Mental Health and School Functioning for Girls in the Child Welfare System : the Mediating Role of Future Orientation and School Engagement

This study investigated the association between mental health problems and academic and behavioral school functioning for adolescent girls in the child welfare system and determined whether school engagement and future orientation meditated the relationship. Participants were 231 girls aged between 12 and 19 who had been involved with the child welfare system. Results indicated that 39% of girls reported depressive symptoms in the clinical range and 54% reported posttraumatic symptoms in the clinical range. The most common school functioning problems reported were failing a class (41%) and physical fights with other students (35%). Participants reported a mean number of 1.7 school functioning problems. Higher levels of depression and PTSD were significantly associated with more school functioning problems. School engagement fully mediated the relationship between depression and school functioning and between PTSD and school functioning, both models controlling for age, race, and placement stability. Future orientation was not significantly associated with school functioning problems at the bivariate level. Findings suggest that school engagement is a potentially modifiable target for interventions aiming to ameliorate the negative influence of mental health problems on school functioning for adolescent girls with histories of abuse or neglect

Variability in energy expenditure is much greater in males than females

In mammals, trait variation is often reported to be greater among males than females. However, to date, mainly only morphological traits have been studied. Energy expenditure represents the metabolic costs of multiple physical, physiological, and behavioral traits. Energy expenditure could exhibit particularly high greater male variation through a cumulative effect if those traits mostly exhibit greater male variation, or a lack of greater male variation if many of them do not. Sex differences in energy expenditure variation have been little explored. We analyzed a large database on energy expenditure in adult humans (1494 males and 3108 females) to investigate whether humans have evolved sex differences in the degree of interindividual variation in energy expenditure. We found that, even when statistically comparing males and females of the same age, height, and body composition, there is much more variation in total, activity, and basal energy expenditure among males. However, with aging, variation in total energy expenditure decreases, and because this happens more rapidly in males, the magnitude of greater male variation, though still large, is attenuated in older age groups. Considerably greater male variation in both total and activity energy expenditure could be explained by greater male variation in levels of daily activity. The considerably greater male variation in basal energy expenditure is remarkable and may be explained, at least in part, by greater male variation in the size of energy-demanding organs. If energy expenditure is a trait that is of indirect interest to females when choosing a sexual partner, this would suggest that energy expenditure is under sexual selection. However, we present a novel energetics model demonstrating that it is also possible that females have been under stabilizing selection pressure for an intermediate basal energy expenditure to maximize energy available for reproduction. (C) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.Peer reviewe

Energy compensation and adiposity in humans

Acknowledgments The DLW database, which can be found at https://doubly-labelled-water-database.iaea.org/home, is hosted by the IAEA and generously supported by Taiyo Nippon Sanso and SERCON. We are grateful to the IAEA and these companies for their support and especially to Takashi Oono for his tremendous efforts at fundraising on our behalf. The authors also gratefully acknowledge funding from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS 153E11KYSB20190045) to J.R.S. and the US National Science Foundation (BCS-1824466) awarded to H.P. The funders played no role in the content of this manuscript. We are grateful for the data submission of David Ludwig and Cara Ebbeling, and for the analysis by Steve Heymsfield of his own data indicating no change in FFM hydration with age in adults.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Variation in human water turnover associated with environmental and lifestyle factors

Water is essential for survival, but one in three individuals worldwide (2.2 billion people) lacks access to safe drinking water. Water intake requirements largely reflect water turnover (WT), the water used by the body each day. We investigated the determinants of human WT in 5604 people from the ages of 8 days to 96 years from 23 countries using isotope-tracking (2H) methods. Age, body size, and composition were significantly associated with WT, as were physical activity, athletic status, pregnancy, socioeconomic status, and environmental characteristics (latitude, altitude, air temperature, and humidity). People who lived in countries with a low human development index (HDI) had higher WT than people in high-HDI countries. On the basis of this extensive dataset, we provide equations to predict human WT in relation to anthropometric, economic, and environmental factors.acceptedVersio

Evaluation of a health promotion program in children: Study protocol and design of the cluster-randomized Baden-Württemberg primary school study [DRKS-ID: DRKS00000494]

