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Is your teenager skipping breakfast? Why is that happening and what can you do? As per the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which surveyed adolescent health and well-being found that 1 in 4 students in high school ate breakfast, which means 3 in 4 high school students are not eating their breakfast. This data is as per the 2023 survey.
The report describes a 10-year long trend and also recent changes among the two years. The study delved deeper into adolescents' dietary, physical activity and sleep behaviors. The study is also based on a national youth risk behavior survey of a representative sample of students from grade nine to 12.
The study found that while high school students drank slightly less soda and sports drinks and consumed more water, other healthy eating habits declined. In 2023, only 27% of students ate breakfast every day in the past week. The numbers were even lower for female students, with just 22% eating breakfast daily, compared to 32% of male students. Boys were also more likely to eat fruits and vegetables daily and drink water at least three times a day. Poor mental health and lack of physical activity have also been linked to skipping breakfast.
The other findings included a survey across 10-year period, where a decrease in the percentage of students eating fruits from 65% to 55%, eating vegetables, from 61% to 58%, and having breakfast daily from 38% to 27% was noted.
However, there was a positive trend among this, which was in children drinking plain water at least three times a day, which increased from 49% to 54% from when the survey began in 2015.. There were fewer students who also said that they drank soda in 2023 than in 2013. On an average, in 2013, around 22% students avoided soda, whereas in 2023, 31% students avoided it.
The report also emphasized that a healthy diet, along with daily physical activity and sufficient sleep further contributes to a healthy lifestyle. “The 10-year trends from 2013 to 2023 also show a decline in healthy dietary, physical activity, and sleep behaviors,” the survey reported.
While there is no one straightforward answer to it, psychologists and those who study children, believe that for many high school going kids, it is the easiest time to skip a meal. This is because they are caught between rushing to school, or not just that hungry in the morning. So for them, to sit down to have a breakfast may seem hassle and something they would have to take time out from their busy schedule. They at this age also prioritize their extra-curricular activities.
There has also been a shift in their circadian rhythm, and most teens cannot fall asleep before 11 pm, or even at midnight. Which means they wake up tired and struggle to do things right in the morning, which is why they choose to skip breakfast or give extra minutes to any other activities.
There is of course another, more popular reason, to lose weight. While experts and studies, like the one published in the Journal of Nutrition that found skipping breakfast leads to higher levels of hunger hormones, the students still feel the need to do this. However, it could lead to a slow metabolism, prompt the body to conserve energy and burn fewer calories, weight gain and deprive yo off the essential nutrients like calcium, iron, and vitamin D.
Without a morning breakfast, your blood sugar might drop too, which can increase irritability and stress, along with including the risk of depression in teenage.
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GLP-1 weight-loss drugs have taken the world by storm. One new entrant is Eli Lilly's retatrutide, which has demonstrated bariatric surgery-level weight loss.
Retatrutide is not yet FDA-approved or commercially available; it is expected to be available by the end of 2026.
According to a media report, Eli Lilly and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have allowed one person to gain access to the drug through the company's "compassionate use" program. It is generally used by patients with serious and immediately life-threatening medical issues to get access to experimental treatments.
STAT News, citing sources, reported that a request for drug access was made in April for a 79-year-old, well-connected man, and indicated that the person could be US President Donald Trump, who turned 80 a week ago.
The White House has aggressively denied the claim.
"This application was not for the President," said, White House spokesperson Kush Desai, while blasting STAT on X..
STAT claimed that "during the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump was notably one of the first people administered an antibody treatment from Regeneron after he contracted the virus, via this same compassionate use pathway".
Further, the media outlet cited that Ranganath Muniyappa, a senior clinician at the National Institutes of Health, had requested the drug to treat a patient for refractory obesity with obstructive sleep apnea and pulmonary hypertension, noting it inquired whether Trump has those conditions.
In response, Desai referred to a White House memo on Trump's most recent medical evaluation that did not contain any mention of obstructive sleep apnea or pulmonary hypertension.
Also read: President Donald Trump Remains In Excellent Health, Says White House
Earlier this year, Trump told The New York Times that he had not taken GLP-1 drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic but said, "I probably should."
Notably, Trump's latest physical exam revealed the president weighed 238 pounds, a 14-pound increase from April 2025 that nearly reached the threshold of clinical obesity.
Trump's health has been under increased scrutiny as he turned 80 this year and has been frequently seen with swollen ankles and bruises on his hands.
Read More: US FDA Panel Recommends First-Ever mRNA Flu Shot For Older Adults: All About The Moderna Vaccine
Retatrutide is similar to drugs like Zepbound and Wegovy that mimic the GLP-1 hormone. The drug aims to maximize weight-loss results with fewer side effects for users. If approved, it could be helpful for patients who are struggling to lose weight on the current versions of GLP-1 drugs.
Unlike Zepbound, which is a double agonist, retatrutide, mimics glucagon along with GLP-1. It thus, works like a triple agonist.
In the third phase of clinical trial, the drug helped people lose up to 30 per cent of their body weight, which is about 85 pounds. The results are on a par with bariatric surgery, which helps people shed approximately 25 to 35 per cent of their total body weight within one to two years. Doctors say that this is the largest weight loss ever witnessed in a medical trial.
Dr Shauna Levy, medical director of the Tulane Weight Loss Center, explained that the current GLP-1s are not good enough to induce weight loss in people dealing with severe obesity and those who have a BMI of 35. Bariatric surgery can provide the same, but it seems that Retatrutide will be far more effective for people living with a high BMI who are trying to achieve a healthy weight.
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Health officials in Australia have confirmed a third case of the deadly H5 bird flu in a migratory bird on Australia's southern coast, taking the total number of cases to three. The first two cases were reported in Western Australia.
