Summer 2017
HEALTH & HAPPINESS 4 YOU
Living for 104 yrs 3 ways to control blood sugar Eating less salt reduces night time loo trips
FOOD FOR BETTER BRAIN
Excessive social media may cause mental health problems
How plastic is leaking into our food chain
CONTENTS Summer 2017, Issue 24
The Guardian newspaper recently published a horrifying report about how the world is suffering from the bane of plastic bottles. We are buying about 20,000 plastic bottles every second. In the UK, 38.5m plastic bottles are used every day – only just over half make it to recycling, while more than 16m are put into landfill, burnt or leak into the environment and oceans each day. More than 480bn plastic drinking bottles were sold in 2016 across the world, up from about 300bn a decade ago. If placed end to end, they would extend more than halfway to the sun. Between 5m and 13m tonnes of plastic leaks into the world’s oceans each year to be ingested by sea birds, fish and other organisms, and by 2050 the ocean will contain more plastic by weight than fish, according to research by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Scientists at Ghent University in Belgium recently calculated people who eat seafood ingest up to 11,000 tiny pieces of plastic every year. Last August, the results of a study by Plymouth University reported plastic was found in a third of UK-caught fish, including cod, haddock, mackerel and shellfish.
Vijay Rana Editor, Health & Happiness 4 You
5 – We shall be living up to 104 years 7 – Exercise may add up to 9 yrs to your life 7 – Social media and mental health problems 9 – The psychology of selfies 11 – How to de-clutter your home 12 – Three ways to control your blood sugar 13 – 19-yr-olds as sedentary as 60-yr-olds 14 – Smartphones can reduce your brain power 15 – Eating less salt reduces night loo trips 17 – Soda and sugary drinks may affect brain 18 – Too many pictures spoil kids story books
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Don't call us ‘old’; we are ‘active adults’ Half of the babies being born now in the UK will live until they are 104
People should not be called old until they are seriously frail, dependent and approaching death said Sarah Harper, a gerontologist who is the director of the Oxford Institute of Ageing. She suggested that people in their 60s and possibly 70s and 80s should still be considered active adults. “We should not even be calling people old until they reach what the historian Peter Laslett calls the fourth age; that time where we will become frail and enfeebled,” Harper said. “Old age should be the fourth age. Everything else should be active adulthood.” She said there was a danger of neglecting what true old age should be: a time of withdrawal and peace and reflection. It can be a difficult time but “it is a time we need to claim as a special time because we are finite beings … we will die”. The statistics suggest that general life expectancy is rising by two and a half years per decade. In the 18th century, there were about 10 centenarians in the whole of Europe. Now there are 14,500 just in the UK. Predictions are that by the end of the 21st century there will be 1.5 million centenarians in the UK. Another prediction is that half of the babies being born
now in the UK will live until they are 104. In Japan it is 107. “We are ageing dramatically and we are ageing without radical science. The concept of retirement, and what it meant, had changed over the last 50 years. When William Beveridge recommended the 65 retirement age for men, half would die before they were 70,” said Harper. According the Office for National Statistics, the number of people over 100 living in the UK has increased nearly fivefold in 30 years due to better medical treatments, housing, nutrition and living standards. Also a decline in smoking has significantly improved the chances of surviving to a very old age. There were an estimated 13,350 centenarians in 2012 – a 73% increase in a decade – and 660 of them were over 105. There are now thought to be more than 500,000 people aged 90 or over and the numbers are rising more steeply. In 2012, nearly three-quarters of the UK's people aged 90 and over were women, although the balance is shifting. The latest life expectancy at birth is 82.6 for women and 78.7 for men. 5 HEALTH & HAPPINESS 4 YOU
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High levels of exercise linked to nine years of less aging
Anti-aging creams, lotions, potions, crystals and wizard spells, nothing can stop you from ageing. But new research from Brigham Young University reveals you may be able to slow one type of aging—the kind that happens inside your cells. As long as you are willing to sweat. The more physically active we are, the less biological aging takes place in our bodies. The study, published in the medical journal Preventative Medicine, finds that people who have consistently high levels of physical activity have significantly longer telomeres than those who have sedentary lifestyles. Telomeres are the nucleotide endcaps of our chromosomes. They are like our biological clock and they are extremely correlated with age; each time a cell replicates, we lose a tiny bit of the endcaps. Therefore, the older we get, the shorter our telomeres. Exercise science professor Larry Tucker at BYU found adults with high physical activity levels have telomeres with a biological aging advantage of nine years over those who are sedentary, and a seven-year advantage
compared to those who are moderately active. To be highly active, women had to engage in 30 minutes of jogging per day while a man has to jog for 40 minutes a day, five days a week. Tucker analyzed data from 5,823 adults. His study found the shortest telomeres came from sedentary people—they had 140 base pairs of DNA less at the end of their telomeres than highly active folks. Surprisingly, he also found there was no significant difference in telomere length between those with low or moderate physical activity and the sedentary people. Although the exact mechanism for how exercise preserves telomeres is unknown, Tucker said it may be tied to inflammation and oxidative stress. Previous studies have shown telomere length is closely related to those two factors and it is known that exercise can suppress inflammation and oxidative stress over time. “We know that regular physical activity helps to reduce mortality and prolong life, and now we know part of that advantage may be due to the preservation of telomeres,” Tucker said.
SOCIAL MEDIA OBSESSION CAUSES MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS A national analysis in the US, led by scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine (Pitt) in Pennsylvania suggests, that the more time that adults aged 19 to 32 spend using social media, the more likely they are to be socially isolated. "This is an important issue to study because mental health problems and social isolation are at epidemic levels among young adults," said Brian A. Primack, Ph.D., the director of Pitt's Center for Research on Media, Technology and Health. "We are inherently social creatures, but modern life tends to compartmentalize us instead of bringing us together."
Foods for better brain power Just as there is no magic pill to prevent cognitive decline, no single food can ensure a sharp brain as you age. Nutritionists emphasize that the most important strategy is to follow a healthy dietary pattern that includes a lot of fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. Try to get protein from plant sources and fish and choose healthy fats, such as olive oil or canola, rather than saturated fats. That said, certain foods in this overall scheme are particularly rich in healthful components like omega-3 fatty acids, B vitamins, and antioxidants, which are known to support brain health. Incorporating many of these foods into a healthy diet on a regular basis can improve the health of your brain. Research shows that the best foods for your brain are the same ones that protect your heart and blood vessels, including the following:
Green, leafy vegetables Leafy greens such as kale, spinach, collards, and broccoli are rich in brainhealthy nutrients like vitamin K, lutein, folate, and beta carotene. Research suggests these plant-based foods may help slow cognitive decline.
Fatty fish Fatty fish are abundant sources of omega-3 fatty acids, healthy unsaturated fats that have been linked to lower blood levels of betaamyloid—the protein that forms damaging clumps in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease. Try to eat fish at least twice a week, but choose varieties that are low in mercury, such as salmon, cod, canned light tuna, and pollack. If you're not a fan of fish, ask your doctor about taking an omega-3 supplement, or choose terrestrial omega-3 sources such as flaxseeds, avocados, and walnuts.
Berries Flavonoids, the natural plant pigments that give berries their brilliant hues, also help improve memory, research shows. In a 2012 study published in Annals of Neurology, researchers at Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital .
found that women who consumed two or more servings of strawberries and blueberries each week delayed memory decline by up to two-and-ahalf years.
Tea and coffee The caffeine in your morning cup of coffee or tea might offer more than just a short-term concentration boost. In a 2014 study published in The Journal of Nutrition, participants with higher caffeine consumption scored better on tests of mental function. Caffeine might also help solidify new memories, according to other research. Investigators at Johns Hopkins University asked participants to study a series of images and then take either a placebo or a 200-milligram caffeine tablet. More members of the caffeine group were able to correctly identify the images on the following day.
