Worried your partner might have a bisexual history? Why? | Phoebe Jane Boyd

“Use a condom, the pill, or get an IUD – avoid pregnancy” was the drill from sexual health practitioners who came to speak at my comprehensive school in Kent. There wasn’t much detail or thought beyond, “Some of these boys are going to get some of these girls pregnant before they hit 16 – let’s try to get that down to a lower number than we had last year.”

Thankfully, when it comes to the subject of sexual identity, there’s now more guidance than ever trickling down into the societal subconscious in the west – hopefully in schools, but certainly during publicity rounds for films starring Kelly Rowland and Cat Deeley. While talking about Love By the 10th Date to the New York Post last week, Rowland espoused the importance of knowledge when embarking on a sexual relationship with another: “I can’t tell someone how to feel about dating someone who is bisexual or had a past gay experience, but it’s proper to ask [if they have] in today’s times.”

Women who have sex with women are less likely to get a smear test, because many of us don’t realise we need to

It is “proper” to ask? Maybe it’s unfortunate phrasing, or maybe not being able to hear the tone of voice in which the opinion was offered gives it negative impact, but the sentence rings faintly of suspicion and mild disapproval: “Please submit your history of sex with people of the same gender, and it will then be decided whether or not you are too risky to be intimate with.” That’s how it comes across to this particular someone who is “bisexual or [has] had a past gay experience”, anyway.

Bisexuality just continues to have a bad rep, even though it’s on the rise (according to CNN) … or then again, maybe it’s not on the rise (according to the Verge). Statistics on the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, and which groups of people are spreading them, are easily found (and quickly wielded by those mistrustful of anything beyond heteronormativity), but they can obscure a simple and universal truth that applies to all groups, whether those groups are on the rise or not. And that is: whatever genitalia you and your partner(s) have, you should protect yourselves (condom/dental dam/wash your hands and accoutrement between uses, thank you). Ignoring that fact in favour of “it’s the bisexuals, mostly” is the source of so much harm.

You don’t have to openly identify as bisexual to get the bad side of bisexuality, because it goes beyond the myths of promiscuity, greed and dishonesty still held by some – biphobia also has an impact on physical health. Here in the UK, if you’re a man who’s had sex with another man in the last 12 months, you can’t donate blood (though that stance is currently being reviewed). Women who have sex with women are less likely to get a smear test, because many of us don’t realise we need to – we’re forgotten by the healthcare system, or our needs are misunderstood.

“Gay and bisexual women are at lower risk for HPV,” we confidently tell each other, “we don’t need a smear test.” A lot of us have heard that from our doctors, as well. It was only after seeing a leaflet about the issue from lgbthealth.org.uk during this month’s Cervical Cancer Prevention Week that I realised this was just ignorance.

In 2008, Stonewall released findings that one in 50 lesbian and bisexual women had been refused a smear test, even when they requested one. The 2015 survey on training gaps in healthcare, Unhealthy Attitudes, found that three in four patient-facing staff had not received any training on the health needs of LGBTQ people. Many women get variations of the “use a condom, the pill, or get an IUD – avoid pregnancy” mantra from our doctors to this day, if we don’t declare our gayness or bisexuality as we walk through the surgery door. Sometimes even a declaration is ignored by an uncomfortable practitioner. Straightness is still automatically assumed, unless you’re lucky enough to have a doctor who doesn’t see heterosexuality as the default for everyone they treat.

According to that 2015 Stonewall study, a third of healthcare professionals felt that the NHS and social care services should be doing more to meet the needs of LGBTQ patients, which is encouraging. Knowledge is wanted – needed – to undo the harmful myths that block help and prevent education. And that is what is “proper” (to quote the star of Freddy vs Jason and Love By the 10th Date) – fighting ignorance and biphobia, rather than continuing to be suspicious of sexual histories that might have featured people of the same gender. Whatever and whoever is in our sexual pasts, we must protect each other, and stay informed. That’s healthy.

Worried your partner might have a bisexual history? Why? | Phoebe Jane Boyd

I"m 13 and worried about being fat

I’m overweight for my age (I’m 13 and 60kg or 9.5 stone) and it’s consumed my life. I can’t go shopping with my friends in town because I can’t let them know my clothing size. If I sit down I’m always conscious that I look fat. If I take off my coat I feel people judging my waist. I dread it when my mother buys me clothes and I have to fake a smile to not upset her, all the while knowing the clothes will be bigger than hers. It takes up everything: my whole life revolves around how I look to other people.

I know you will say I should talk to my parents or an adult I trust, but I don’t trust my mother and my dad isn’t someone I talk to about anything other than what’s going on right at that second and I want it to stay that way, because I don’t want to burden the relationship.

I’ve tried to ask if I can speak to someone at school but both times I asked I got shut down and ignored.

