Forced exercisers
Being forced to exercise may help reduce anxiety and depression just as exercising voluntarily does, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Colorado Boulderast studies have shown that people who exercise are more protected against stress-related disorders. And scientists know that the perception of control can benefit a person's mental health. But it has been an open question, whether a person who feels forced to exercise, eliminating the perception of control, would still reap the anxiety-fighting benefits of the exercise. People who may feel forced to exercise could include high school, college and professional athletes, members of the military or those who have been prescribed an exercise regimen by their doctors.
Helicopter parenting is of no help
Parents may think they can keep their kids safe by hovering over them, but a new study finds that children of overprotective parents are more likely to be bullied. And on the other end of the spectrum, having abusive or neglectful parents also seems to make kids a target for bullies, according to an analysis of 70 studies that included more than 200,000 children. The effects of these types of poor parenting were stronger among children who were bullied and also bullied others (bully-victims), than among those who were bullied but did not bully others. The review also found that negative or harsh parenting was associated with a moderate increase in the risk of children being bully – victims and a small increase in their risk of being a victim of bullying. Warm but firm parenting reduced children’s risk of being bullied, the investigators noted.
Docs’ problems with obesity
Obese people who think health care workers aren’t as sympathetic to them as they should be may be right. A new study suggests that doctors don’t have as strong an emotional connection with overweight patients compared to slimmer ones. This bias might have real health effects, researchers at Johns Hopkins University said. Overweight or obese patients who experience bias may simply ignore advice to change their lifestyle to lose weight, and it may make them more likely to be dissatisfied. “If you aren’t establishing a rapport with your patients, they may be less likely to adhere to your recommendations to change their lifestyles and lose weight,” study leader Dr Kimberly Gudzune, an assistant professor in the division of general internal medicine, said.
Read Psychopaths’ minds
Psychopaths lack the brain “wiring” needed to have concern for other people, a new study suggests. The findings are thought to be the first of their kind and could possibly lead to the development of better treatment methods for people with this disorder. Psychopathy includes traits such as callousness, manipulation, sensation-seeking and antisocial behaviours. Psychopathy affects 20 per cent to 30 per cent of men and women in US prisons, compared with about one per cent of the general population. Psychopaths are responsible for a disproportionate amount of repeat crime.
Software for happy faces
Smile — you're on camera! If you want a quick way to pick out the happiest snaps from a wedding or judge the changing mood of a crowd, now there's software that can do it for you.
Developed by Abhinav Dhall at the Australian National University in Canberra and colleagues, the software analyses all the faces in a photo, to give the shot an overall, “mood score.”
The team used face tracking software to analyse the smiles of the faces in a group, by noting the positions of nine spots on the face such as the corners of the mouth and eyes.
A machine learning algorithm trained on photographs that had been pre-labelled by humans, then used this data to give each face a smile intensity score. So here is something to be happy about!