Walnuts Nuts are excellent sources of protein and healthy fats, and one type of nut in particular might also improve memory. A 2015 study from UCLA linked higher walnut consumption to improved cognitive test scores. Walnuts are high in a type of omega-3 fatty acid called alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), which helps lower blood pressure and protects arteries. That's good for both the heart and brain. For more on staying sharp as you age, read Cognitive Fitness, a Special Health Report from Harvard Medical School. 8 HEALTH & HAPOPINESS 4 YOU
The psychology of selfies
To better understand the photographic phenomenon and how people form their identities online, Georgia Institute of Technology researchers combed through 2.5 million selfie posts on Instagram to determine what kinds of identity statements people make by taking and sharing selfies. Nearly 52 percent of all selfies fell into the appearance category: pictures of people showing off their make-up, clothes, lips, etc. Pics about looks were two times more popular than the other 14 categories combined. After appearances, social selfies with friends, loved ones and pets were the most common (14 percent). Then came ethnicity pics (13 percent), travel (7 percent), and health and fitness (5 percent). The researchers noted that the prevalence of ethnicity selfies (selfies about a person’s ethnicity, nationality or country of origin) is an indication that people are proud of their backgrounds. They also found that most selfies are solo pictures, rather than taken with a group. The data was gathered in the summer of 2015. The Georgia Tech team believes the study is the first largescale empirical research on selfies. Overall, an overwhelming 57 percent of selfies on Instagram were posted by the 18-35 year old crowd, something the researchers say isn’t too surprising considering the demographics of the social media platform. The under – 18 group posted about 30 percent of selfies. The older crowd (35+) shared them far less frequently (13 percent). Appearance was most popular among all age groups. Lead author Julia Deeb-Swihart says selfies are an
identity performance – meaning that users carefully craft the way they appear online and that selfies are an extension of that. This is similar to William Shakespeare’s famous line: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” “Just like on other social media channels, people project an identity that promotes their wealth, health and physical attractiveness,” Deeb-Swihart said. “With selfies, we decide how to present ourselves to the audience, and the audience decides how it perceives you.” This work is grounded in the theory presented by Erving Goffman in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. The clothes we choose to wear and the social roles we play are all designed to control the version of ourselves we want our peers to see. “Selfies, in a sense, are the blending of our online and offline selves,” Deeb-Swihart said. “It’s a way to prove what is true in your life, or at least what you want people to believe is true.” The researchers gathered the data by searching for “#selfie,” then used computer vision to confirm that the pictures actually included faces. Nearly half of them didn’t. They found plenty of spam with blank images or text. The accounts were using the hashtag to show up in more searches to gain more followers. The study, “Selfie-Presentation in Everyday Life: A Large-scale Characterization of Selfie Contexts on Instagram,” was presented in May at the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media in Montreal. 9 HEALTH & HAPPINESS 4 YOU
How to de-clutter your home It’s easier to give away an item after you have taken its photo If your home is full of stuff you no longer need but can’t bear to give away, a new study may offer you a simple solution. Researchers found that people were more willing to give away unneeded goods that still had sentimental value if they were encouraged to take a photo of these items first, or find another way to preserve the memories. Such a strategy could help parents part with old baby clothes they no longer need or help a former athlete give up a favourite basketball or hockey stick. “What people really don’t want to give up is the memories associated with the item,” said Rebecca Reczek, co-author of the study and associate professor of marketing at The Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business. “We found that people are more willing to give up these possessions if we offer them a way to keep the memory and the identity associated with that memory.” Reczek conducted the study with Karen Winterich, associate professor of marketing at Pennsylvania State