My friends are all very different from me – they never seem to have anything wrong with them. They are very skinny, happy and cheerful. I know I’m lucky to have them but sometimes I feel the differences isolating me. They’ve noticed I’ve been skipping lunch and breakfast but, other than tell me I’m unhealthy for doing so, they’ve not said much else. I tiptoe around anything that’s related to weight or looks – it’s something I avoid talking about at all costs, mainly because I don’t want to draw attention to my weight.

It’s driven me to the edge. Sometimes I get so consumed with self-loathing I can’t help but lash out at myself, by whatever means possible. It’s not something I’m proud of and I would never admit it to someone who knew me. There’s a cycle that goes round my head at any comment or thought that comes into my head. It goes round and round reminding me of all my failures, preying on my insecurities. The worst is that it all comes from me. I am truly my own worst enemy. But I can’t stop it.

I don’t know what to do. I understand most people don’t have this obsession with images and I probably come off as quite superficial, and also a hypocrite, by judging anybody else. I’d be so grateful for any help.

I don’t think you are superficial. I understand what it’s like to hate yourself, and your body, and be obsessed with images. I was when I was your age. It was horrible and I wasted a great portion of my adolescence worrying about what I looked like and generally hating myself, until I got help when I was in my early 20s. I wish I hadn’t left it so long because my life changed after that and I felt better. So I really want to try to help you.

First, it shows incredible maturity to have written, aged 13, to me. You are obviously very intelligent and articulate and along with that may also come some sensitivity, which can be an incredible asset, but being sensitive can also hurt sometimes when you turn it against yourself.

I showed Cathy Troupp, a child and adolescent psychotherapist (childpsychotherapy.org.uk), an anonymised version of your letter. Troupp works at Great Ormond Street children’s hospital with children and teenagers who have eating disorders.

The first thing she said was that you don’t say how tall you are, so you may not necessarily be overweight. I realise you feel overweight, but there seem to be two issues going on here: your weight and the way you feel about yourself.

I am going to tell you to talk to someone, because it’s very unlikely this problem will go away by itself. It’s a shame you don’t feel you can talk to your mum; when you say you don’t trust her, I wondered if you meant you didn’t trust her with your feelings, or was it something else? As for not wanting to burden your father with this – I would imagine, hope, he would care very much and wouldn’t see it as a burden. All of that said, if you don’t feel you can talk to them at the moment, I get that. But you do need to talk about this.

Troupp also emphasises that you need to talk to someone. “Go and see your GP,” she says. “He or she can refer you to someone else, maybe a dietician if it’s needed, who can look at your weight and height and advise you accordingly, or maybe someone in CAMHs [Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services] who can help you, too. Missing your breakfast and lunch is not good and you are in danger of getting an eating disorder. You need to take yourself seriously and talk to an adult. If not your mum, is there someone else you can talk to? Maybe the mum of one of your friends, or an auntie?”

I’m sorry you were “shut down” at school. I’d like to know the circumstances. There is no excuse for it but perhaps the adult you spoke to didn’t realise how serious this is for you. Is there a counsellor, someone you can make an appointment to go and talk to? Most schools would take this very seriously. But I can understand that, when you feel like this, it is very easy to get knocked back.

Troupp and I were concerned with you talking about being “on the edge” and “lashing out at yourself”. “Sometimes,” says Troupp, “all the bad feelings are attributed to your weight, but sometimes that can be a smokescreen.”

I wondered about your self-esteem, about why you felt so bad about yourself and where this comes from – if you don’t feel good about yourself, you can start to look at differences between you and others and pick on what is the most obvious difference to you. This then becomes the reason you are not happy when, in fact, the real reason is something else and until you find out what that is and work on it, whatever weight or size you are, you won’t feel happy about yourself. Talking to someone else can really help with working out what is at the root of this, even if it takes time. What does make you happy? What makes you feel good about yourself?

I can promise you that all your friends – skinny, athletic, big or small – won’t all be happy, all the time. No one is. It seems an easy equation to make at times, that thin equals happy. But, actually, happiness comes from feeling good about yourself and that comes from all sorts of other things, not just – in fact rarely – the size you are (I know this seems unbelievable). It’s absolutely brilliant that you have such good, supportive friends who seem to be looking out for you – they clearly think you are worth looking after.

I understand going to the GP can seem like a really big step. I sat in the waiting room of mine ready to bolt. But I’m really glad I went in the end because your GP is the gateway to all sorts of services, even if you may have to wait a while for those services. Ask at reception for a doctor who is really good at listening and take a friend or other family member if you want for moral support.

