Being overweight makes children less active

A new study from the University of Copenhagen's OPUS Research Centre reports that being overweight makes children less active.

The findings underscore that parents of overweight children have an obligation to keep their children active, as physical activity is vital for the general health of all children.

The study also shows that slender children do not become overweight due to a lack of activity.

Over time, children with a higher fat mass reduce their level of physical activity and increasingly pursue sedentary activities such as watching TV or computer gaming.

Conversely, low levels of physical activity or too much time in front of the TV or computer do not cause normal-weighted children to put on weight.

The findings stem from a large study that has just been published in the esteemed journal, the 'International Journey of Obesity'.

New knowledge about the linkage between physical activity and overweight children

The study presents an entirely new body of knowledge about the links between physical activity and being overweight because it investigates developments among test participants over time.

In contrast, most other studies have measured activity at a single point in time, making it impossible to establish whether activity levels affect being overweight, or whether being overweight influences the level of activity:

"The defining characteristic of our work is that we have left a period of six months in between our measurements of activity and weight."

Mads Fiil Hjorth

"Thus, we have been able to investigate how an overweight child's level of activity develops over a half-year," says Mads Fiil Hjorth, a researcher of physical activity, sleep and obesity at the University of Copenhagen's OPUS Research Centre.

Mads Fiil Hjorth emphasises that physical activity is of great value to children.

"Even though our study, in part, shows that a lack of physical activity and lots of TV and computer do not cause children to gain weight, physical activity is obviously very good for children's general health and welfare in a number of other ways.

We have not focused on these areas in this study. Instead, we have specifically focused on the link between physical activity and fat mass."

Danger not limited to those who are overweight

Anders Sjödin

Associate Professor Anders Sjödin, head of OPUS' research into children's activity patterns, points out that the problem also extends to a segment of normal-weight children:

"It wasn't only those children who are classically understood as being overweight who demonstrated poor development in activity levels."

"There were also normal-weight children with slightly larger fat masses," according to Sjödin.

"So, there is no doubt that if someone has a child with a bit too much to pinch around the midsection, parents need to stay attuned to the child's level of activity."

The Method
The study included 600 third and fourth grade children who were equipped with an activity tracker on two occasions, for seven days at a time.

The activity tracker was worn at the start of the project and again after six months. The tracker was able to register around the clock activity levels.

These measurements were compared with measurements of fat mass at both the beginning and end of the project.

Among other things, this demonstrated that children with the highest fat mass experienced the greatest reduction in the amount of activity over the half-year period.

The study's results can be read in the article, Fatness predicts decreased physical activity and increased sedentary time, but not vice versa: support from a longitudinal study in 8-11 year old children', published in the 'International Journey of Obesity'.

More information: "Fatness predicts decreased physical activity and increased sedentary time, but not vice versa: support from a longitudinal study in 8- to 11-year-old children." M F Hjorth, J-P Chaput, C Ritz, S-M Dalskov, R Andersen, A Astrup, I Tetens, K F Michaelsen and A Sjödin. International Journal of Obesity (5 December 2013) | DOI: 10.1038/ijo.2013.229

TV and video game distractions linked to sleep loss in boys with Autism (ADS/ADD)

Exposure to television and video games could play a role in the sleep problems of children with autism, new research suggests.

Boys with the neurodevelopmental disorder who have TVs and game consoles in their bedrooms get less sleep than other boys with equal screen access, the study authors found.

"If parents of children with autism are noticing that their child struggles with sleep, they might consider monitoring—and perhaps limiting—pre-bedtime exposure" to video games and TV, said study lead author Christopher Engelhardt, a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Missouri Thompson Center for Autism & Neurodevelopmental Disorders in Columbia, Mo.

It's not clear if the boys in the study get too little sleep, or if they're watching TV and playing video games because they have trouble sleeping.

The findings, reported online Nov. 18 in the journal Pediatrics, don't provide insight into whether the positive aspects of TV watching and video game playing might offset any effect on sleep.

It's estimated that 1 out of every 88 U.S. children has an autism spectrum disorder, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Symptoms include problems with communication and socialization, and can range from mild, as in Asperger's syndrome, to severe autism. Boys face a much higher risk of autism than girls.

Certain Sleep problems appear to be a hallmark of autism.
"Some sleep problems, such as taking longer to fall asleep and waking up at night, occur in 50 percent to 80 percent of children with autism," Engelhardt said.

"The reasons for these problems are numerous, including trouble with sleep cycles and regulating hormones that are important and necessary for sleep."

Compared to typically developing children, children with autism also seem to be particularly drawn to TV and video games, Engelhardt pointed out.

"We suspect that this is the case, particularly with video games, because the environments, emotions and social interactions are much easier to control and interpret than in real life," he said.

For this study, the researchers wanted to explore the possible impact of TV-watching and gaming on the sleeping patterns of kids with autism.

