(From the ISHN Member information service) The association between mental health disorders and being identified as a bully among children between the ages of 6 and 17 years in the United States is examined in an article in Issue #5, 2015 of the Journal of Interpersonal Violence. "Data from the 2007 National Survey of Children’s Health were examined. A total of 63,997 children had data for both parental reported mental health and bullying status. Bivariate analysis and logistic regression was performed to assess the association between mental health status and being identified as a bully with an age-stratified analysis and sub-analysis by type of mental health disorder. In 2007, 15.2% of U.S. children ages 6 to 17 years were identified as bullies by their parent or guardian. Children with a diagnosis of depression, anxiety, or depression had a threefold increased odds of being a bully" Read More>>
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(From the ISHN Member information service) An article in the March 2015 issue of Public Health Nutrition suggests that calorie focused thinking in regards to obesity "may mislead and harm public health". Prevailing thinking about obesity holds that quantifying calories should be a principal target for intervention. Part of this thinking is that consumed calories – regardless of their sources – are equivalent; . The article discusses various problems with the idea that ‘a calorie is a calorie’ and with a primarily quantitative focus on food calories. The authors argue for a greater qualitative focus on types of foods) and on the metabolic changes that result from consuming foods of different types. In particular, the authors consider how calorie-focused thinking is inherently biased against high-fat foods, many of which may be protective against obesity and related diseases, and supportive of starchy and sugary replacements, which are likely detrimental. Shifting the focus to qualitative food distinctions, a central argument of the paper is that obesity and related diseases are problems due largely to food-induced physiology (e.g. neurohormonal pathways) not addressable through arithmetic dieting (i.e. calorie counting). The paper considers potential harms of public health initiatives framed around calorie balance sheets – targeting ‘calories in’ and/or ‘calories out’ – that reinforce messages of overeating and inactivity as underlying causes, rather than intermediate effects, of obesity. Finally, the paper concludes that public health should work primarily to support the consumption of whole foods that help protect against obesity-promoting energy imbalance and metabolic dysfunction and not continue to promote calorie-directed messages that may create and blame victims and exacerbate epidemics of obesity and related diseases." Read more>>
(From the ISHN Member information service) A meta-analysis in Volume 56, 2015 of Preventive Medicine concludes that school-based nutrition education can affect the BMI of children. Unlike interventions aimed at single behaviours such as physical activity, the authors of this review suggest that a focus on healthy eating may be the best course for reducing body weight. The authors "conducted a systematic search of 14 databases until May 2010 and cross-reference check in 8 systematic reviews (SRs) for studies published that described randomized controlled trials conducted in schools to reduce or prevent overweight in children and adolescents. An additional search was carried out using PubMed for papers published through May 2012, and no further papers were identified. Body mass index (BMI) was the primary outcome. The title and abstract review and the quality assessment were performed independently by two researchers. From the 4888 references initially retrieved, only 8 met the eligibility criteria for a random-effects meta-analysis. The total population consisted of 8722 children and adolescents. Across the studies, there was an average treatment effect of − 0.33 kg/m2 (− 0.55, − 0.11 95% CI) on BMI, with 84% of this effect explained by the highest quality studies. This systematic review provides evidence that school-based nutrition education interventions are effective in reducing the BMI of children and adolescents" Read more>>
(From the ISHN Member information service) An systematic review in Issue #1, 2015 of Journal of Quantitative Criminology concludes that Restorative Justice Conferencing is effective in preventing repeat offending. The reviewers note that "an exhaustive search strategy that examined 519 studies that could have been eligible for our rigorous inclusion criteria, we found ten that did. Included studies measured recidivism by 2 years of convictions after random assignment of 1,880 accused or convicted offenders who had consented to meet their consenting victims prior to random assignment, based on “intention-to-treat” analysis. Results Our meta-analysis found that, on average, RJCs cause a modest but highly cost-effective reduction in the frequency of repeat offending by the consenting offenders randomly assigned to participate in such a conference. A cost-effectiveness estimate for the seven United Kingdom experiments found a ratio of 3.7–8.1 times more benefit in cost of crimes prevented than the cost of delivering RJCs. Read more>>
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