University, and Julie Irwin, professor of business at the University of Texas at Austin. The results were published online in the Journal of Marketing. The researchers conducted a field study involving 797 students at Penn State who lived in six residence halls on campus. At the end of a fall semester, the researchers advertised a donation drive before the students left for the holidays. The researchers found 613 items were donated in the halls that hosted the “memory preservation” campaign. Reczek said the results show it may be relatively easy to break our old habits of clinging to some of our possessions with sentimental value. “It is not terribly surprising that we can keep the same memories alive just by taking a photo of
these possessions, but it is not a natural behaviour. It is something we have to train ourselves to do,” she said. In other related experiments, the researchers found that it wasn’t just the memories associated with these possessions that were keeping people from donating – it was the identities linked to those memories. For example, older parents may still feel connected to their identity as new mothers and fathers and not want to part with their infant clothes. In one study, some people who were donating goods at a local thrift shop in State College, Pennsylvania, were given instant photos of the items they were donating, while others were not. They were then asked about whether they would feel a sense of identity loss from giving away the item. Results showed that those who received the photos reported less identity loss than those who did not. “These memories connected to possessions are a carrier for identity. It is this reluctance to give up a piece of our identity that is driving our reluctance to donate,” Reczek said. The bottom line is that everyone benefits by using this memory preservation strategy to declutter a home, Winterich said. “We hope that it will not only make it easier for people to clear out clutter, but it will also help spur the donation process, benefiting nonprofits and the recipients that they serve,” she said. 11 HEALTH & HAPPINESS 4 YOU
Three ways to control your blood sugar Exercise regularly, manage your weight and take your medicines daily People with diabetes who took their medications at least 80 percent of the time and people who exercised four or more times per week were at lower risk for poorly controlled blood sugar, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Pharmacy Benefits. The study also finds that people who were clinically obese were at higher risk for poorly controlled blood sugar. Poorly controlled blood sugar can lead to complications including kidney disease, retinal damage, heart disease, hospitalization and death, according to the American Diabetes Association. The ADA estimates that about 29 million Americans have diabetes, and according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 21 percent of adults with diabetes have poorly controlled blood sugar. The study, which included nearly 20,000 patients from Kaiser Permanente in Oregon and Southwest Washington, is novel because researchers were able to track medication adherence using Kaiser Permanente's unique electronic health record system, which includes pharmacy refill data. Many prior studies relied on asking patients if they took their medications, which is less reliable than patients' medical records. "Our physicians can look at a patient's electronic medical record and quickly see how often patients are refilling their diabetes, cholesterol and blood pressure medications. If patients are refilling medications when they're supposed to, they're also likely taking them when they're supposed to," said David Mosen, PhD, lead author and investigator at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research. "During office visits we also ask patients if they are exercising and then enter this information into their medical record." "It's not that people are wilfully not taking their medications, they just forget," said Harry Glauber, MD, co-author and endoctrinologist with Kaiser Permanente. "There's so much focus on new drugs and new
