The Decline of Play and Rise in Children’s Mental Disorders

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Rates of depression and anxiety among young people in America have been increasing steadily for the past 50 to 70 years. Today, by at least some estimates, five to eight times as many high school and college students meet the criteria for diagnosis of major depression and/or anxiety disorder as was true half a century or more ago. This increased psychopathology is not the result of changed diagnostic criteria; it holds even when the measures and criteria are constant.

The most recent evidence for the sharp generational rise in young people’s depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders comes from a just-released study headed by Jean Twenge at San Diego State University. Twenge and her colleagues took advantage of the fact that the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), a questionnaire used to assess a variety of mental disorders, has been given to large samples of college students throughout the United States going as far back as 1938, and the MMPI-A (the version used with younger adolescents) has been given to samples of high school students going as far back as 1951. The results are consistent with other studies, using a variety of indices, which also point to dramatic increases in anxiety and depression—in children as well as adolescents and young adults—over the last five or more decades.

We would like to think of history as progress, but if progress is measured in the mental health and happiness of young people, then we have been going backward at least since the early 1950s.

The question I want to address here is why.

The increased psychopathology seems to have nothing to do with realistic dangers and uncertainties in the larger world. The changes do not correlate with economic cycles, wars, or any of the other kinds of world events that people often talk about as affecting children’s mental states. Rates of anxiety and depression among children and adolescents were far lower during the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, and the turbulent 1960s and early ‘70s than they are today. The changes seem to have much more to do with the way young people view the world than with the way the world actually is. (Read more from “The Decline of Play and Rise in Children’s Mental Disorders” HERE)

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Girl, 10, Kills 800-POUND Monster Alligator With One Shot From Her Crossbow

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Armed with a loaded crossbow, 10-year-old Ella Hawk did not flinch when she faced off against an 800-pound, 13-foot alligator in Texas.

Ella, who has been hunting with her parents, Tony and Cindy Hawk, for a few years now, delivered a perfect shot above the scaly beast’s eyes, killing it on the spot . . .

In fact, the slain gator was big enough to rank No. 1 in the world in Trophy Game Records of the World’s database, according to the Victoria Advocate.

The 10-year-old had been preparing for last month’s hunting expedition by shooting her crossbow from an elevated position.

Once on location on the Guadalupe River, Ella’s training immediately kicked in and she quickly proved her mettle by felling the beast with a bolt to the head. (Read more from “Girl, 10, Kills 800-POUND Monster Alligator With One Shot From Her Crossbow” HERE)

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You’ll Never Guess What Burger King’s Halloween Burger Does to You

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The scariest part of Burger King’s Halloween Whopper doesn’t happen until after you eat it.

Something in the burger’s pitch-black bun turns eaters’ poop a ghastly bright green — sometimes for as long as three days . . .

Not everybody was amused by the frightening after-effects of the Halloween treat, with some even vowing to never eat the burger again.

“Yesterday I had the Halloween Whopper,” added Daniel Rodriguez. “Today my poop is green. Yesterday was the last time I’ll have the Halloween Whopper.”

It is unclear what ingredients in the black Whopper turn stool such a haunting color, but a spokesperson for the fast food giant told ABC news that the bun contains less than 1% food dye. (Read more from “You’ll Never Guess What Burger King’s Halloween Burger Does to You” HERE)

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American Airlines Captain DIES While Flying Plane With Over 100 Passengers

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An American Airlines pilot died after becoming ill on an overnight “red eye” flight from Phoenix to Boston, American Airlines confirmed to Today in the Sky.

The incident occurred about four hours into Flight 550, which then diverted to Syracuse and landed there around 7:10 a.m. Monday morning, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware . . .

While the death of a pilot during a flight could raise concern among uneasy fliers, the captain and first officer are each capable of flying commercial airliners alone. The Federal Aviation Administration requires two crew members in the cockpit at all times for just such an emergency.

“Pilots train for the incapacitation of another crew member,” said John Cox, a former airline pilot and now a consultant as head of Safety Operating Systems, “This would have been something the first officer was trained to deal with” . . .

Flight 550 was on an Airbus A320 and had 147 passengers and five crewmembers, according to American. The flight spent about four hours on the ground in Syracuse and then continued on to Boston after a replacement crew arrived to the aircraft in Syracuse. (Read more from “American Airlines Captain DIES While Flying Plane With Over 100 Passengers” HERE)

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Snowden: I’d Go to Prison to Return to the US

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Edward Snowden says he has offered to return to the United States and go to jail for leaking details of National Security Agency programs to intercept electronic communications data on a vast scale.

The former NSA contractor flew to Moscow two years ago after revealing information about the previously secret eavesdropping powers, and faces U.S. charges that could land him in prison for up to 30 years . . .

