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UK Watchdogs Urged to Tackle Suicide Social Media Content After Death of Girl, 14
A 14-year-old schoolgirl’s death after TikTok served her suicide content has prompted renewed calls for UK watchdogs to crack down on “toxic” social media feeds.
Adriana Retyte, a pupil at Langley school in Norfolk, took her own life after she viewed videos and images related to suicide on the video-sharing platform, according to a coroner who last week found her access to the material on TikTok “may have played a significant part in her decision to take her life”.
An inquest heard the teenager’s death had “a devastating effect on those close to her” and that her devices revealed she had “viewed a number of videos and images related to suicide on TikTok in the week preceding her death”.
Doctors Warn About the Risks Energy Drinks Pose to Kids. What Families Need to Know
The Santa Fe New Mexican reported:
Sean and Heidi Cripe will never forget the call from their son’s high school saying Davis was being taken to the emergency room. “He chugged an energy drink — like, just trying to be cool,” said Sean Cripe, recounting the day nearly a decade ago.
The teen’s heart soon fell out of rhythm and he died. While such deaths are rare, doctors across the country have warned for years that energy drinks contain high levels of caffeine that can seriously harm children, causing problems such as abnormal heartbeats, increased heart rate, sleep disturbances, dehydration, agitation, high blood pressure and seizures.
A newly formed coalition of doctors is highlighting these risks in the wake of a sponsorship deal between Monster Energy and the Big 12 Conference college athletic organization.
The group has asked conference leaders to pause the sponsorship and the NCAA to review energy drink marketing to youths in general, citing the deaths of three children including Davis, a 16-year-old from South Carolina. The doctors stress that they’re not just concerned about Monster but all energy drinks and any similar partnerships.
Long Hours, Few Naps: the ‘Business Math’ of Autism Therapy
The Wall Street Journal reported:
Minutes after an autistic 3-year-old lay her head on a Squishmallow stuffed toy and closed her eyes, Abigayle Hosking was ordered to take the makeshift pillow away and rouse the sleepy girl. The child was scheduled for four more hours of autism therapy at the Centria Healthcare clinic in Michigan where Hosking worked until last year. Hosking said she felt terrible. “The younger kids, you know, I think they need a break,” she said.
Medicaid plans and private insurers will often pay for up to about 40 hours of autism therapy a week, and shut-eye doesn’t count.
At Centria and some other large chains backed by private-equity investors, former employees said in interviews that they felt pressure to maximize therapy hours, claims the companies dispute.
Smartphones Are Wrecking Teens’ Sleep, Study Says
U.S. News & World Report reported:
Smartphones are costing teenagers a good night’s sleep, a new study says.
Teens who use their phones late into the evening suffer from delays in falling asleep, shorter total sleep time, and sleep that’s more restless and broken, researchers reported Oct. 19 in JAMA Pediatrics.
“These findings suggest that reducing evening smartphone use, particularly after 10 p.m. and immediately before bedtime, may help improve sleep health in adolescents,” concluded a team led by Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a professor of general pediatrics at Seattle Children’s Research Institute.
For the study, researchers analyzed data on 425 kids with an average age of nearly 15 who were participating in an ongoing study of adolescent brain development. They gathered nearly 7,600 nights of data from the participants.
Children Who Eat More Ultraprocessed Foods Show Stronger Brain Responses to Appetizing Foods
Children who eat more ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) show stronger responses in the brain’s reward network when viewing images of appetizing foods — and these brain responses are linked to increases in body fat one year later.
The findings, published in JAMA Network Open, suggest that the brain may become more sensitive to food cues when children consume more UPFs. The study is available here.
UPFs are manufactured food products — such as breakfast cereals, packaged bread and instant soups — that are designed to be highly palatable, convenient and shelf-stable. They often contain artificial sweeteners, colors and other ingredients that people do not typically use when cooking at home. On average, U.S. children get about 67% of their daily calories from UPFs.