technologies to improve diabetes care, but our study shows we could likely improve outcomes if we help patients do these three things: take their medications as prescribed, increase their exercise and manage their weight." Researchers examined several lifestyle and demographic factors to determine which were most closely associated with poorly controlled blood sugar. They found that members who took their oral diabetes medications at least 80 percent of the time were 46 percent less likely to have poorly controlled blood sugar, compared to those who took their medications less than 80 percent of the time. Members who exercised four or more times a week were 25 percent less likely to have poorly controlled blood sugar, compared to members who exercised three or fewer times per week. Researchers also found that people who were clinically obese (a body mass index or BMI of 30 or more) were 18 percent more likely to have poorly controlled blood sugar, compared to those who were not obese. African Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities were also more likely than non-Hispanic whites to have poorly controlled blood sugar. These differences remained even after adjusting for medication adherence and other lifestyle factors, according to the researchers. 12 HEALTH & HAPPINESS 4 YOU
19-year-olds as sedentary as 60-year-olds Exercise deficits are contributing to the growing obesity epidemic among children and teens. The study confirmed that recommended guidelines were not being met. For instance, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity a day for children ages five to 17 years. This study found that more than 25 percent of boys and 50 percent of girls, aged six to 11 and more than 50 percent of male and 75 percent of female adolescents, aged 12 to 19, had not met the WHO recommendation. While WHO formulates its recommendations in terms of moderate-to-vigorous activity, the researchers say there is a growing consensus for the benefits of reducing sedentary behaviour and increasing even low-intensity levels of physical activity. “The goal of campaigns aimed at increasing physical activity has focused on increasing higher-intensity exercise,” says Zipunnikov. “Our study suggests that these efforts should consider time of day and also focus on increasing lower-intensity physical activity and reducing inactivity.” The study “Re-evaluating the effect of age on physical activity over the lifespan” was carried out by Vijay R. Varma, Debangan Dey, Andrew Leroux, Junrui Di, Jacek Urbanek, Luo Xiao and Vadim Zipunnikov. Physical activity among children and teens is lower than previously thought, and, in another surprise finding, young adults after the age of 20 show the only increases in activity over the lifespan, suggests a study conducted by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. And, the study found, starting at age 35, activity levels declined through midlife and older adulthood. The study also identified different times throughout the day when activity was highest and lowest, across age groups and between males and females. These patterns, the researchers say, could inform programs aimed at increasing physical activity by targeting not only age groups but times with the least activity, such as during the morning for children and adolescents. The findings, which were published online in the June issue of the journal, Preventive Medicine, come amid heightened concern that exercise deficits are contributing to the growing obesity epidemic, particularly among children and teens. “Activity levels at the end of adolescence were alarmingly low, and by age 19, they were comparable to
60-year-olds,” says the study’s senior author, Vadim Zipunnikov, assistant professor in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Biostatistics. “For school-age children, the primary window for activity was the afternoon between two and six P.M. So the big question is how do we modify daily schedules, in schools for example, to be more conducive to increasing physical activity?” For their study, the researchers used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from the 2003-2004 and 2005-2006 survey cycles. The 12,529 participants wore tracking devices for seven straight days, removing them for only bathing and at bedtime. The devices measured how much time participants were sedentary or engaged in light or moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. The researchers broke down findings into five age groups: children (ages six to 11); adolescents (ages 12 to 19); young adults (ages 20 to 29); adults at midlife (ages 31 to 59); and older adults (age 60 through age 84). Forty-nine percent were male, the rest female. Activity among 20-somethings, the only age group that saw an increase in activity levels, was spread out throughout the day, with an increase in physical activity in the early morning, compared to younger adolescents. The increase may be related to starting full-time work and other life transitions. For all age groups, males generally had higher activity levels than females, particularly high-intensity activity, but after midlife, these levels dropped off sharply compared to females. Among adults 60 years and older, males were more sedentary and had lower light-intensity activity levels than females.
