Sitting for long periods is associated with an increased risk of depression in adolescents, the John Tung Foundation said yesterday, citing a study published last month in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry.
Researchers Aaron Kandola, Gemma Lewis, David Osborn, Brendon Stubbs and Joseph Hayes examined data from 4,257 adolescents who were part of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, also known as the Children of the 90s study, the foundation said.
The participants had worn accelerometers at the ages of 12, 14 and 16 to record their movements for at least 10 hours over three days, it said.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The measurements were used to determine whether a child was engaging in light physical activity, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity or was sedentary, it said.
Two questionnaires — the Clinical Interview Schedule-Revised and the Moods and Feelings Questionnaire — were also used to assess symptoms of depression in the participants, it added.
The researchers found that an increase of 60 minutes of sedentary behavior per day at ages 12, 14 and 16 was associated with a higher depression score at the age of 18, while an increase of 60 minutes of light activity per day was associated with a lower depression score.
The study showed that overall, total physical activity decreased between the ages of 12 and 16, the foundation said.
While the need for young people to exercise is often emphasized, the importance of light physical activity should not be overlooked, foundation mental health center director Yeh Ya-hsing (葉雅馨) said.
Light physical activity can reduce the amount of time spent sitting, she said, adding that examples of light activity includes using a computer while standing and getting up for a drink.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, avoiding travel might be a better option during the Children’s Day and Tomb Sweeping Day holiday from Thursday to Sunday, the foundation said.
At the same time, staying indoors might mean more time spent by children on the Internet or playing video games, it said, urging people to stay active.
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching