. Of nearly 400,000 children, 3,000 were diagnosed with a specific learning disorder, for example, in reading, writing or math by the age of ten.
"We were familiar with the effects of the relative age to the general school performance, but there were no previous studies on the association between clinically diagnosed specific learning disorders and relative age, which is why we wanted to study it," says Doctoral Candidate, MD Bianca Arrhenius from the Centre for Child Psychiatry at the University of Turku, Finland.
In previous studies, children born later in the year, and therefore younger than their classroom peers, have been found to be at increased risk of psychiatric disorders, low academic achievement, and being bullied.
ADHD does not affect learning disabilities
Many children with learning disabilities are diagnosed with ADHD. The study compared children with both learning disability diagnosis and ADHD separately from children with learning disabilities but without ADHD, and ADHD was found not to affect the association between month of birth and the likelihood of a learning disability diagnosis.
"This finding was surprising. In children referred to specialist care, the problems are typically complex. We did not expect the impact of relative age on "pure" learning disorder to be so significant, given previous research findings on relative age to ADHD," says Dr Arrhenius.
"Diagnosing learning disorders with psychological tests also takes the exact age of the child better into account compared with the methods used in diagnosing ADHD. For this reason, too, we expected more moderate differences between the months of birth. It seems that relatively young children are more easily sent to specialized health care," Arrhenius ponders.
Aiming for equality
Research shows that teachers, health care personnel, and parents need to be aware of the phenomenon of relative age, especially when assessing a child's learning ability.
"There is a risk of both over- and under-diagnosis, meaning that the youngest in the class are proportionately diagnosed so much more that the older students in the class may even be deprived of the diagnosis and rehabilitation they need. A more systematic screening for learning disabilities could be one approach that would even out the effect of relative age on referrals to specialized health care," says Arrhenius.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210506104753.htm
Neighborhood disadvantage may be an environmental risk factor for brain development
Study suggests improving social and educational resources could alleviate risk
May 4, 2021
Science Daily/University of Southern California
A new USC study suggests that certain neighborhoods -- particularly those characterized by poverty and unemployment -- may pose an environmental risk to the developing brains of children, impacting neurocognitive performance and even brain size.
The research was published May 3 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
These findings highlight the importance of neighborhood environments for child and adolescent brain development, the researchers said, and suggest that policies, programs and investments that help improve local neighborhood conditions and empower communities could support children's neurodevelopment and long-term health.
"This is the first large, national study of neurodevelopment to determine that the role of neighborhood disadvantage is similar across all regions of the country, and we found that what mattered most were the local differences in neighborhood disadvantage within each city, rather than how cities differ from each other overall," said lead author Daniel Hackman, assistant professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.
Researchers from the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work and the Keck School of Medicine of USC used data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, collected from October 2016 -- 2018. The ABCD Study is the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States.
Neighborhood disadvantage, after accounting for family socioeconomic status and perceptions of neighborhood safety, showed associations with multiple aspects of neurocognition and smaller total cortical surface area, particularly in the frontal, parietal and temporal lobes.
"Our findings aren't specific to the child's home life, as we adjusted for socioeconomic factors at each child's home. But the research suggests neighborhoods may have different levels of social and educational resources and opportunities that can impact a child's neurodevelopment," said senior author Megan Herting, assistant professor at the department of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at USC.
In addition, the researchers said, disadvantaged neighborhoods may lack quality health services, access to nutritional foods, and well-maintained parks and rec facilities; they may also expose residents to more pollutants or social stressors.
"This research is important as it not only highlights that neighborhoods matter, but it also suggests that promoting neighborhood equity based on the unique local conditions within cities may improve short and long-term health and development of children and adolescents," said Hackman.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210504191443.htm
Research delves into link between test anxiety and poor sleep
April 28, 2021
Science Daily/University of Kansas
College students across the country struggle with a vicious cycle: Test anxiety triggers poor sleep, which in turn reduces performance on the tests that caused the anxiety in the first place.
