Male bodies are increasingly objectified by mass media, but a new study indicates that boys seem to be taking it in stride.

While television personalities like Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino are celebrated for their chiseled abs, the study found that most boys simply want an average physique – not too heavy nor too small, and not too muscular nor too weak.

“Not all boys aspire to have lean, muscular or idealized male bodies that are commonplace in popular culture,” said Moss Norman, who led the study.

Norman reported that most boys involved in the study were actually very critical of the idealized male physiques presented in the media.

“They found it problematic, feminine or vain to be overly concerned with appearances,” Norman said. “Sculpted bodies were seen as unnatural, the product of steroids or zealous weight-lifting.”

A total of 32 boys, aged 13 to 15, were recruited in the study, which lasted for nine months and included four in-depth interviews and 19 focus groups.

The discussions centered on male bodies, health, diet and physical activity. Participants were also asked to comment on pop culture images, such as Homer Simpson and shirtless models featured in Bowflex home gym commercials.

The researchers said one of the biggest surprises from the study was how comfortable the boys were in expressing, analyzing and comparing bodies — their own, their peers’ and those ideals depicted by media.

“Although they felt pressure to be fit, they displayed a distant, disinterested and cool relationship to their bodies,” Norman said. “Some participants also admitted to desiring particular masculine ideals and working on their bodies to achieve such idealized forms.”

The researchers added that despite the encouraging findings, the results did not mean that boys were free of body image issues. The boys in the study expressed concern over everything from height to obesity to skin complexion.

“Being overweight was seen as undesirable and associated with a sedentary, immoral lifestyle,” said Norman.

To deal with image concerns, the majority of study participants saw sports as a fun and masculine way to build muscle and manage calories.

“They felt sports could naturally produce a healthier, fitter and more attractive man,” said Norman. “Sports are used to deflect, obscure and erase their bodily anxieties and desires.”

The study was published in the journal Men and Masculinity.

Labor Day weekend heralds the start of September and, in turn, a new school year.

Are your kids ready to go back to school? Sure, they probably have their school supplies by now, but what about their vaccinations?

Here some of the back-to-school guidelines I think are the most important to address to ensure your children have a happy, healthy year:

Vaccinations

In order to enter kindergarten, there are a number of required vaccinations children must receive, though they vary from state to state. Check with your school system for specific requirements. Additionally, in New York, children must receive the booster for TDAP in order to enter middle school.

Other vaccines, such as Hepatitis A or chicken pox boosters, are recommended, but not required. Also, don’t forget to get an influenza shot ahead of the upcoming flu season this year. Kids are busy enough without having to worry about getting sick!

Nutrition

Three meals a day is still the rule of thumb for children, according to nutritionists. Kids shouldn’t skip breakfast because this can lead to weight gain. They should also avoid fried or sugary foods in the school cafeteria at lunch.

Make sure kids are drinking enough water to avoid dehydration during warmer months. This holds especially true for athletes, who have to exert extra energy and sometimes wear heavy gear during practice.

Exercise

Kids need daily exercise. I know we’re all tied to our laptops and iPods or what have you (and I think my kid’s cell phones might actually need to be surgically removed from their hands) but it’s important to set technology aside for an hour or so to run around outside.

Studies have shown that sedentary lifestyles lead to a number of health problems, and I’m not just talking about weight gain. In recent years, more and more kids have been diagnosed with typically “adult” diseases, such as type II diabetes, heart disease and high cholesterol.

Sleep

Sleep is one of the most important factors that influence health. Students have a lot going on during the school year, from clubs to sports to music lessons or other extracurricular activities – and that’s not even factoring in nightly homework assignments.

Don’t let your child get too overbooked this year. Inadequate rest can increase susceptibility to illness, as well as cause weight gain and lower concentration in class, among other health problems. Eight hours of sleep a night should be the absolute minimum, especially for younger children.

Finally, try not to stress too much. I know school comes with certain pressures and expectations, but one of the most important things kids can do to keep themselves healthy both physically and mentally is to cut out the anxiety and take the time to have fun. Have a good school year, everyone!

A common belief among college students is that they need to drink and be social to have fun, but a new study finds that less outgoing people can be just as happy.

Indiana University researchers found that introverted students rely less on partying and drinking to be happy and more on connections with family and friends or cognitive strategies, such as positive thinking.

“You don’t have to go out and party to be happy [even though] that’s the thing students feel they need to do, particularly when they’re new to campus,” said Bernardo J. Carducci, director of the Shyness Research Institute at Indiana University Southeast.

“But, it’s critical to maintain contacts with family, with friends and like-minded individuals with whom you feel some sort of meaningful connection,” Carducci continued. “That could be other people in clubs that you belong to, like the accounting club, astronomy club . . . people you play intramural sports with.”

