Heavy use of social media by young adults—especially women—may lead to depression according to a recent study, Forbes reports. For the study, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh surveyed more than 1,700 young adults between the ages of 19 and 32 and concluded that those that spend the most time on social media had the highest risk for depression. This was especially the case for women with less education. “Given the increasing prevalence of social media and the substantial morbidity and mortality associated with depression worldwide, the positive association we found between social media use and depression has important implications for future research and intervention,” the study's authors wrote. From the participants surveyed 26% had high indicators for ...
A team of researchers studying preterm infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at St. Louis Children’s Hospital found that premature babies whose daily diets consisted of 50 percent breast milk had more brain tissue by their due dates than premature babies who consumed significantly less breast milk. One notable finding is that researchers didn’t distinguish between milk from the babies’ own mothers and milk donated by other women. Breastfeeding has numerous positive effects on children, one of which is reduce risk for obesity. The researchers plan to follow these babies through their first years of life to look at their growth and motor, cognitive, and social development, because researchers believe they will be able to determine the effects of early exposure ...
Latino communities often lack access to safe parks and green spaces, thus are less physically active and at increased risk for obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic diseases. ChangeLab Solutions now offers the Complete Parks Playbook in Spanish, Los sistemas completos de parques, to help decision makers in Latino communities assess and improve their park system. Decision makers cannot determine park access by park existence alone, but they must take into account numerous factors: how people travel to parks; how parks are designed; what types of activities and amenities are provided; how, by whom and when parks are used; what types of plants and trees are planted in parks; how parks are maintained; and how parks are funded. Therefore, it is necessary to assess the ...
According to new findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Latinos in the United States live at least three years longer than black and white Americans. The CDC reported that Latinos in this country live an average of at least three years longer than other racial and ethnic minorities. A Latino born in 2014 has a life expectancy of 81.8 years compared to 78.8 for whites and 75.2 for blacks. The new data reflects what is being called the “Hispanic mortality paradox,” in which Latino life expectancy has been steadily climbing since 2006 when it was 80.3 years. “On average, [Latinos] are low-income and have a poverty rate similar to blacks, making it surprising they have lower mortality and then in turn higher life expectancy than the majority ...
UPDATE on February 2016 post Minnesota DOE Releases Statewide Swimming Resources Inventory and Work Group Reports: Now What?. On April 6, 2016, Minnesota Representative Karen Clark introduced HF 3830, and Minnesota Senator Patricia Torres Ray introduced companion bill SF 3472, directing the Department of Education to employ a swimming and water safety specialist and appropriate money. This comes after the Minnesota Department of Education report on swimming resources inventory. Section 1. SWIMMING AND WATER SAFETY SPECIALIST. The Department of Education must employ a swimming and water safety specialist to develop a model kindergarten through grade 12 swimming and water safety curriculum and implementation guidelines, and develop and provide professional ...
Supervisor Mark Farrell announced a new legislation , written with help from the American Heart Association, to ban sugary beverages and junk food across all vending machines on city property. According to a recent news article, the legislation states that 60 percent of the city's employee health costs are driven by the 24 percent of the city's health plan members dealing with chronic health conditions. The legislation works in conjunction with helping the health of city employees by working towards encouraging healthier foods in all 150 vending machines across the city, including the airport and City Hall, as well as implementing new city meetings gathered around healthier food. The ban would only allow snacks with fewer than 200 calories per serving with no more than 35 percent ...
The latest annual report on the nation’s health by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows Latinos are living longer than whites and blacks and health disparities are narrowing. Despite the latest improvements in health disparities, Latinos still have the highest incidence of high blood pressure and childhood obesity, The American Heart Association News (AHA) reports. “High blood pressure remains much more common among black Americans, and Hispanic children and teens are still more likely to be obese than their black, white and Asian counterparts.,” AHA said in a written statement. The CDC’s annual health report is a “snapshot” of the nation’s health “highlighting recent successes and challenges in fighting critical health problems in the United ...
According to the National Hispanic Medical Association (NHMA), Latinos have seen the biggest benefit from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as they have had the largest decrease in uninsured rates of any racial or ethnic group in the country. The rate, according to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), fell from 41.8% to 30.5% from October 2014 to February 2016. However, more work still needs to be done as there is still a large need for Spanish-speaking doctors, dentists, and other health care professionals. “We now need to do more education and outreach,” said NHMA President Elena Rios to the group’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C. last week. “We need to be able to identify and encourage the next generation to be of service in our Latino community.” Getting ...
A study from Los Angeles, Calif. shows that high stress in Latino adults may have twice the risk of having obese children. According to a recent article, researchers looked at data from the Study of Latino Youth (SOL Youth) and stated that parental stress is a risk factor for childhood obesity among Latinos. High levels of stress were reported among Latino parents and obesity and chronic stress were prevalent among this population, explained researchers. Stress factors were determined from the Chronic Stress Burden Scale, including factors of difficulties at work or in a relationship among other stress factors, where data showed 34 percent of parents in the study had three or more stress factors. The doctors of the research later explained that the importance of stress on the ...