The third case of avian influenza was recorded in a giant petrel found at Knights Beach on the Fleurieu Peninsula.
According to South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas, the state recorded two sick birds that came into the care of a local wildlife rescue group on June 14, ABC News reported.
"Once that was drawn to the attention on June 19 to the relevant authorities in South Australia, we responded quickly and enabled and facilitated active testing of those birds for H5 bird flu," the premier said.
"This afternoon we received those results and they confirmed that one of those birds was negative and one of them was positive."
He also stressed the cases have no connection, as it involved a migratory bird.
"It's also important to emphasize that this is a migratory bird. This is not a contamination or infection that has come from WA to SA."
Further, Malinauskas noted that the volunteers who handled the birds would be given anti-viral medication if necessary.
He urged people who see unwell or dead birdlife to "avoid, record and report" via hotline 1800 675 888.
Also read: France Confirms First Ebola Case; Congo Outbreak Grows to 1,094 Cases, 277 Deaths
Malinauskas said two other sick birds found at Fowlers Bay yesterday had tested negative for the virus.
It comes after two birds were confirmed to have the disease near the town of Esperance in Western Australia.
The country's Chief Veterinary Officer, Dr Beth Cookson, said there was no indication it had spread from those two birds.
Genomic sequencing shows the virus in that initial bird — a brown skua — is related to an outbreak on Heard Island and McDonald Islands.
Until now, Australia was the only continent where the H5N1 strain, the highly contagious strain of H5 bird flu, had not been detected. Although the virus has circulated across Asia since the 1990s and reached Antarctica in 2024, Australia had remained unaffected.
According to Dr Michelle Wille, ARC Future Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Australia's unique bird migration patterns likely delayed the virus's arrival.
"There are no duck species which routinely migrate between Australia and Asia, nor are there ducks that migrate through Antarctica," Wille wrote in The Conversation.
However, evidence suggests other seabirds—including gulls, skuas and giant petrels—may have helped carry the virus over long distances across Antarctica and subantarctic regions, eventually bringing it closer to Australia, he said.
As per the latest update, Australian scientists believe that the H5 bird flu strain killed more than 13,000 elephant seal pups after infecting a breeding colony on the remote Heard and McDonald Islands, one of Australia's external territories in the sub-Antarctic.
Read More: Sri Lanka Dengue Outbreak Nears 50,000 Cases: Prevention Tips You Need to Know
Despite the rise in cases, Agricultural Minister Julie Collins assured the public that there is no immediate threat to human health.
"Chicken meat and eggs remain safe for consumption when properly prepared," she noted.
While human infections remain rare, they can occur through direct and unprotected contact with infected birds, animals, or contaminated environments.
Although severe human cases have historically shown a mortality rate of around 50%, sustained human-to-human transmission has not been observed.
Health authorities recommend the following precautions:
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French health officials have confirmed the first positive Ebola case in a doctor returning from a humanitarian mission in Congo.
It is the country's first case of the virus during the current outbreak, and the first in Europe. It is also the first case outside Africa in the 2026 outbreak.
The health ministry "confirms today the identification of a first positive case of Ebola virus disease on national territory", it said.
The patient, identified in mainland France, is being isolated and authorities are conducting contact tracing, the ministry said, adding that the risk to the general European population was low, AFP reported.
Also read: 'Omega Block' Causing Europe Heatwave; France Worst Hit
The confirmed cases in the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo have reached the highest total ever recorded during the first month of an outbreak in Africa, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
As of June 22, confirmed Ebola cases in Congo had risen to 1,094 and deaths to 277, according to the DRC Ministry of Health. The WHO raised concerns about the rapid spread of the deadly virus and the challenges facing containment efforts.
“This is the largest number of confirmed cases in the first month of an Ebola disease outbreak in Africa,” said Dr Abdirahman Mahamud, Director, Health Emergency Alert and Response Operations at WHO, during a press briefing in Geneva.
"What is important is we need to scale up and this outbreak is moving faster than us," he told reporters after returning from Bunia last week.
Read More: Teplizumab: UK NHS To Roll Out World-First Drug To Delay Onset Of Type 1 Diabetes
Mahamud also noted signs of hope, highlighting a quick increase in the number of Ebola beds to over 500 in the past fortnight and signs that community resistance and violent resistance to Ebola responders was beginning to abate.
Taking to social media platform X, Dr Tedros shared that “100 patients have recovered so far, which shows that for many, the virus can be stopped with timely health care”.
He also lauded efforts being made to “increase the number of Ebola Treatment Centres and lab and surveillance capacities, to train more health workers on clinical care and infection prevention and control, and to improve the understanding and involvement of communities”.
However, he highlighted the need to do more.
"More treatment centers, more trained health and care workers, more testing, more teams from within communities supporting communities. We need sustained and safe access to reach all affected people”.
Meanwhile, the US has provided doses of an experimental antibody drug from Mapp Biopharmaceutical for use in clinical trials to fight the widening Ebola outbreak in Congo, a Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson said, a shift from its position of making the drug available only to Americans, Reuters reported.
While the spokesperson declined to comment on the number of doses, it said that the drug is being made available for compassionate use in Congo as well as to advance a clinical trial in the outbreak region.
There are currently no approved vaccines or treatments for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola.
This marks the first time the US government has indicated it plans to directly support clinical trials of the antibody treatment known as MBP134 from San Diego-based Mapp by providing stockpiled doses.
The Mapp drug is expected to be among the first treatments to be tested in the outbreak.
Trials of the Mapp drug and two Gilead Sciences antivirals are due to begin in the coming weeks, according to the WHO and scientists involved in the testing, the report said.
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