In the meantime, Troupp recommends some websites for you to look at. One is Young Minds (youngminds.org.uk), which is all about young people’s mental health. It’s so important to look after this part of yourself and so worth investing in. There is a section I’d particularly like you to look at called Looking After Yourself, under which there are lots of smaller pieces that I think you will find really interesting. The other one is Beat (b-eat.co.uk), which is a website about eating disorders and if you look at the section About Eating Disorders you’ll find lots of stuff about the different types of eating disorders and about emotional eating.

I think reading about this will make you realise you are absolutely not alone in how you feel. But you do also need to get help, because you don’t have to feel like this and life really can be different for you.

Troupp also wonders about thinking about “rebuilding a relationship with your mum? She may not realise you need her”. Parents can get terribly busy with things and sometimes need a really clear heads up to say: “I need you, please help me.” But if you don’t feel ready for that, that’s fine. I hope there is lots here for you to take a small, first step to getting some help.

Your problems solved

Contact Annalisa Barbieri, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, or email annalisa.barbieri@mac.com. Annalisa regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.

Follow Annalisa on Twitter @AnnalisaB

I"m 13 and worried about being fat

Worried about a child’s mental health? Here’s what you should do | Katie Argent

News that a quarter of a million children are receiving help from NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (Camhs) won’t be surprising to most teachers, social workers, nursery workers and health visitors. They know that in every school year or geographical area there is a small but significant number of people with emotional difficulties that are entrenched and severe.

These are the children for whom general interventions, such as school mentoring, social skills groups and community support do not help or do not help enough. These are the children parents, carers, professionals and communities are most worried about. But it’s not always easy to tell if there is a problem; and if there is, what can parents, carers and professionals do about it?

All children and young people experience powerful anxiety, confusion, distress and rage. Living in a family, making relationships with peers and making mental connections in order to learn are emotional matters. Experiences of disappointment and frustration, at ordinary levels, are as important as achievement and satisfaction.

Play is one way children explore, and try to make sense of and communicate their emotional life. Talking is another. And children usually show how they are feeling through their behaviour.

It’s puzzling or alarming if a child or young person is behaving oddly, if they seem unusually upset, withdrawn, aggressive, controlling or uninhibited in a way that’s hard to understand. Adults can also find themselves repeatedly responding oddly to a child’s behaviour – becoming irritated in an uncharacteristic way, for example – which can indicate that something is up.

With toddlers, children and young people, trying to talk about things at the child’s level can help. Even with babies, parents often notice that they are wondering out loud what the matter is.

Of course the child may not know why they are upset or cross, and may not want to talk about things. It can be nerve-racking for parents to see that something is wrong and that the usual attention, comfort or strategies are not working. And it can be hard to wait and be ready to talk if things shift. Parents talking to each other, with teachers or other professionals, and putting their own observations and thoughts together can help to build a fuller picture.

If parents and teachers can notice there’s a problem and hold their nerve, they often observe that a child’s temporary behaviours – such as sleeping, toileting or eating difficulties, problems with concentrating at school or with friendships, or low or overexcited mood – can be understood as being connected to where they are developmentally, to events at home or at school or changing circumstances in the family. Seeing the behaviour in context can reduce alarm for the adults, which can help with talking about things.

While recognising that a child may have particular difficulties, it’s always important to bear in mind different aspects of their emotional situation. A child may be showing something about their personal emotional situation or about the emotional situation of the whole family. A child always has a home context and culture, a wider social, cultural and economic environment, their own developmental history, and their own individual way of experiencing and interpreting the world.

Helping children with complex emotional difficulties starts with noticing that something’s the matter

When trauma, including traumatic or repeated loss, dislocation, abuse or neglect is part of the child’s experience, they are more likely to find day-to-day relationships hard to manage.

Some children, families and young people have complex difficulties that persist. Talking at home or at school does not seem to help. Things don’t get better when the pressure is off. For these children, a referral to Camhs, usually through a GP, school or social worker, is the sensible next step. A multidisciplinary specialist team can consider the many factors contributing to a child’s persisting difficulties in partnership with the child, the family and the professional network.

Helping children with complex emotional difficulties starts with noticing that something’s the matter. It’s hard to pay attention to what’s happening in a child’s emotional life because it can put parents and professionals in contact with painful states that they don’t understand, feel they can’t help with, or may feel responsible for.

It’s hard to seek help. The figures published this week suggest that more children who need specialist services are getting noticed.

• To download free leaflets on family life from the early to the teenage years written by child and adolescent psychotherapists, please visit Understanding Childhood

Worried about a child’s mental health? Here’s what you should do | Katie Argent

Are you one particular of the increasing numbers of the "worried well"?

Are You Addicted to Your Physician?, a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary, due to be aired up coming week, features 1 female who has called 999 for an emergency ambulance 20 times in the past yr to deal with nervousness attacks, and others for whom a GP or A&ampE appointment is a month-to-month or even weekly occasion.