Snowden’s revelations about the NSA, Britain’s GCHQ and other intelligence agencies set off an international debate about spies’ powers to monitor personal communications, and about the balance between security and privacy. (Read more from “Snowden: I’d Go to Prison to Return to the US” HERE)

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Medical Miracle: Doctors Reattach Toddler’s Decapitated HEAD After Horrific Car Crash

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This child has made a miracle recovery after his HEAD was internally decapitated in a car crash . . .

The 16-month-old toddler was with his mum and nine-year-old sister Shayne when they collided head on with another vehicle at 70mph on September 15.

The child was airlifted from the site of the crash to a hospital in Brisbane.

The force from the collision was so intense that Jaxon’s head pulled apart from his neck in an internal decapitation, according to spinal surgeon Dr Geoff Askin.

Incredibly , the medics now have been able to reattach his head, reported 7NewsMelbourne. (Read more from “Medical Miracle: Doctors Reattach Toddler’s Decapitated HEAD After Horrific Car Crash” HERE)

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Author: Hillary Has a Long History of Beating up Bill Behind Closed Doors

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She’s on a mission to be a softer, warmer, funnier candidate — but according to a new book, the real Hillary Clinton is so volatile and prone to violent outbursts that she terrorizes staff, Secret Service agents and even her own husband.

In “The Clintons’ War On Women” (Skyhorse), out Oct. 13, political strategist Roger Stone details Hillary’s abusive behavior — dating back to the Clintons’ days in Arkansas, where Bill served as governor.

“Hillary Clinton has a long history of being domestically violent with Bill,” Stone writes. “Hillary has beaten Bill, hit him with hard objects, scratched and clawed him, and made him bleed.”

Stone, a controversial figure who recently decamped from Donald Trump’s campaign, also delves into the more fantastical rumors that have dogged the Clintons for years.

Accounts of marital discord, however, have been well-reported for decades. Even Bill Clinton’s former press officer Dee Dee Myers later admitted that she covered for the first lady. (Read more from “Author: Hillary Has a Long History of Beating up Bill Behind Closed Doors” HERE)

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‘World’s Biggest’ Snake Has Been Discovered – and It Will Send Chills Down Your Spine [+video]

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A new contender for the title of world’s biggest snake has been discovered.

With a head that dwarfs any human’s and a seemingly neverending body the terrifying beast is sure to send chills down your spine.

Footage has emerged of the snake bound up in chains after it was captured in the wild, but that doesn’t make it any less fearsome.

As the camera pans along the snake its body is swollen in places as evidence of its voracious appetite. (Read more from “‘World’s Biggest’ Snake Has Been Discovered – and It Will Send Chills Down Your Spine” HERE)

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Here Are the ‘Official’ Amount of Ways to Get Sick or Die

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There are 70,000 ways to get sick, hurt or mortally injured, and the U.S. is making them official.

On Thursday, U.S. hospitals, doctors and other care providers have to start using internationally developed standards called ICD-10 codes to bill government programs and private insurers in the nation’s $2.9 trillion-a-year health-care system. The codes cover everything from parrot bites to getting sucked into a jet engine.

Doctors have already begun mocking the diagnostic list, picking out the most absurd and arcane, such as Z63.1, “Problems in relationship with in-laws,” or V91.07XA, “Burn due to water skis on fire.” Yet for health-care providers who have payments at stake, the complex change is no joke.

Health insurers and government programs stopped accepting the old set of codes, called ICD-9, in the early morning hours Thursday, completing the switch. In a study released last month, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said “little is known” about how much it will cost the health-care system to make the transition. HCA Holdings Inc., the Nashville, Tennessee-based hospital chain, said 2015 costs for the transition to the new codes will be about $30 million.

Insurers began preparing for ICD-10 in 2010 and have been ready since the government first delayed implementation in 2012, said Clare Krusing, a spokeswoman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, a Washington-based industry group. “Every deadline that has come up, we were ready.” (Read more from “Here Are the ‘Official’ Amount of Ways to Get Sick or Die” HERE)

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Obama’s New Ozone Standard Has Green Groups Seeing Red

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The Obama administration handed a win to industry groups Thursday on a fiercely debated rule for smog-causing ozone pollution — leaving green groups feeling betrayed once again and threatening legal action.

The new EPA standard is stricter than one the George W. Bush administration had set in 2008, but it’s far laxer than what environmental and public health groups consider necessary to lessen illnesses like childhood asthma.

Thursday’s action came four years after the White House abruptly squelched an earlier EPA attempt to tighten the ozone rule, a move that greens still regard as one of the great betrayals of Obama’s presidency.

David Baron, the managing attorney with Earthjustice, called the standard “weak-kneed” and “a betrayal of the Clean Air Act’s promise of healthy air.” He said it is likely his group and other environmentalists would sue.

“Lowering the smog standard … is a modest step in the right direction, but it doesn’t go far enough to protect the millions of Americans living in communities with dangerously high levels of smog pollution,” said Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune. (Read more from “Obama’s New Ozone Standard Has Green Groups Seeing Red” HERE)

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