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Kids’ Screen Habits Are Damaging Their Eyes, Sleep and Mental Health: HHS Official
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services brought together doctors, researchers and tech experts on Capitol Hill to examine how screen time is affecting kids’ health, days after Meta agreed to pay $18 billion to settle lawsuits accusing the company of designing features that hook young users.
Dr. Stephanie Haridopolos, HHS assistant secretary and director of national health communications, told “Katie Pavlich Tonight” the roundtable builds on a Surgeon General’s advisory issued in May that outlined the harms of screen use in kids across four health areas. Haridopolos pointed to rising rates of myopia, or nearsightedness, tied to kids spending long stretches staring at screens up close. She also linked heavy screen use to sedentary behavior that crowds out exercise, sports and creative activities.
Also rising rates of depression, anxiety and suicide among kids. “If kids are sitting there for eight hours, they’re crowding out normal activity,” she said. Asked whether the evidence proves screens directly cause these problems, Haridopolos compared the debate to decades-old disputes over tobacco and cancer.
Obesity During Early Childhood Linked to Risk for Obesity During Adolescence
Children with obesity at ages of 4, 6, or 8 years were strongly likely to still have obesity at the age of 13 years, whereas those with only overweight at the same ages had a much lower chance of progressing to obesity — even if their BMI had recently risen from normal weight.
Researchers conducted a retrospective population-based study using routine child health records from two large Norwegian municipalities to examine BMI changes during childhood and their association with obesity at the age of 13 years.
A total of 124,470 children were analysed, contributing to 360,957 observations of height and weight at ages of 2, 4, 6, 8, and 13 years between 1991 and 2017.
Researchers Found One Childhood Behavior Linked to Folic Acid Use Before Pregnancy
A prospective study published in the European Journal of Nutrition found that maternal preconception folic acid supplementation was associated with a lower risk of problematic peer relationships in offspring, but no association was reported for the other major behavioral difficulties assessed. The fully adjusted analysis found a 34% lower relative risk of peer relationship problems.
Childhood behavioral problems affect approximately 10% to 20% of children worldwide. In Australia, where this study was conducted, these affect about 10% to 13% of children aged 5-12 years, with rates of 39% reported among younger children, particularly by age 3. Such issues impact later academic and psychosocial function and are associated with mental health disorders later in life.
Prenatal nutrition plays a vital role in neurocognitive development. Folic acid is central to DNA methylation, which occurs during multiple physiological processes in the fetus, including nervous system development. Folic acid is the synthetic form of folate, while folate is naturally obtained from green leafy vegetables, fruits, legumes, liver, and eggs.
Is Meta Finally Backing a Federal Kids Safety Bill, or Is It All PR?
In the aftermath of Meta’s recent $17 billion settlement, the culmination of a litigious debate over its alleged role in social media addiction and youth mental health, all attention was on the platform’s promises. As part of the settlement, Meta said it would invest further in what many are now referring to as industry-leading app guardrails. The company would also deliver a precedent-setting $12 billion payment to state attorneys general. Another $5 billion will be added if Snap, TikTok, and YouTube agree to implement their own safeguards.
Many honed in the specific platform changes included in the agreement — including greater age assurance and stronger time limits — and the potential downstream effect Meta’s changes could levy on its competitors. But others, including a group of survivor parents, perked up at a different, less flashy promise.
“I think legislation would have been the best answer to this issue,” an unnamed Meta official told reporters during a press call following the settlement. The official went on, alluding to recent attempts to pass the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA): “It would be better to have this done by a legislature, which can immediately bind all of our competitors to the same rules.”
A.I. Is to Be Banned in N.Y.C. Elementary and Middle Schools
When New York City public schoolchildren return to the classroom next week, younger students will be barred from using artificial intelligence. No individual screens will be allowed until third grade. And teachers will not be able to ask A.I. to grade assignments.
Those rules on technology use are part of a sweeping new policy to be announced on Wednesday by the city’s Department of Education that will place strict limits on digital devices and A.I. tools in the city’s school system — the nation’s largest — particularly for its elementary and middle-school students.
Still, some parents and groups that had called for a two-year moratorium on A.I. in schools said that the guidelines were disappointing. Under the rules, about 600,000 students in the city’s schools — about two-thirds of all students in New York City public schools — will not be allowed to use A.I. until they enter high school, and even then, it will be permitted only in specific cases.
AAP Releases RSV Prevention, COVID Vax Recommendations for Fall
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) updated its recommendations for the prevention of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and the use of COVID vaccines in kids.
Based on a technical report detailing the current evidence on RSV prevention, the AAP Committee on Infectious Diseases recommended immunization with a monoclonal antibody — either nirsevimab (Beyfortus) or clesrovimab (Enflonsia) — for all infants younger than 8 months who are born during or entering their first RSV season, unless they have documented protection from maternal vaccination.
The committee also recommended RSV immunization for those ages 8 to 19 months who are at high risk of severe RSV disease and entering their second RSV season.
