Author: Barb Flis

In a story reported by the New York Times (5.3.2009), teens can anonymously text a sexual health question and have it answered within 24 hours.  The Durham, North Carolina-based Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Campaign of North Carolina (http://www.appcnc.org/BirdsNBees.html) recently launched the Birds and Bees Text Line, a cell phone line where youths ages 14-19 can anonymously text sexual health questions to 36263. Within 24 hours, one of nine APPNC staff members anonymously responds with text message answers, information, and referrals. The staffers have graduate degrees in public health, social work, or years of experience working with teens.

The service reflects a trend in reaching out to teens by using technologies with which they are most familiar. Based partly on a similar service in Alexandria, Va., the Birds and Bees Text Line is supported with a $5,000 state Department of Health and Human Services grant. In programs in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Toronto, and San Francisco, teens can text a number and scroll through a menu of frequently asked questions and receive automated replies and referrals. Last month, California began “HookUp 365247,” a statewide service that refers people to local clinics and offers weekly health tips.
“The technology can be used to connect young people to trusted, competent adults who have competent information,” said Sheana Bull, a professor at the University of Colorado School of Public Health and an expert on STDs and technology.
APPNC staff follow a few ground rules: No medical advice – urge clients to visit a doctor; Do not advocate abortion; When necessary, refer questioners to local clinics, Web sites or hot lines; Give reasoned, kind advice; Read answers twice before sending; and No sarcasm.
Sally Swanson, an APPNC staffer who answers text messages, never divulges her age or gender: “I’m a texter. I want them to find someone real to talk to.” Were parents to read some of the teens’ messages, she said, “it would highlight how much disconnected information kids are already getting at younger ages than we did.”

Over nearly the past 30 years, U.S. children and adolescents have dramatically increased their consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), including soda, fruit drinks and punches, and sports drinks. Such consumption has been linked to less healthy diets and a number of other negative health consequences, including decreased bone density, dental decay, headaches, anxiety and loss of sleep. A new research synthesis from Healthy Eating Research, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, examines the evidence regarding the various health impacts of SSB consumption, presents initial conclusions based on these studies and identifies areas for further research.

Key findings from the research synthesis include:

• In 2004, adolescents consumed an average of 300 calories per day from SSBs, accounting for 13 percent of their daily caloric intake.
• SSB consumption leads to excess caloric intake and weight gain, as well as increased obesity rates among children and adolescents.
• Substituting other beverages, such as water, for SSBs could reduce over-consumption of calories and improve nutrition.

The synthesis is part of a growing body of research that examines the health impacts of sugar-sweetened beverages and the possible public health and economic benefits of taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages. Additional journal articles, research syntheses and policy briefs that explore the health impacts of SSB consumption, as well as the possible health and economic benefits of taxes on SSBs, are available on the Foundation’s Web site.

Posted December 17th, 2009

Sexting is the new term that has been coined over the past year and its definition is the act of sending, receiving and/or forwarding of naked pictures of oneself and/or friends or classmates via cell phone.  This is happening all over the country, putting adolescents at risk for criminal charges, humiliation and isolation from their peers. 

 Last January, three girls (ages 14 or 15) in Greensburg, Pa., were charged with disseminating child pornography for sexting their boyfriends. The boys who received the images were charged with possession. A teenager in Indiana faces felony obscenity charges for sending a picture of his genitals to female classmates. A 15-year-old girl in Ohio and a 14-year-old girl in Michigan were charged with felonies for sending along nude images of themselves to classmates. Some of these teens have pleaded guilty to lesser charges; others have not. If convicted, these young people may have to register as sex offenders, in some cases for a decade or two. Similar charges have been filed in cases in Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin.

The website, http://www.Thatsnotcool.com is an excellent resource for parents to share with their teens regarding sexting, “textual harassment”, bullying, peer pressure, and abusive relationships and how to deal with these issues.  It has videos, “Call-Out Cards”, and a chat section where teens can share their experiences and advice on related issues.

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Posted December 14th, 2009

My trip to Missouri last week to speak at the Coordinated School Health Conference was wonderful from start to finish.  I was reminded about what this work is all about when I got off the plane and saw this brother and sister waiting for their dad to return home from his tour of duty in Iraq.

 

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Posted December 14th, 2009

The conference participants, mostly school nurses and Physical Education Teachers, embraced the message of my keynote address about the importance of working with parents on school health initiatives.  One of my biggest supporters (pictured with me below) is Patti Van Tuinen who is the Adolescent Health Coordinator for the Missouri Department of Health and Human Services.  Patti and her colleagues work tirelessly on behalf of children.

 

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Education!  According to a recent Reuters report in the New York Times, the United States has among the highest rates of STDs of any developed country in the world.  The highly treatable infections, such as Chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis, continue to spread. 

Parents can be a huge factor in stopping the spread of STDs among their adolescents by talking to them about healthy sexual relationships and safe sex.  The first step is being educated themselves and also being engaged with the health and sex education their adolescent is receiving in school.

Posted December 1st, 2009

Every day in his television show, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Fred Rogers talked to children about everyday life.  Much of his efforts centered on helping children to be mentally fit. 

Good mental health for children means being able to develop secure, trusting relationships, expressing emotions appropriately, and interacting with others. 

Through this song, What do you do with the mad that you feel? Mr. Rogers lets children know it is okay to have feelings and helps them learn the self-control necessary to manage their anger and channel it into a productive activity.

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Positive parent-teen relationships, high parental awareness and monitoring of whom their children are with, and family dinner routines are all linked to delayed sex among teens, according to a new Child Trends research brief.  The brief, Parents Matter: The Role of Parents in Teens’ Decisions about Sex, explores how parenting practices that occur before adolescents have had sexual intercourse are associated with the probability of first sex by age 16.  

The entire research brief is attached in a PDF, but below are some interesting findings and highlights:

• Better parent-adolescent relationships are associated with reduced risk of early sexual experience among teen girls.
• Teen girls who reported high relationship quality with both parents were less likely to have sex at an early age (22%), compared with teen girls who reported low relationship quality with both parents (37 percent).
• This finding holds true for teen girls’ relationships with their mothers and fathers separately, but no significant association was found for teen boys
• Teen boys who eat dinner with their family every day have a lower probability of having sex before age 16 (31%), compared with those who eat dinner with their family four days a week or less (37%).  No significant association was found for teen girls on this measure.

Adolescents whose parents are more aware of whom they are with when not at home are less likely to have sex by age 16.  For example, only 22% of girls who reported that their parents knew “everything” about whom they were with when they were not home had first sex before age 16, compared with 43% who reported their parents knew little or nothing.

“These findings highlight the importance of parents in adolescents’ lives,” said study co-author Jennifer Manlove, Ph.D.  “Parents can be involved beyond having the ‘sex talk’ with their adolescents – by fostering strong relationships, developing family routines such as eating dinner together regularly, and being aware of where their children are when they are not at home.”

This study is based on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, sponsored and directed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor.

AttachmentSize Child_Trends-2009_11_11_RB_ParentsTeenSex.pdf607.69 KB