Health | WPN World People News

A teacher-delivered intervention program promoting healthy lifestyles improved health behaviors, social skills, severe depression, and academic performance in high school adolescents, a study has found. Routine integration of such programs into health education curricula in high school settings may be an effective way to prevent high-risk teen populations from becoming overweight or obese, and could lead to improved physical health, psychosocial skills, and academic outcomes, according to the study.

President Barack Obama and his advisers are talking about strictly limited U.S. military strikes to deal with Syria’s suspected use of chemical weapons against anti-government rebels. Regional experts, however, warn that even limited U.S. military strikes could have longer-term consequences.

Men in Eastern Europe and Central Asia are more likely to die prematurely than women, a trend driven by rising levels of chronic diseases connected to alcohol use, poor diets, and smoking.

With the exception of young men, most people in Latin America and the Caribbean are living much longer than 40 years ago. The mortality rate has dropped by at least 80 percent for children 4 years old or younger and by more than 50 percent for women between the ages of 20 and 44. For men between the ages of 15 and 19, however, the mortality rate has increased by 1 percent, largely due to deaths from road injuries and rising violence.