Expelling bullies doesn't work, but education might

Zero-tolerance policies that kick bullies out of school are not the answer to the persistent bullying problem plaguing the nation's classrooms, playgrounds and social media sites, according to areport released Tuesday.

Experts from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine said prevention efforts should instead target entire schools and give extra attention to students at risk or already involved in bullying, including both victims and the perpetrators themselves.

Suspending and expelling bullies “doesn’t really help the targets necessarily and it certainly doesn’t help the young people doing the bullying,” said Frederick Rivara, a pediatrician at Seattle Children’s Hospital and chairman of the panel that wrote report.

The group examined decades of research on the bullying of children and teens ages 5-18 and found:

• Between 18% and 31% are repeatedly insulted, threatened, pushed around or otherwise bullied in person by their peers. Online bullying affects 7% to 15%. Recent data suggesting a decline in bullying have yet to be confirmed.

• Children and teens who are disabled, obese or lesbian, gay, bi-sexual or transgender are more likely to be bullied. Ethnic, racial and religious minorities also may be targeted.

• Bullied children suffer sleep disturbances, headaches and stomach trouble and are more likely to face depression, anxiety and alcohol and drug abuse, extending into adulthood. Bullies themselves are more likely to be depressed and commit theft and vandalism. Suicide attempts are increased in both groups, though it’s not clear bullying is a cause.

• Zero-tolerance policies that became popular in the 1990s have never been shown to reduce bullying. They may discourage students from reporting bullying.

• Programs that encourage bystanders to stop bullying when they see it show promise. But asking students to work out bullying on their own — through peer mediation or forced apologies — can backfire.

“You would never put an abuser face to face with a victim and tell them to work it out,” said Deborah Temkin, a researcher with Child Trends in Bethesda, Md., who reviewed a draft of the report. Bullying, she said, is "an abusive use of power.”

Kicking out the abusers doesn’t “address the underlying issues,” she added. “They come back angrier than they were before, potentially putting the child they were bullying at even higher risk.”

Parents of bullied children often want the abusers punished, and bullies should face some consequences, said Ross Ellis, founder and CEO of Stomp Out Bullying, a N.Y.-based non-profit advocacy group.

“But somebody called us last week and wanted a 3-year-old arrested for bullying, which is ridiculous,” Ellis said. “Parents need to understand that the bully needs help as much as the victim.”

The report called for schools to teach social and emotional skills and tactics for dealing with bullying. It said parents and other adults, including coaches and bus drivers, should play crucial roles in preventing and stopping abuse. And it urged social media companies to adopt policies to curb online bullying.

Alex Levy, 18, a senior at St. Luke’s School in New Canaan, Conn., said he and a friend were physically and verbally harassed on a regular basis in 5th grade at a different private school. Administrators, he said, urged the students involved to work out their differences and ended up suggesting he and his friend leave the school.

They did leave and the next year that one-time friend starting bullying him, eventually breaking his arm, Levy said.

The experiences led him to spearhead anti-bullying efforts at his new school, said Levy, who is a speaker for Stomp Out Bullying. “You can’t force people to always get along, but you can create an environment where kindness is promoted,” he said.

How weight loss myths can get in your way

From the Paleo diet to five-minute workouts andraspberry ketone supplements, there's always something new and trendy in weight loss — enough to persuade Americans to spend nearly $60 billion a year.

But all that spending seems to produce, at best, modest results: Two-thirds of U.S. adults remain overweight or obese. And those who do lose weight often lose just a few pounds. Many then regain the weight.

"Obesity is a difficult disease to treat," says psychologist Martin Binks, an associate professor of nutritional science at Texas Tech University. He was among experts in Los Angeles this week for Obesity Week, an annual research meeting hosted by two professional groups, the Obesity Society and the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.

Binks and other experts who spoke at the meeting say weight loss is not a hopeless pursuit. But, they say, it's not surprising the dieting public is confused and disillusioned.