New research from the University of Kansas just published in the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine is shedding light on this biopsychosocial process that can lead to poor grades, withdrawal from classes and even students who drop out. Indeed, about 40% of freshman don't return to their universities for a second year in the United States.
"We were interested in finding out what predicted students' performance in statistics classes -- stats classes are usually the most dreaded undergrad class," said lead author Nancy Hamilton, professor of psychology at KU. "It can be a particular problem that can be a sticking point for a lot of students. I'm interested in sleep, and sleep and anxiety are related. So, we wanted to find out what the relationship was between sleep, anxiety and test performance to find the correlation and how it unfolds over time."
Hamilton and graduate student co-authors Ronald Freche and Ian Carroll and undergraduates Yichi Zhang and Gabriella Zeller surveyed the sleep quality, anxiety levels and test scores for 167 students enrolled in a statistics class at KU. Participants completed an electronic battery of measures and filled out Sleep Mood Study Diaries during the mornings in the days before a statistics exam. Instructors confirmed exam scores. The study showed "sleep and anxiety feed one another" and can hurt academic performance predictably.
"We looked at test anxiety to determine whether that did predict who passed, and it was a predictor," Hamilton said. "It was a predictor even after controlling for students' past performance and increased the likelihood of students failing in class. When you look at students who are especially anxious, it was almost a five-point difference in their score over students who had average levels of anxiety. This is not small potatoes. It's the difference between a C-minus abd a D. It's the difference between a B-plus and an A-minus. It's real."
Beyond falling grades, a student's overall health could suffer when test anxiety and poor sleep reinforce each other.
"Studies have shown students tend to cope with anxiety through health behaviors," Hamilton said. "Students may use more caffeine to combat sleep problems associated with anxiety, and caffeine can actually enhance sleep problems, specifically if you're using caffeine in the afternoon or in the evening. Students sometimes self-medicate for anxiety by using alcohol or other sedating drugs. Those are things that we know are related."
Hamilton said universities could do more to communicate to students the prevalence of test anxiety and provide them with resources.
"What would be really helpful for a university to do is to talk about testing anxiety and to talk about the fact that it's very common and that there are things that can be done for students who have test anxiety," she said. "A university can also talk to instructors about doing things that they can do to help minimize the effect of testing anxiety."
According to Hamilton, instructors are hindered by the phenomenon as well: Anxiety and associated sleep problems actually distort instructors' ability to measure student knowledge in a given subject.
"As an instructor, my goal when I'm writing a test is to assess how much a student understands," she said. "So having a psychological or an emotional problem gets in the way of that. It actually impedes my ability to effectively assess learning. It's noise. It's unrelated to what they understand and what they know. So, I think it behooves all of us to see if we can figure out ways to help students minimize the effects of anxiety on their performance."
The KU researcher said testing itself isn't the problem and suggested an increase in regular tests might reduce anxiety through regular exposure. However, she said a few small changes to how tests are administered also could calm student anxiety.
"In classes that use performance-based measures like math or statistics, classes that tend to really induce a lot of anxiety for some students, encouraging those students to take five minutes right before an exam to physically write about what they're anxious about can help -- that's cheap, that's easy," Hamilton said. "Also, eliminating a time limit on a test can help. There's just really nothing to be gained by telling students, 'You have an hour to complete a test and what you don't get done you just don't get done.' That's really not assessing what a student can do -- it's only assessing what a student can do quickly."
Hamilton said going forward she'd like research into the link between test anxiety and poor sleep broadened to include a more diverse group of students and also to include its influence on remote learning.
"The students in this study were mostly middle-class, Caucasian students," she said. "So, I hesitate to say these results would generalize necessarily to universities that have a more heterogeneous student body. I also would hesitate to say how this would generalize into our current Zoom environment. I don't know how that shakes out because the demands of doing exams online are likely to be very different."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210428132955.htm
Childhood air pollution exposure linked to poor mental health at age 18
Risk factor is equivalent to lead exposure, study finds
April 28, 2021
Science Daily/Duke University
A multidecade study of young adults living in the United Kingdom has found higher rates of mental illness symptoms among those exposed to higher levels of traffic-related air pollutants, particularly nitrogen oxides, during childhood and adolescence.
