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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (267182)	1/6/2006 8:30:54 AM
From: steve harris	Respond to of 1575738

lol lifestyle wouldn't have anything to do with it would it?

To: Road Walker who wrote (267182)	1/6/2006 9:01:39 AM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1575738

"I was thinking back, and I can only remember one kid that I thought might have had ADD when I was in grade school." Part of the problem is that the school system expects boys to act like girls. The whole ADD thing is pretty much a US phenomena, other countries don't diagnose ADD nearly to the extreme that we do here. ADD, like most disorders, exist on a continua. Everybody has some elements of it, the only question is at what point does it cause a problem? Public schools in particular tend to draw the line at a pretty low threshold. Boys tend to act up, be loud, be wiggly and are easily distracted. It is just part of being a boy.

To: Road Walker who wrote (267182)	1/6/2006 9:42:09 AM
From: Taro	Respond to of 1575738

My time as a kid and well up in the teenies we used bikes to get around, kicked ball for fun and skated and skied in the winter time. Add to that no money or places for junk food. Now the kiddies sit on their butt working video games, surfing and watching TV when they don't hang at Mickey eating junk food and drinking fattening soft drinks. So what is so weird about it?? Taro

To: Road Walker who wrote (267182)	1/6/2006 1:21:58 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1575738

re: Did you know that nearly a third of the boys are diagnosed with some form of ADD? I've mentioned before on this thread that boys are falling behind the girls in almost every educational metric. Meanwhile, kids today for the first time are getting adult onset diabetes and other adult diseases. Some are manifesting the early stages of coronary disease. Asthma has become epidemic. These are facts and not anecdotal observations. And its not just the poor kids. That IS all very weird stuff. I was thinking back, and I can only remember one kid that I thought might have had ADD when I was in grade school. There is something going on, and my guess is that it is environmental (something in the water or air or food or something). I don't think its environmental in that the air is bad or something like that. I think it has to do with higher levels of stress, food consumption and lack of exercise........and it varies for different socio economic groups. For inner city kids, its about the violence in the inner city that leads to a great deal of stress. Children are not allowed to go out and play because its too dangerous. Thus they stay at home watching tv or playing video games. Inner city families tend to load up on the carbs in their diet for economic reasons, and keeping the kids indoors just exascerbates the problem. The bad food and lack of exercise leads to diabetes and the stress from inner city violence causes asthma. The asthma rates are the highest for inner city kids. For middle class kids and upper class kids, I think the stress comes from the increased competition at school coupled with an unhealthy or unstabile home life.....parents fighting and divorcing. When I was a kid, I developed asthma for a while just before my father died. My parents were fighting a lot and I thought they were getting ready to split. After my father died, my asthma went away......supposedly I 'grew' out of it. The increase in diabetes in this group of kids is due to the lousy food to which these kids have access........both parents work and their diets are not closely monitored. One study showed some kids eating 4-5 thousand calories per day...and doing nothing but playing their gameboys or Xbox. Do you have any idea how many calories are in a super sized big Mac........the calories are off the charts. I don't remember the exact percentage but either 22% or 30% of all kids today are considered obese. I think its the first number not the latter. Even so, 22% is huge. With the boys, the above conditions are part of the problem, but I think it goes one step further with them. From what I've studied, I believe......and this is my theory and no one else's......that the problems with the boys may stem from the passage of Title XI in 1972 and the growth of feminism around the same time. Up til that point, the boys were king and the gender gap favored them.....but then things began to change. I believe parents and teachers inadvertently began to place more emphasis on the girls [remember 80% of teachers are women]. Simultaneously, girls began to compete in sports......competition makes you more aggressive both on and off the court. As people saw successes with the girls, they got more and more attention...slowly the gender gap began to close and then reverse. Meanwhile the boys were getting mixed messages.........they must be nice to the girls because the girls aren't as strong while the girls were whipping their butts on a whole bunch of different levels. And girls have some strengths that boys don't......they are very active listeners, very disciplined when it comes to studying and very organized. For an example, I learned early on to listen very carefully when girls speak esp. if it could lead to a potential argument whereas with guys, I don't have to worry. In any case, that's what I believe happened. Now when teachers are interviewed, they have a number of disparaging comments to make about boys.........white boys feel entitled, boys don't listen, they play around too much, they don't study enough etc. The teachers don't like dealing with them. And kids are very sensitive......they get when an adult doesn't like them even if the adult is smiling. And mass media plays into it.......think about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Jolie is Lara Croft......smart, sexy, unattached and tough. Pitt is more the sex object.......strong but objectified for his body and good looks. Now the two of them are together and its Jolie who is running the show. If ever there was a metaphor for what's happening.........I could go on but I think you get the jist of what I am saying. Again, this is my theory......and I will be studying it further. I am very intrigued by the entire subject particularly since it caused such an uproar in my cohort last quarter. I thought the women in the class were going to string me up. <g> It seems to have struck a nerve. Is the same stuff happening in other countries? I don't know about the incidence of asthma and adult diabetes but in terms of academics, the western nations are seeing the same phenomenon...........the boys are lagging the girls. Interesting, isn't it? All the most developed nations are encountering problems with their boys' performance. I mean John, think about it..........in 1970 in the US, 60% of all college entrants were boys; 40% girls. In 2000, thirty years later, nearly 60% of all entrants are girls; 40% boys. These are facts and indisputable. That's a significant statistical change by anyone's measure. ted