A comic book about menstruation ... aimed at boys? That's what Indonesia has created. It started when a UNICEF team there looked at what happens when a girl gets her period. In a survey of over 1,100 girls, the team found lots of concerns about the cruel remarks boys would make. They'd point at a girl's stained skirt and say, "Hey, it's leaking." Or when a girl put her book bag behind her back to hide any stains, they'd say things like, "Why are you acting weird?" Why is staining a problem? There are not enough toilets in schools - only 1 per 100 students in Indonesia - so girls may not be able to change their pads as needed. Or there may not be a place to dispose of soiled pads in schools. The comic book tells boys that menstruation is perfectly normal. It's experienced every month by millions of girls and women, including their moms. And it's important to be courteous and supportive to friends.

wusf, March 4, 2017

An Indian government resource kit on adolescent health has received acclaim because of its progressive stance on sexuality.

The resource kit by the National Health Mission, written in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund, is aimed at "peer educators" - young girls and boys who will be responsible for reaching out to adolescents and discussing issues relating to their physical and mental health and development. The concept of masculinity is another issue dealt with in the resource kit. In a society dominated by patriarchy, boys are forbidden from showing their softer side and are told at a very young age that they are not meant to cry or show feelings. Gender stereotypes box men into roles that are meant to be strong and macho and tell girls to be soft-spoken and feminine. The resource book says that it's OK for a boy or a man to cry to vent his feelings, be soft-spoken or shy, just as it's OK for a girl to be outspoken or dress like boys or play sports generally identified as male sports. It cautions people against labelling boys who don't fit the gender stereotypes as "sissy" or describing outspoken girls as "tomboyish". "Men and boys are as weighed down by gender stereotypes and social conditioning as women are. Talking about gender equality therefore also inspires males to challenge the cultural messages about masculinity," said Rebecca Tavares, representative of the UN Women Office for India, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka.

BBC, March 4, 2017

Parent-reported lifetime prevalence and comorbidity of asthma, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder in children were differentially influenced by poverty status, according to recent study findings. "The well-established relationship between childhood poverty and greater risk for chronic conditions may place children living in low-income families in double jeopardy for greater need of care and poorer access to care,"   Christian D. Pulcini, MD, Med, MPH , and colleagues   wrote. "This rise in disease risk is coupled with an overall increase in childhood poverty within this time period."

Helio.com, March 3, 2017

Federal government won't pursue protections for transgender kids in public schools

Amid a flurry of cabinet appointments and immigration policies, the Trump administration has announced one thing it will   not   do: pursue policies that protect transgender children in public schools.This move could be quite dangerous, even deadly, science suggests. Transgender children, who are born one biological sex but identify as the other, already face enormous challenges as they move through a society that often doesn't understand or accept them. Consider this: Nearly half (46.5 percent) of young transgender adults   have attempted suicide   at some point in their lives, a recent survey of over 2,000 people found. Nearly half. For comparison, the attempted suicide rate among the general U.S. population is estimated to be about 4.6 percent.What's more, a 2015 study in the   Journal of Adolescent Health   found that transgender youth are two to three times as likely as their peers to suffer from depression and anxiety disorders, or to attempt suicide or harm themselves.

Science News, March 3, 2017

For the full "Terminator" bionic man effect comes a brave-new-world condom ring to measure almost everything guys have wanted to know about their sexual performance. The i.Con bills itself as the "World's First Smart Condom." ("Welcome to the future of wearable technology in the bedroom," notes manufacturer British Condoms.) In fact, the device is a ring that men can wear with a condom during sex to track a number of pertinent facts. It's not actually available yet, but the company is taking "early bird" registrations around the world for the product, which will sell for about $75 once it's released sometime in 2017.

Huffington Post, March 3, 2017

Although an HPV vaccine has been available for boys and girls in the United States since 2006, HPV prevalence in heterosexual men is estimated to be about 50 percent. For men who have sex with men (MSM), the estimate is 61 percent for those who are HIV-negative and 93 percent for those who are HIV-positive. Only limited data exist for transgender women (TW) globally.Focusing on Peruvian MSM and TW, a team of researchers has found that a preventive HPV vaccine is widely, though not universally, accepted among those populations.

Medical Express, February 28, 2017

Football player Jameis Winston's recent comments to elementary students that   boys should be "strong" and girls should be "silent, polite, gentle,"   were met with a lot of criticism. But they also highlighted that plenty of people still hold the same gendered ideas about expressing feelings, even for young children. Plenty of parents nowadays work to emphasize that boys and girls should be able to express their feelings in healthy ways whether those feelings are happy, sad, proud or angry. But it's also important to make it clear that older boys can express those same feelings - even in ways like crying, despite the fact that a boy who cries is still often called weak or overly emotional.

Story contains numerous videos relating to boys' physical and mental health

Huffington Post, February 28, 2017

An updated AAP clinical report on how to assess and care for adolescents who have been sexually assaulted includes guidance on the importance of offering routine screening and prevention messages.Teens and young adults ages 12-34 years have the highest rates of sexual assault, according to  Care of the Adolescent After an Acute Sexual Assault   from the AAP Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect and Committee on Adolescence. The clinical report is available here and will be published in the March issue of  Pediatrics . "As pediatricians, we are poised to provide anticipatory guidance not only around sexual assault itself but the fact that being cognitively impaired with alcohol and drugs puts someone at risk for being assaulted," she said. "And no one is really immune - it happens to boys, too.

AAP News, February 27, 2017

Speaking candidly about our genitals' state of health is something not many of us would readily do, so it's understandable that mums would shy away from addressing the topic with their teenage sons. However, taking the time to talk testicles with your boys could end up saving their lives in the long run. Testicular cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed types of cancer in men between the ages of 15 and 39 and claims the lives of many young men who are often too scared or embarrassed to speak up when it comes to finding lumps or irregularities in their testicles. Here are some helpful tips to turn 'the talk' into a healthy dialogue between mother and son, and useful facts about testicular cancer to bear in mind.

Iafrica.com, February 27, 2017

One in six Australian teenage boys is drinking more than 50 litres of soft drink a year, research reveals. One in six Australian teenage boys is drinking more than 50 litres of soft drink a year, research reveals. A Cancer Council study found that 17 per cent of male teens had at least one litre of soft drink a week, compared with less than 10 per cent of girls drinking the same amount. It also showed that adolescents who drank a lot of soft drink were about twice as likely to not be eating enough fruit and to be consuming more junk food and energy drinks. Kathy Chapman, chairwoman of the council's nutrition and physical activity committee, said teenage boys were putting themselves at higher risk of adult obesity, a known cancer risk, as well as other chronic diseases. "A litre of soft drink a week may not sound like much, but over a year it equates to at least 5.2kg of extra sugar," she said.

Yahoo News, February 27, 2017

The Weekly News Roundup is produced by The Partnership for Male Youth and is released every Monday. 

For more information contact Dennis J. Barbour, JD. News Roundup editor and President/CEO of the Partnership, at [email protected].