Body acceptance and social support

Women's acceptance of their bodies could have more to do with how other people see them than their actual weight. Researchers from Ohio State University studied 801 women between the ages of 18 and 65. They found that the most important influence on how women saw their bodies was how they thought important people in their life saw them and that the more women focused on how their bodies functioned and felt the more they appreciated them. In turn, the more women appreciated their bodies the more likely they were to eat intuitively, i.e. in response to hunger rather than emotions or the presence of food. The study also found that women who thought they had strong levels of social support were more likely to accept their bodies. For women aged between 26 and 65 those who weighed more were less likely to eat intuitively and more likely to think that others didn't accept their bodies if they weighed more. Women aged between 26 and 39 were most likely to achieve body appreciation by focusing more on how their bodies functioned.

Review gives thumbs up to peer support

Peer support programmes for depression involve patients and volunteers supporting each other by talking and sharing information with one another. They have been found to decrease isolation, reduce stress, increase the sharing of health information and provide role models, and, because they rely on volunteers and non-professionals they are also cost effective. Researchers from the University of Michigan Medical School reviewed 10 studies into the effectiveness of peer support carried out between 1987 and 2009. They found that the programmes reduced symptoms of depression better than traditional care alone and were about as effective as cognitive behaviour therapy.

Is there such a thing as passive drinking?

People who are in close contact with someone with an alcohol problem could end up suffering from something analogous to passive drinking. Researchers from Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand studied 3,068 people aged between 12 and 80. The participants were asked whether they had any heavy drinkers in their life and one in three said they had. People who lived with a heavy drinker had the lowest scores on measures of general health and personal well-being - defined as people's satisfaction with their relationships, work, health and what they were achieving in life. However, even people with a relatively low exposure to heavy drinkers, such as a colleague or a more distant relative with a drink problem, generally reported lower satisfaction with life compared to those who knew no heavy drinkers. The study is interesting but doesn't show which direction the link goes in. It could be the case, for instance, that unhappy people are more attracted to heavy drinkers or that unhappy people drink more but it is their unhappiness not their drinking that affects other people. And of course the fact that two things - heavy drinking and unhappiness - happen together does not meant that they are linked any more than riots in Egypt and Green Bay Packers' Superbowl triumphs are. But the study does add some weight to the commonsense idea that heavy drinking isn't good either for oneself or the people around one.

Brain structure and social networks

The amygdala is an almond-shaped structure deep within the temporal lobe of the brain. Research on apes and monkeys has shown that the more sociable they are the larger their amygdalas and a new study by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital suggests that the same may be true of humans. The researchers asked 58 people, between 19 and 83 about the size and complexity of their social networks and gave them an MRI (magnetic-resonance imaging) brain scan. The study found that, on average, the larger people's amygdala was the larger and more complex their social networks were.

New survey shows recession's toll on youngsters' mental health

Nearly a million 16-24 year-olds in the U.K. are unemployed and a new survey by the Prince's Trust charity shows the toll that this is taking on youngsters' mental health. The survey of 2,170 people aged between 16 and 25 found that young people were twice as likely to self-harm or suffer from panic attacks if they had been jobless for more than a year. Almost half of the sample had problems such as self-harm or insomnia. About one in six respondents to the survey said being out of work was as stressful as a family breakdown, and one in eight said unemployment gave them nightmares. Half of young people seeking work said visits to a job centre made them feel ashamed, and more than half said that job-searching had left them feeling disillusioned or desperate.

Life is very short when you're lonely

Researchers from the universities of Utah and North Carolina have been reviewing the research into the effects of loneliness on people's health and have found that it can be as dangerous as smoking and alcohol and probably a lot less fun. The researchers analysed data from 148 studies carried out over three decades and involving more than 300,000 people. They found that people who have no social life are 50% more likely to die early than those who are well connected and those who socialise regularly with family and friends live an average of 3.7 years longer. People with little social support have a mortality rate as high as alcoholics while the impact of making friends is comparable to the effect of giving up smoking.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the title of this post.

What's the best way to tackle loneliness?

Loneliness is a known risk factor for heart disease and has also been linked to high blood pressure, poor quality sleep, dementia and other health problems. But what is the best way of helping people to overcome it? Researchers from the University of Chicago reviewed 20 studies into the effectiveness of different interventions aimed at tackling people's loneliness. Some worked on means, improving people's ability to make friends and socialise while others worked on opportunity, providing participants with chances to meet new people. However, it was the interventions that worked on motive - people's thoughts about their own likeability and other people's friendliness - that were the most successful. The researchers also found that studies which used techniques of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) were particularly effective.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the title of this post.

Sleep, drugs and social networks

Previous research has pointed to a link between poor sleep in children and an increased risk of drug use. Now new research from the University of California, San Diego has confirmed this and also suggests that bad sleep can spread throughout social networks. The study covered 8,349 children between year 7 and year 12 and found that children who slept less than seven hours a night were 19% more likely to take drugs. By mapping the social networks of the children the researchers found that the friends of children who slept badly were 29% more likely to sleep badly themselves. This influence carried on through up to four degrees of separation although it diminished as the connections between people got more remote. Lack of sleep is also linked to behavioural, cognitive and emotional problems and the study recommended that children got an average of between 8 1/2 and 9 1/4 hours sleep a night.

You can find out more about this research at

http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/04/26/sleep-deprivation-makes-teenagers-and-their-friends-more-likely-to-do-drugs/13177.html

Social networks and heavy drinking

Over the last few years psychologists have become increasingly interested in the idea of social networks and there is evidence that these can influence people's happiness, smoking and exercise habits. Nicholas Christakis from Harvard University led a team of researchers looking into the effects of social networks on drinking. The team used data from the Framingham Heart Study which followed 12,067 people for more than 30 years. They found that people were 50% more likely to drink heavily if someone they were connected with also drank heavily and 36% more likely if a friend of a friend was a heavy drinker. The influence of heavy drinkers could be felt up to three degrees of separation away.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100405174942.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Sleep, spliffs and social networks

Recent studies have found that obesity, smoking and altruism can all spread through social networks, affecting not just our friends but their friends too. Now researchers from the University of California, San Diego and Harvard University have found that poor sleep and drug use can also spread through social networks. They studied 8,349 adolescents between year 7 and year 12 and found clusters of poor sleep and cannabis (marijuana) use that extended up to four degrees of separation within social networks. The researchers also found that it was the poor sleep that led on to cannabis use not vice versa.

You can find out more about this research at

http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/03/22/sleep-loss-tied-to-drug-use-in-teen-social-networks/12286.html