"We have people wearing medical scrubs on television feeding people really inappropriate information about magic potions and quick fixes," Binks says. When people don't lose weight, he says, "they blame themselves… setting up a cycle of failure and self-blame."

These are among the myths that he and other experts say can get in the way of achieving a healthy weight:

The diet that looked the best in the latest study, or sells the most books, or worked for my neighbor, is the one for me.

"We haven't found anything that works for everyone. If we did, everyone who wanted to lose weight would get on that diet, it would work, the obesity epidemic would be over," says Christopher Gardner, a nutrition researcher and professor of medicine atStanford University.

Factors including genetics, metabolic differences and even differences in gut microbes might affect how easy it is for someone to follow a diet and lose weight on it, he says.

In a study of 609 overweight and obese people now underway, Gardner says, he and his colleagues are finding that some participants on either low-fat or low-carb diets are losing more than 50 pounds in a year, while others are losing little or nothing. The point of the study, not yet analyzed, will be to find what individual differences might help explain those outcomes, he says.

Supplements are the answer.

An estimated 30% of U.S. adults use dietary supplements for weight loss, but unlike over-the-counter and prescription weight loss medications, those products have not undergone Food and Drug Administration review for safety and effectiveness — though they should, the Obesity Society and three other groups said in a statement released in October.

The statement came on the heels of a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showing dietary supplements send 23,000 people a year to emergency departments. Weight loss supplements, which often contain stimulants, accounted for 25% of those visits in adults.

"People so want to believe that these products are miracles," says Laura Shane-McWhorter, a professor of pharmacotherapy at the University of Utah. "But with most of these products, there isn't any compelling evidence that they cause a lot of weight loss. And there can be side effects."

Exercise is the royal road to weight loss — or useless unless you exercise for hours every day.

While exercise has many health benefits, "obesity will not be fixed by exercise alone," Binks says.

"We primarily control our body weight through the energy-intake side of the equation," meaning the calories we eat and drink, says Martin Gibala, a professor of kinesiology at McMaster University in Canada.

But the calories we burn matter, too, and research on ways to burn them more effectively and efficiently is showing some promise, Gibala says. His own studies focus on high-intensity interval training (HITT) — workouts in which bursts of intense exercise alternate with periods of less intense activity. Small studies suggest such workouts can modestly increase calorie burn, even after exercise — the "afterburn" effect.

"Even modest fluctuations in intensity appear to be effective," Gibala says, citing studies in which overweight people with type 2 diabetes have lost more weight and burned more fat by alternating fast and slow walking.

One appeal is that these workouts can be completed faster than traditional workouts. Will science ever give us a five-minute regimen that keeps us fit and lean? Probably not, Gibala says — but 20 minutes, warm-up to cool-down, might not be unrealistic.

You have to lose a lot of weight to get healthier.

"The message that people have been getting for decades from the popular diet plans is that you have to lose a lot of weight and you have to lose it fast," Binks says. "But there are multiple health benefits associated with the 5% to 10% weight loss range."

Those include improvements in quality of life, cardiovascular health, joint pain and sleep apnea, he says.

Barack Obama Appoints Indian-American To Key Administration Post

NTS

Manjit Singh has been appointed as the member of US President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES:  US President Barack Obama has appointed an Indian-American engineer to a key administration post, the White House said.

Manjit Singh, co-founder of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund has been appointed as the member of President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

The announcement came along with several other appointments made by the US President yesterday.

"These fine public servants bring a depth of experience and tremendous dedication to their important roles. I look forward to working with them," President Obama said in a statement.

President of Agilious, a software technology consulting firm he founded in 2013, Mr Singh is also the co-founder and chairman of the Board of Directors of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, a national Sikh American media, policy and education organization.

He served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Guru Gobind Singh Foundation and also as a Member-at-Large of The Board of the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan in Washington.

Mr Singh received a Master of Science degree from the State University of New York at Albany and a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Bombay in India.