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Increasing prevalences of overweight and obesity in children are known problems in industrialized countries. Early prevention is important as overweight and obesity persist over time and are related with health problems later in adulthood. "Komm mit in das gesunde Boot - Grundschule" is a school-based program to promote a healthier lifestyle. Main goals of the intervention are to increase physical activity, decrease the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, and to decrease time spent sedentary by promoting active choices for healthy lifestyle. The program to date is distributed by 34 project delivery consultants in the state of Baden-Württemberg and is currently implemented in 427 primary schools. The efficacy of this large scale intervention is examined via the Baden-Württemberg Study.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>The Baden-Württemberg Study is a prospective, stratified, cluster-randomized, and longitudinal study with two groups (intervention group and control group). Measurements were taken at the beginning of the academic years 2010/2011 and 2011/2012. Efficacy of the intervention is being assessed using three main outcomes: changes in waist circumference, skinfold thickness and 6 minutes run. Stratified cluster-randomization (according to class grade level) was performed for primary schools; pupils, teachers/principals, and parents were investigated. An approximately balanced number of classes in intervention group and control group could be reached by stratified randomization and was maintained at follow-up.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>At present, "Komm mit in das Gesunde Boot - Grundschule" is the largest school-based health promotion program in Germany. Comparative objective main outcomes are used for the evaluation of efficacy. Simulations showed sufficient power with the existing sample size. Therefore, the results will show whether the promotion of a healthier lifestyle in primary school children is possible using a relatively low effort within a school-based program involving children, teachers and parents. The research team anticipates that not only efficacy will be proven in this study but also expects many other positive effects of the program.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>German Clinical Trials Register (DRKS), DRKS-ID: DRKS00000494</p

Greater male variability in daily energy expenditure develops through puberty

There is considerably greater variation in metabolic rates between men than between women, in terms of basal, activity and total (daily) energy expenditure (EE). One possible explanation is that EE is associated with male sexual characteristics (which are known to vary more than other traits) such as musculature and athletic capacity. Such traits might be predicted to be most prominent during periods of adolescence and young adulthood, when sexual behaviour develops and peaks. We tested this hypothesis on a large dataset by comparing the amount of male variation and female variation in total EE, activity EE and basal EE, at different life stages, along with several morphological traits: height, fat free mass and fat mass. Total EE, and to some degree also activity EE, exhibit considerable greater male variation (GMV) in young adults, and then a decrease in the degree of GMV in progressively older individuals. Arguably, basal EE, and also morphometrics, do not exhibit this pattern. These findings suggest that single male sexual characteristics may not exhibit peak GMV in young adulthood, however total and perhaps also activity EE, associated with many morphological and physiological traits combined, do exhibit GMV most prominently during the reproductive life stages

Meta-Profiles of Gene Expression during Aging: Limited Similarities between Mouse and Human and an Unexpectedly Decreased Inflammatory Signature

Background: Skin aging is associated with intrinsic processes that compromise the structure of the extracellular matrix while promoting loss of functional and regenerative capacity. These processes are accompanied by a large-scale shift in gene expression, but underlying mechanisms are not understood and conservation of these mechanisms between humans and mice is uncertain. Results: We used genome-wide expression profiling to investigate the aging skin transcriptome. In humans, age-related shifts in gene expression were sex-specific. In females, aging increased expression of transcripts associated with T-cells, B-cells and dendritic cells, and decreased expression of genes in regions with elevated Zeb1, AP-2 and YY1 motif density. In males, however, these effects were contrasting or absent. When age-associated gene expression patterns in human skin were compared to those in tail skin from CB6F1 mice, overall human-mouse correspondence was weak. Moreover, inflammatory gene expression patterns were not induced with aging of mouse tail skin, and well-known aging biomarkers were in fact decreased (e.g., Clec7a, Lyz1 and Lyz2). These unexpected patterns and weak human-mouse correspondence may be due to decreased abundance of antigen presenting cells in mouse tail skin with age. Conclusions: Aging is generally associated with a pro-inflammatory state, but we have identified an exception to this pattern with aging of CB6F1 mouse tail skin. Aging therefore does not uniformly heighten inflammatory status across all mouse tissues. Furthermore, we identified both intercellular and intracellular mechanisms of transcriptome aging, including those that are sex- and species-specific