They surveyed parents of 49 boys with an autism spectrum disorder, 38 with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and 41 who had neither disorder. The boys were between 8 and 17 years old.

When computers were in the bedroom, sleep differences were significant: about 7 hours for boys with autism compared to more than 8.5 hours for the others.

Boys with autism and a bedroom TV also got less sleep: fewer than 8 hours a night compared to about 8.5 hours for the other boys.

However, the parents weren't asked questions designed to determine if the kids weren't getting enough sleep. And the research doesn't prove that media use deprives these boys of sleep.

It's possible that boys with autism and easy access to TV and video games need less sleep, Engelhardt said. Or they might watch and play because they are awake more.

Still, it's known that sleep disturbances can worsen problematic behaviors of children with autism and interfere with learning and family functioning, the authors noted.

Sleep problems are "one of the top complaints in families who are dealing with autism," said Matthew Belmonte, a neuroscientist at Groden Center in Providence, R.I.

But parents, not professionals, are key to figuring out the proper role of TV and video games in a child's life, added Belmonte, who was not involved with the study.

"You don't need an M.D. or Ph.D. to tell you when a child is just relaxing with a video game or when it's keeping that child awake unnecessarily."

Engelhardt said he enjoys playing video games himself and isn't on a crusade against them. Video games and TV can benefit children with autism, he noted.

"Researchers have known for a long time that video games are excellent teachers, so it's possible that these media can be used to develop and shape the types of behaviours generally valued by society, such as behaviours intended to help and assist others," Engelhardt said.

It's even possible, he added, that relaxing video games and TV shows could help kids with autism sleep better.

Violent Video Games Are a Risk Factor for Criminal Behaviour and Aggression

Iowa State researchers say there is a strong connection between violent video games and youth violence and delinquency. 

Credit: Photo by Bob Elbert

People are quick to point the finger or dismiss the effect of violent video games as a factor in criminal behaviour.

New evidence from Iowa State researchers demonstrates a link between video games and youth violence and delinquency.

Matt DeLisi

Matt DeLisi, a professor of sociology, said the research shows a strong connection even when controlling for a history of violence and psychopathic traits among juvenile offenders.

"When critics say, 'Well, it's probably not video games, it's probably how antisocial they are,' we can address that directly because we controlled for a lot of things that we know matter," DeLisi said.

"Even if you account for the child's sex, age, race, the age they were first referred to juvenile court -- which is a very powerful effect -- and a bunch of other media effects, like screen time and exposure. Even with all of that, the video game measure still mattered."

Douglas Gentile

The results were not unexpected, but somewhat surprising for Douglas Gentile, an associate professor of psychology, who has studied the effects of video game violence exposure and minor aggression, like hitting, teasing and name-calling.

"I didn't expect to see much of an effect when we got to serious delinquent and criminal level aggression because youth who commit that level of aggression have a lot of things going wrong for them. They often have a lot of risk factors and very few protective factors in their lives," Gentile said.

The study published in the April issue of Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice examined the level of video game exposure for 227 juvenile offenders in Pennsylvania.

The average offender had committed nearly nine serious acts of violence, such as gang fighting, hitting a parent or attacking another person in the prior year.

The results show that both the frequency of play and affinity for violent games were strongly associated with delinquent and violent behavior.

Craig Anderson

Craig Anderson, Distinguished Professor of psychology and director of the Center for the Study of Violence at Iowa State, said violent video game exposure is not the sole cause of violence, but this study shows it is a risk factor.

"Can we say from this study that Adam Lanza, or any of the others, went off and killed people because of media violence?

You can't take the stand of the NRA that it's strictly video games and not guns," Anderson said.

"You also can't take the stand of the entertainment industry that it has nothing to do with media violence that it's all about guns and not about media violence. They're both wrong and they're both right, both are causal risk factors."

Researchers point out that juvenile offenders have several risk factors that influence their behavior. The next step is to build on this research to determine what combination of factors is the most volatile and if there is a saturation point.

"When studying serious aggression, looking at multiple risk factors matters more than looking at any one," Gentile said.

"The cutting edge of research is trying to understand in what combination do the individual risk factors start influencing each other in ways to either enhance or mitigate the odds of aggression?"

Parents
Just because a child plays a violent video game does not mean he or she is going to act violently.

Researchers say if there is a take away for parents, it is an awareness of what their children are playing and how that may influence their behavior.

"I think parents need to be truthful and honest about who their children are in terms of their psychiatric functioning," DeLisi said.

"If you have a kid who is antisocial, who is a little bit vulnerable to influence, giving them something that allows them to escape into themselves for a long period of time isn't a healthy thing."

Reference
Violent Video Games, Delinquency, and Youth Violence: New Evidence. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 2012; 11 (2): 132 DOI: 10.1177/1541204012460874

Dyslexia and Video Games: They can 'help reading in children with dyslexia'

Playing video games may help children with dyslexia improve their reading skills, research suggests.

A study of 10-year-olds who played 12 hours of an "action" video game found it improved their reading speed without any cost to accuracy.