Previous studies have identified a link between air pollution and the risk of specific mental disorders, including depression and anxiety, but this study looked at changes in mental health that span all forms of disorder and psychological distress associated with exposure to traffic-related air pollutants.
The findings, which will appear April 28 in JAMA Network Open,reveal that the greater an individual's exposure to nitrogen oxides across childhood and adolescence, the more likely they are to show any signs of mental illness at the transition to adulthood, at age 18, when most symptoms of mental illness have emerged or begin to emerge.
The link between air pollution exposure and young adult mental illness symptoms is modest, according to the study's first-author Aaron Reuben, a graduate student in clinical psychology at Duke University. But "because harmful exposures are so widespread around the world, outdoor air pollutants could be a significant contributor to the global burden of psychiatric disease," he said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) currently estimates that 9 out of 10 people worldwide are exposed to high levels of outdoor air pollutants, which are emitted during fossil fuel combustion in cars, trucks, and powerplants, and by many manufacturing, waste-disposal, and industrial processes.
In this study, air pollution, a neurotoxicant, was found to be a weaker risk factor for mental illness than other better-known risks, such as family history of mental illness, but was of equal strength to other neurotoxicants known to harm mental health, particularly childhood exposure to lead.
In a previous study in the same cohort, Helen Fisher of King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, and coauthor and principal investigator for this study, linked childhood air pollution exposure to the risk of psychotic experiences in young adulthood, raising concern that air pollutants may exacerbate risk for psychosis later in life.
When combined with studies showing increased hospital admissions for many psychiatric illnesses during "poor" air quality days in countries like China and India, the current study builds on past findings to reveal that "air pollution is likely a non-specific risk factor for mental illness writ large," said Fisher, who noted that exacerbations of mental illness risk may show up differently in different children.
The subjects of this study are a cohort of 2,000 twins born in England and Wales in 1994-1995 and followed to young adulthood. They have regularly participated in physical and mental health evaluations and have provided information about the larger communities in which they live.
Researchers measured exposure to air pollutants -- particularly nitrogen oxides (NOx), a regulated gaseous pollutant, and fine particulate matter (PM2.5), a regulated aerosol pollutant with suspended particles below 2.5 microns in diameter -- by modeling air quality around study member's homes at ages 10 and 18 years using high-quality air dispersion models and data provided by the UK National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory and the Imperial College's UK road-traffic emissions inventory. Twenty-two percent of the study members were found to have had exposure to NOx that exceeded WHO guidelines, and 84% had exposure to PM2.5 that exceeded guidelines.
The research team, based at Duke and King's IoPPN, also assessed participant mental health at age 18. Symptoms associated with ten different psychiatric disorders -- dependence on alcohol, cannabis, or tobacco; conduct disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder; major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and eating disorder; and thought disorder symptoms related to psychosis -- were used to calculate a single measure of mental health, called the psychopathology factor, or "p-factor" for short.
The higher an individual's p-factor score, the greater the number and severity of psychiatric symptoms identified. Individuals can also differ on their mental health across sub-domains of psychopathology, which group together symptoms of distress or dysfunction that are manifested in outwardly visible ways (externalizing problems, like conduct disorder), experienced largely internally (internalizing problems, like anxiety), and via delusions or hallucinations (thought disorder symptoms). Air pollution effects on mental health were observed across these subdomains of psychopathology, with the strongest links to thought disorder symptoms.
Unique to this study, the researchers also assessed characteristics of children's neighborhoods to account for disadvantageous neighborhood conditions that associate with higher air pollution levels and greater risk of mental illness, including socioeconomic deprivation, physical dilapidation, social disconnection, and dangerousness. While air pollution levels were greater in neighborhoods with worse economic, physical, and social conditions, adjusting the study results for neighborhood characteristics did not alter the results, nor did adjustment for individual and family factors, such as childhood emotional and behavioral problems or family socioeconomic status and history of mental illness.