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The mere presence of your smartphone reduces brain power
Your cognitive capacity is significantly reduced when your smartphone is within reach — even if it’s off, suggests a new study from the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. McCombs Assistant Professor Adrian Ward and coauthors conducted experiments with nearly 800 smartphone users in an attempt to measure, for the first time, how well people can complete tasks when they have their smartphones nearby even when they’re not using them. In one experiment, the researchers asked study participants to sit at a computer and take a series of tests that required full concentration in order to score well. The tests were geared to measure participants’ available cognitive capacity — that is, the brain’s ability to hold and process data at any given time. Before beginning, participants were randomly instructed to place their smartphones either on the desk face down, in their pocket or personal bag, or in another room. All participants were instructed to turn their phones to silent. The researchers found that participants with their phones in another room significantly outperformed those with their phones on the desk, and they also slightly outperformed those participants who had kept their phones in a pocket or bag. The findings suggest that the mere presence of one’s smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity and
impairs cognitive functioning, even though people feel they’re giving their full attention and focus to the task at hand. In another experiment, researchers looked at how a person’s self-reported smartphone dependence — or how strongly a person feels he or she needs to have a smartphone in order to get through a typical day — affected cognitive capacity. Participants performed the same series of computer-based tests as the first group and were randomly assigned to keep their smartphones either in sight on the desk face up, in a pocket or bag, or in another room. In this experiment, some participants were also instructed to turn off their phones. The researchers found that participants who were the most dependent on their smartphones performed worse compared with their less-dependent peers, but only when they kept their smartphones on the desk or in their pocket or bag. Having a smartphone within sight or within easy reach reduces a person’s ability to focus and perform tasks because part of their brain is actively working to not pick up or use the phone. “It’s not that participants were distracted because they were getting notifications on their phones,” said Ward. “The mere presence of their smartphone was enough to reduce their cognitive capacity.” 14 HEALTH & HAPPINESS 4 YOU
Eating less salt could reduce night time loo trips Waking up at night to urinate; you must be suffering from a problem called nocturia. Japanese researchers suggest that you may find relief by reducing the amount of salt in your diet. The research was presented on March 24, 2017, at the European Society of Urology congress in London. Nocturia can interfere with your sleep, which may lead to problems like increased stress, irritability, and tiredness. In the study, researchers from Nagasaki University in Japan examined 321 older adults — about half of whom were men — who had both a high-salt diet and problems sleeping due to nocturia. The participants were then advised on how to reduce their daily salt consumption, which they followed for 12 weeks. During this period, 223 people were able to reduce their daily salt intake from an average of 10.7 grams to 8 grams. (The average intake for Americans is 3.4 grams.) In this group, the average night-time frequency of urination dropped by almost 50%—from 2.3 times per night to 1.4 times. Their daytime bathroom trips were also reduced. However, 98 people experienced an increase in their average salt intake over the 12 weeks, from 9.6 grams to 11 grams. Their need to urinate at night rose from 2.3 times to 2.7 times. The researchers also noted that the low-salt group recorded better overall quality of life compared with those who consumed higher amounts of salt.
Adults in the UK are recommended to eat no more than 6g of salt a day, equal to 2.4g of sodium. Children should eat less - only 2g of salt for ages one to three, rising to 5g for seven to 10-year-olds. After age 11, children can have up to 6g. Some of the foods that contain high amount of salt are bread and breakfast cereals. They contain more salt than you think. Bacon, ham, cheese, crisps and pasta sauces are also high in salt. When buying food, look at the figure for salt per 100g on the packaging. High salt content is more than 1.5g salt (0.6g sodium) per 100g. These foods may be colourcoded red.
Our Health & Happiness Champions This issue of the Health & Happiness 4 You has been partly made possible by the contributions from these Health & Happiness Champions.
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Daily consumption of sodas, and artificially sweetened drinks affect brain Data from the Framingham Heart Study (FHS) has shown that people who more frequently consume sugary beverages such as sodas and fruit juices are more likely to have poorer memory, smaller overall brain volumes and smaller hippocampal volumes - an area of the brain important for memory. Researchers also found that people who drank diet soda daily were almost three times as likely to develop stroke and dementia when compared to those who did not consume diet soda. These findings appear separately in the journals Alzheimer's & Dementia and the journal Stroke. "Our findings indicate an association between higher sugary beverage intake and brain atrophy, including lower brain volume and poorer memory," explained corresponding author Matthew Pase, PhD, fellow in the department of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and investigator at the FHS. "We also found that people drinking diet soda daily were almost three times as likely to develop stroke and dementia. This included a higher risk of ischemic stroke, where blood vessels in the brain become obstructed and Alzheimer's diseasedementia, the most common form of dementia," he said said. Excess sugar is known to have adverse effects on health. Diet soft drinks are often touted as a healthier alternative to regular soda. However both sugar and artificially-sweetened beverage consumption has been
linked to cardiometabolic risk factors, which increases the risk of cerebrovascular disease and dementia. In these studies approximately 4,000 participants over the age of 30 from the community-based FHS were examined using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and cognitive testing to measure the relationship between beverage intake and brain volumes as well as thinking and memory. The researchers then monitored 2,888 participants age 45 and over for the development of a stroke and 1,484 participants age 60 and older for dementia for 10 years. The researchers point out that pre-existing conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and high blood pressure did not completely explain their findings. For example, people who more frequently consumed diet soda were also more likely to be diabetic, which is thought to increase the risk of dementia. However, even after excluding diabetics from the study, diet soda consumption was still associated with the risk of dementia. Although the researchers suggest that people should be cautious about regularly consuming either diet sodas or sugary beverages, it is premature to say their observations represent cause and effect. Future studies are needed to test whether giving people artificial sweeteners causes adverse effects on the brain.