The effects were equivalent to more than a year's worth of reading development, the Italian team reported in Current Biology.

But more research was needed before games could be considered a treatment.

Their work builds on earlier research in which they linked dyslexia with early problems in visual attention rather than language skills.

They selected a fast-moving game requiring a high degree of perceptual, cognitive, and motor skills as well as being unpredictable and involving peripheral processing.

Ten children spent nine 80-minute sessions playing the video game, which consisted of a series of mini-games.

And their reading and attention skills were compared before and after with 10 children not exposed to the game.

Speed and accuracy
The researchers found those who had played the video games had better attention skills than before.

And they were able to read faster without losing any accuracy, the team from the University of Padua reported.

Study leader, Dr Andrea Facoetti, said: "Action video games enhance many aspects of visual attention, mainly improving the extraction of information from the environment.

"Dyslexic children learned to orient and focus their attention more efficiently to extract the relevant information of a written word more rapidly."

He explained that attention should be thought of as a "spotlight" that can be moved, and adjusted in its size, in the visual field.

When the spotlight is on a portion of the visual field, the details will be enhanced, the contrast improved and so on, while everything that is outside of this spotlight will be inhibited.

The video games may be working to train the part of the brain responsible for attention and motion perception, he added.

"These results are very important in order to understand the brain mechanisms underlying dyslexia, but they don't put us in a position to recommend playing video games without any control or supervision," he said.

The team are now planning to look at the effects of video games on the prevention of dyslexia in children before they learn to read.

Dr Kate Saunders, chief executive of the British Dyslexia Association, said it was a complex condition but for some individuals part of the problem may include difficulty with aspects of visual perceptual skills, and visuo-motor coordination and attention.

She added that more research was needed to establish whether repeated play on some targeted computer games could help build certain visual and attention related skills.

"There are questions, however, as to the extent that skills transfer from one situation to another and would be retained in the longer term."

Teenage Depression: SPARX Game as effective as Traditional Treatment

An innovative computer-based intervention for depressed young people, developed by researchers from The University of Auckland, has been shown to be at least as effective as standard treatments mainly comprising face-to-face therapy.

A research team led by Associate Professor Sally Merry developed and trialled the intervention called SPARX with the aim of giving young people easier, lower cost access to treatment.

In a study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) they assessed the effectiveness of SPARX in 24 sites around New Zealand, including youth clinics, schools and general practices.

Half of the young people participating used the new game and half received standard treatment through their doctor, school counsellor or other provider. SPARX was shown to be at least as good as the standard treatments.

SPARX uses CD-Rom based computer gaming to teach self-help for depression. It includes an interactive 3D fantasy game to teach young people the skills they need to cope with challenges and manage their mood.

In contrast to many other e-therapies, SPARX has been designed to help young people learn through action in a virtual world. It is based on cognitive behavioural therapy, a proven therapeutic approach.

“Using computer technology that young people are comfortable with is one way of making therapy more accessible, practical, and hopefully more fun,” says Dr Merry.

It has been designed to be easily accessed by young people directly or to be delivered easily in primary care settings. In 2011, SPARX won a UN World Summit Award recognising creativity and innovation in e-health interventions.

 

Depression is common among young people internationally and accessing help can be difficult. One in five New Zealanders will have experienced clinical depression by their eighteenth birthday.

Three quarters of young people with depression never receive treatment. “We want to intervene earlier and more effectively,” says Dr Merry.

SPARX was initiated by researchers, clinicians, and learning technologists at the University’s Werry Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health in the Department of Psychological Medicine.

It was developed with input from Māori, Pacific people, and other cultural groups in New Zealand. The programme was created with the assistance of a local game development company, Metia Interactive.

A number of actors, musicians and artists have generously donated their time and skills to the project.

The work was funded by the NZ Ministry of Health as part of the Primary Health Care Strategy to build and strengthen the capacity of the primary care sector to respond to mental health needs, and in this case adolescent depression.

More information on SPARX is available on www.sparx.org.nz.

TED Dimitri Christakis - Media and Children - YouTube

Young children who have early exposure to television are more likely to develop an increased risk of behavioural and learning problems, according to a recent study.

The research, led by Dr Dimitri Christakis, paediatrician and director of the Seattle Children's Research Institute's Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development, has found that too much time spent viewing rapid screen images and sounds can make real-time activities seem boring, causing attention problems when children enter the classroom.

"Parents are surprisingly poorly informed about this and in our studies we're working hard to educate them. Parents need to know TV and other media have real and powerful effects on their kids," Christakis said.

He compared the ages of children's exposure to television and discovered that the average age for a child in the 1970s was four years old. Today, it is four months.

Mrs. Books - Apples Gosh Golly - YouTube

A Children's Educational video. Sharing Fun with the whole Family! Counting Funny, Silly Apples from 1 to 10 with Mrs. Books. Wonderful Music to Sing and Dance Along with too!