"We have confirmed the identification of what is essentially a novel risk factor for most major forms of mental illness," said Reuben, "one that is modifiable and that we can intervene on at the level of whole communities, cities, and or even countries."
In the future, the study team is interested in learning more about the biological mechanisms that link early life air pollution exposure to greater risk for mental illness at the transition to adulthood. Previous evidence suggests that air pollutant exposures can lead to inflammation in the brain, which may lead to difficulty regulating thoughts and emotions.
While the findings are most relevant to high-income countries with only moderate levels of outdoor air pollutants, like the US and the UK, there are also implications for low-income, developing countries with higher air pollution exposures, like China and India. "We don't know what the mental health consequences are of very high air pollution exposures, but that is an important empirical question we are investigating further," said Fisher.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210428113756.htm
More sleep or more exercise: the best time trade-offs for children's health
April 28, 2021
Science Daily/University of South Australia
More sleep could offset children's excess indulgence over the school holidays as new research from the University of South Australia shows that the same decline in body mass index may be achieved by either extra sleep or extra exercise.
The striking new finding is part of a study that shows how children can achieve equivalent physical and mental health benefits by choosing different activity trade-offs across the 24-hour day.
Conducted in partnership with the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, and supported by the National Heart Foundation of Australia, the team examined the optimal balance between children's physical activity, sleep, and sedentary time across the 24-hour day to better inform tailored lifestyle choices.
On a minute-for-minute basis, moderate-to-vigorous physical exercise was shown to be 2-6 times more potent than sleep or sedentary time.
While exercise has a greater and faster impact on physical health and wellbeing, children may be able to achieve the same 7.4% reduction in body mass index (BMI) by either:
exercising 17 more minutes (moderate-to-vigorous exercise) OR
sleeping an extra 52 minutes OR
reducing their sitting or sedentary time by an extra 56 minutes.
Similarly, children may significantly improve their mental health by either:
exercising 35 minutes more (moderate-to-vigorous exercise), OR
sleeping an extra 68 minutes OR
reducing their sitting or sedentary time by 54 minutes.
The study assessed 1179 children aged 11-12 years, from the cross-sectional Child Health CheckPoint Study. Physical wellbeing was measured via BMI, waist girth and body fat; mental wellbeing was measured via self-reported responses on the Paediatric Quality of Life Inventory.
Lead researcher, UniSA's Dr Dot Dumuid, says that the findings provide options for busy families looking to get the most value out of their day.
"There are many competing time demands in modern families ¬- whether it's after school soccer, music lessons, or simply walking the family dog, finding the time to fit everything into a single day, can be a challenge," Dr Dumuid says.
"International guidelines suggest that children need 9-11 hours' sleep, 60 minutes of physical exercise, and no more than two hours of recreational screen time per day, yet only seven percent of children are regularly meeting these goals.
"With so many competing priorities and commitments, it's helpful to know which activities deliver the greatest 'bang for your buck'.
"In this research we calculated how much sleep, sedentary time, light exercise, and moderate-to-vigorous exercise was associated with the same improvements in mental health, physical health and academic achievement.
"For families with very little available time, small increases in moderate-to-vigorous exercise could be an option to improve children's health and wellbeing; alternatively an earlier night could equally deliver the same health benefits -- importantly, it's the flexibility that these findings offer that make them so valuable.
"Exploring trade-offs between children's activities is a promising way for families to make healthy choices that suit their regular family schedule."
The Heart Foundation's Director of Physical Activity, Adjunct Professor Trevor Shilton, said the Heart Foundation was happy to support such an innovative approach to investigating children's physical health and mental wellbeing.
"This study confirms that physical activity is the quickest and most effective way to deliver benefits for children's physical health and mental wellbeing. But the findings also offer some flexibility for families," Professor Shilton says.
