Adolescents and young adults typically consider peer relationships to be all important. However, it appears that strong family support, not peer support, is protective in reducing future suicidal behavior among young adults when they have experienced depression or have attempted suicide.

New research that will be presented here April 17 at the annual meeting of the American Association of Suicidology shows that high school depression and a previous suicide attempt were significant predictors of thinking about suicide one or two years later. But, those individuals who had high levels of depression or had attempted suicide in high school were less likely to engage in suicidal thinking if they had strong family support and bonds. In addition, having a current romantic partner also reduced suicidal thoughts. [continue reading…]

College students who use Facebook spend less time studying and have lower grade point averages than students who have not signed up for the social networking website, according to a pilot study at one university.

However, more than three-quarters of Facebook users claimed that their use of the social networking site didn’t interfere with their studies.

“We can’t say that use of Facebook leads to lower grades and less studying – but we did find a relationship there,” said Aryn Karpinski, co-author of the study and a doctoral student in education at Ohio State University.

“There may be other factors involved, such as personality traits, that link Facebook use and lower grades,” she said. “It may be that if it wasn’t for Facebook, some students would still find other ways to avoid studying, and would still get lower grades. But perhaps the lower GPAs could actually be because students are spending too much time socializing online.”

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Fast food and soft drinks may be making children fatter but they also make them happy. Programs aimed at tackling childhood obesity, by reducing children’s consumption of unhealthy food and drink, are likely to be more effective if they also actively seek to keep children happy in other ways, according to Professor Hung-Hao Chang from National Taiwan University and Professor Rodolfo Nayga from the University of Arkansas in the US. Their findings are published in Springer’s Journal of Happiness Studies.

Childhood obesity is a major public health issue worldwide. It is well accepted that unhealthy eating patterns are partly responsible for the increase in childhood obesity. However, very little is known about the relationship between fast food and soft drink consumption and children’s happiness. [continue reading…]