Carducci also found that college students who are goal-oriented tend to be happier than their less focused peers.

“When you look at what these people do differently, people who strive to reach personal goals, they engage in more purposeful leisure, rather than sitting around and watching television,” Carducci said. “They don’t go clubbing as much as the others. They spend more time on what we call spiritual reflection. They write in journals. These are the kinds of people who tend to be more happy. These also are the people who mostly graduate from college.”

Those hours spent watching television aren’t just wasting your life – they’re shortening it too.

A new study conducted by British researchers has found that watching TV for an average of six hours a day can shorten a person’s life expectancy by almost five years.

The researchers said that the impact of TV watching on longevity rivals that of smoking and lack of exercise.

Sedentary behavior in general is associated with a higher risk of death, especially from heart attack or stroke. Watching TV generally accounts for a substantial amount of sedentary activity.

For the study, researchers analyzed the relationship between TV viewing time and death by using prior data that involved more that 11,000 adults aged 25 or older.

Accounting for other mortality-related factors, the researchers calculated that an individual who spends a lifetime average of six hours a day watching TV typically lives five years fewer than someone who does not watch TV.

In comparison, lifelong smoking is associated with shortening a person’s life expectancy by more than 4 years. Essentially, the researchers said, 30 minutes of TV watching has the same impact as smoking one cigarette.

“If these figures are confirmed and shown to reflect a causal association, TV viewing is a public health problem comparable in size to established behavioural risk factors,” the researchers said.

The study was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Want to improve your sports performance?  Sleep in, advise researchers.

A new study shows that sleeping for longer periods of time is beneficial to athletic performance, reaction time, vigor, fatigue and mood in college athletes.

The researchers say that college basketball players who slept for an extra 111 minutes (nearly 2 hours) each night showed significant improvements in speed and shooting accuracy.  The participants also reported improved overall ratings of physical and mental well-being during practices and games.

“It was interesting to note that sleep extension significantly improved different measures of physical performance in basketball from shooting percentages to sprinting times,” said lead author Cheri D. Mah, MS, researcher at the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic and Research Laboratory in Stanford, California, noting the diverse benefits longer periods of sleep was associated with.

According to Mah, an athlete’s nightly sleep requirement should be considered integral to attaining peak performance in all levels of sports. She offered the following tips to help athletes improve their performance by maximizing their sleep:

-Prioritize sleep as a part of your regular training regimen.

-Extend nightly sleep for several weeks to reduce your sleep debt before competition.

-Maintain a low sleep debt by obtaining a sufficient amount of nightly sleep (seven to nine hours for adults, nine or more hours for teens and young adults).

-Keep a regular sleep-wake schedule, going to bed and waking up at the same times every day.

-Take brief 20-30 minute naps to obtain additional sleep during the day, especially if drowsy.

Mah has also observed similar benefits of sleep extension in other sports such as football, tennis, and swimming.

The study was published in the journal SLEEP.

Sustaining a head injury may make young people more prone to violent behavior in the future, according to a new study.

Furthermore, young people who suffered a recent head injury (within the year) were the most likely to report violent behavior.

The study, conducted by University of Michigan researchers, is one of few that has examined the long-term effects of head injuries in the young adult population.

While the media has focused its attention as of late on youth, college and professional athletes who suffer head injuries and concussions while playing, researchers insist the study has a broader focus.

“These are not necessarily sports-playing injuries,” said lead author Sarah Stoddard, a research assistant professor at the School of Public Health and  research fellow at the U-M School of Nursing, in a press release. “They could be from a car accident or from previous violent behavior, but it does support some of the sports research that’s been going on with concussions.”

The data from the study was compiled from over eight years of research that came from following a large group of ninth-graders in Michigan into young adulthood.  In the fifth and sixth years of study, the participants were asked if they had ever suffered a head injury.

Those who said yes (23 percent) reported more violent behavior in the eighth year of the study.

Additionally, injuries reported in the seventh year were an even stronger predictor of violence in the eighth year.

“We found that the link between a head injury and later violence was stronger when a head injury was more recent, even after controlling for other factors including previous violent behavior,” Stoddard said.

Head injuries were defined in the study as having been knocked unconscious or sustaining a concussion or fractured skull.

An estimated 1.7 million people suffer from head injuries or traumatic brain injuries (TBI) each year – though this number only includes people who get medical care.  About three-quarters of the injuries are mild and therefore do not get medical attention, but doctors say any TBI disrupts brain function.

Long-term impact can include changes in cognition, language and emotion, including irritability, impulsiveness and violence.

The study was published in the journal Pediatrics.