"Helping young people make healthy choices and helping families create an environment that supports them in these choices can improve their quality of life in the future, as well as reducing their risk of chronic diseases, such as heart disease."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210428100253.htm
Want to be robust at 40-plus? Meeting minimum exercise guidelines won't cut it
5 hours of moderate activity a week may be required to avoid midlife hypertension
April 15, 2021
Science Daily/University of California - San Francisco
Young adults must step up their exercise routines to reduce their chances of developing high blood pressure or hypertension -- a condition that may lead to heart attack and stroke, as well as dementia in later life.
Current guidelines indicate that adults should have a minimum of two-and-a-half hours of moderate intensity exercise each week, but a new study led by UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals reveals that boosting exercise to as much as five hours a week may protect against hypertension in midlife -- particularly if it is sustained in one's thirties, forties and fifties.
In the study publishing in American Journal of Preventive Medicineon April 15, researchers followed approximately 5,000 adults ages 18 to 30 for 30 years. The participants were asked about their exercise habits, medical history, smoking status and alcohol use. Blood pressure and weight were monitored, together with cholesterol and triglycerides.
Hypertension was noted if blood pressure was 130 over 80 mmHg, the threshold established in 2017 by the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association.
The 5,115 participants had been enrolled by the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study and came from urban sites in Birmingham, Ala., Chicago, Minneapolis and Oakland, Calif. Approximately half the participants were Black (51.6 percent) and the remainder were White. Just under half (45.5 percent) were men.
Fitness Levels Fall Fast for Black Men Leading to More Hypertension
Among the four groups, who were categorized by race and gender, Black men were found to be the most active in early adulthood, exercising slightly more than White men and significantly more than Black women and White women. But by the time Black men reached age 60, exercise intake had slumped from a peak of approximately 560 exercise units to around 300 units, the equivalent to the minimum of two-and-a-half hours a week of moderate intensity exercise recommended by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This was substantially less exercise than White men (approximately 430 units) and slightly more than White women (approximately 320 units). Of the four groups, Black women had the least exercise throughout the study period and saw declines over time to approximately 200 units.
"Although Black male youth may have high engagement in sports, socio-economic factors, neighborhood environments, and work or family responsibilities may prevent continued engagement in physical activity through adulthood," said first author Jason Nagata, MD, of the UCSF Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine. Additionally, Black men reported the highest rates of smoking, which may preclude physical activity over time, he noted.
Physical activity for White men declined in their twenties and thirties and stabilized at around age 40. For White women, physical activity hovered around 380 exercise units, dipping in their thirties and remaining constant to age 60.
Rates of hypertension mirrored this declining physical activity. Approximately 80-to-90 percent of Black men and women had hypertension by age 60, compared with just below 70 percent for White men and 50 percent for White women.
"Results from randomized controlled trials and observational studies have shown that exercise lowers blood pressure, suggesting that it may be important to focus on exercise as a way to lower blood pressure in all adults as they approach middle age," said senior author Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, MD, PhD, of the UCSF Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.
"Teenagers and those in their early twenties may be physically active but these patterns change with age. Our study suggests that maintaining physical activity during young adulthood -- at higher levels than previously recommended -- may be particularly important."
More Exercise from Youth to Midlife Offers Best Protection Against Hypertension
When researchers looked at the 17.9 percent of participants who had moderate exercise for at least five hours a week during early adulthood -- double the recommended minimum -- they found that the likelihood of developing hypertension was 18 percent lower than for those who exercised less than five hours a week. The likelihood was even lower for the 11.7 percent of participants who maintained their exercise habits until age 60.
Patients should be asked about physical activity in the same way as they are routinely checked for blood pressure, glucose and lipid profiles, obesity and smoking, Nagata said, and intervention programs should be held at schools, colleges, churches, workplaces and community organizations. Black women have high rates of obesity and smoking, and low rates of physical activity, he said, and should be an important group for targeted intervention.
"Nearly half of our participants in young adulthood had suboptimal levels of physical activity, which was significantly associated with the onset of hypertension, indicating that we need to raise the minimum standard for physical activity," Nagata said. "This might be especially the case after high school when opportunities for physical activity diminish as young adults transition to college, the workforce and parenthood, and leisure time is eroded."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210415090724.htm