UNDIAGNOSED HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE
As many as 7 million people in the UK are living it, without knowing they are at risk. The British Heart Foundation recommends everyone over 40 gets their blood pressure taken by a nurse or doctor as part of a health check to assess their risk for getting cardiovascular disease.
Picture overload hinders children learning new words in storybooks Less is more when it comes to helping children learn new vocabulary from picture books, according to a new study. While publishers look to produce ever more colourful and exciting texts to entice buyers, University of Sussex psychologists have shown that having more than one illustration per page results in poorer word learning among pre-schoolers. The findings, published in Infant and Child Development, present a simple solution to parents and nursery teachers for some of the challenges of pre-school education and could help in the development of learning materials for young children. Doctoral researcher and co-author Zoe Flack said: “Luckily, children like hearing stories, and adults like reading them to children. But children who are too young to read themselves don’t know where to look because they are not following the text. This has a dramatic impact on how well they learn new words from stories.” The researchers read storybooks to three-year-olds with one illustration at a time (the right-hand page was illustrated, the left-hand page was blank) or with two illustrations at a time (both pages had illustrations), with illustrations introducing the child to new objects that were named on the page. They found that children who were read stories with only one illustration at a time learned twice as many words as children who were read stories with two or more illustrations. In a follow-up experiment, researchers added a simple hand swipe gesture to guide the children to look at the correct illustration before the page was read to them. They found this gesture was effective in helping children to learn words when they saw two illustrations across the page. Zoe, who has written a blog post about the research, said: “This suggests that simply guiding children’s attention to the correct page helps them focus on the right illustrations, and this in turn might help them concentrate on the new words. “Our findings fit well with Cognitive Load Theory, which suggests that learning rates are affected by how
complicated a task is. In this case, by giving children less information at once, or guiding them to the correct information, we can help children learn more words.” Co-author Dr Jessica Horst said: “Other studies have shown that adding ‘bells and whistles’ to storybooks like flaps to lift and anthropomorphic animals decreases learning. But this is the first study to examine how decreasing the number of illustrations increases children’s word learning from storybooks.” She added: “This study also has important implications for the e-Book industry. Studies on the usefulness of teaching vocabulary from e-Books are mixed, but our study suggests one explanation is that many studies with e-Books are presenting only one illustration at a time.” The study is one of many being carried out at Sussex in The WORD Lab, a research group that focuses on how children learn and acquire language. Previous research has shown children learn more words from hearing the same stories repeated and from hearing stories at nap time. The authors will be discussing this study and related findings at a British Science Festival event on Saturday 9 September 2017 at Brighton’s Jubilee Library. Ravneet Sawhney is the Director/Proprietor of Little Cherubs Day Nursery with branches in Chiswick and Hounlsow. For more information visit: www.littlecherubschiswick.co.uk www.littlecherubshounslow.co.uk
Your heart pumps blood that travels through blood vessels approximately 100,000 miles long. Every day your heart creates enough energy to drive a truck for 20 miles.