Dr Laurence Buckman, a former chairman of the British Medical Association’s GPs committee, who practices in London, says: “There has been an extraordinary rise in the anxious well. I do not mind individuals who do their very own investigation and are making an attempt to inform themselves, but it is intriguing that most individuals wouldn’t dream of going to their accountant or attorney and telling them how to do their task, and but they come to feel fine about doing it to their doctor.

“My heart does sink when an individual comes in with a sheaf of papers with the Google emblem at the best, definitely convinced they know what is incorrect with them just before you have even talked about their symptoms. And typically there is absolutely nothing incorrect with them at all.”

And it would seem that nowhere are the concerned effectively far more prevalent – and more puzzled – than when it comes to foods.

The marketplace for meals items marketed as “free from” gluten, sugar, lactose and other ingredients has much more than doubled in the last five many years, according to research launched final week. A lot more than half of shoppers now get “free from” products, according to industry experts Kantar Worldpanel, generating the sector really worth £355 million and one of the quickest-increasing sectors in the foods world.

Significantly of this enormous development centres on gluten-totally free meals – Marks &amp Spencer says product sales of its products have risen by 100 per cent in the previous 12 months alone. M&ampS is expanding its gluten-totally free selection to much more than 150 merchandise, even though the other large supermarkets are giving ever much more shelf area to “free from” brand names. Nevertheless only one per cent of the population is believed to have coeliac ailment, an autoimmune condition triggered by gluten that signifies sufferers need to stay away from the ingredient entirely. And there is scant evidence that the illness is becoming much more widespread.

So why do so several people think gluten is to be prevented at all charges? Gluten is a protein identified in wheat, rye, barley and oats. Its elasticity is an vital component in bread, pasta and cakes. Gluten-cost-free products have to use other components, such as rice and tapioca flour to create the very same impact, which means larger charges for producers – which are, inevitably, passed on to customers.

The gluten-totally free trend, led by celebrities this kind of as Gwyneth Paltrow, Victoria Beckham and Stella McCartney, has fuelled the market place. Tennis champion Novak Djokovic says he believes his form improved massively after adopting a gluten-cost-free diet.

Tesco buyer Lauren Tredgett says demand is soaring because customers are getting to be “more mindful of their intolerance to wheat and gluten intolerance” – but medical specialists are a lot more sceptical.

“Anyone who hasn’t acquired a double First from Oxford and is not managing director of their very own multi-million pound organization by the age of thirty desires to blame it on a meals intolerance,” says Dr Buckman. “I get men and women coming in, saying they’ve self-diagnosed with a dairy or wheat allergy. When you look at their diet plan, they’re consuming ten Mars bars a day but they do not want to speak about that – they want to label themselves with an allergy and these merchandise are helping them to indulge that.”

Doctors are also concerned that unregulated and underqualified nutritionists are supplying testing and diagnosis for meals allergic reactions and intolerances with no any scientific basis. Australian research has discovered that most men and women who say they are avoiding wheat simply because of their “intolerance” to it are doing so on the basis of self-diagnosis.

Another controversial region is a new term referred to as NCGS – Non Coeliac Gluten Sensitivity – a issue a lot of sufferers are now obtaining on Google. But authorities are divided above how prevalent the disorder is – or even whether or not it exists at all.

NCGS, very first reported in 2011, was the initial indication that non-coeliacs could suffer from the same symptoms. But in a research at Monash University in Australia last yr, sufferers claiming to have NCGS followed diet programs that contained various levels of gluten. In the double-blind research, the individuals did not know which diet program they have been on. Even the people on the entirely “free” diet claimed they could feel gluten sensitivity, foremost some medical doctors to conclude that the problem was “all in the mind”.

And it’s not just gluten. Melanie Leech, chief executive of the Foods and Drink Federation, has warned that some lobby groups are making excessive claims towards certain substances, such as sugar, with no the science to back them up, and are puzzling consumers in the procedure.

Margarine versus butter, the rewards of red wine, whether or not we should be eating meat – the tips looks to modify on a every day basis. Last month, Time magazine’s cover story was The Reality About Excess fat, which cited investigation exhibiting that the removal of fats from our diets has led to a rise in carbohydrates, fuelling the boost in weight problems.

“There are amazingly mixed messages about foods and meals promotion,” says Dr Sue Bailey, senior lecturer in human nutrition at London Metropolitan University. “People might feel they are adopting a healthier diet plan by cutting out items like gluten, but that is not necessarily the situation.”

She factors to study published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that identified that some gluten-cost-free merchandise had a lot more calories than traditional items, and that gluten-free of charge diet plans can lead to fibre deficiency.

Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, believes the contemporary obsession with “well-being” has distorted our concepts about foods and wellness. “Well-becoming has as its assumption that getting ‘not well’ is a default place,” he says. “In the previous, becoming healthier was the norm.

“Historically we have fetishised food. Seem at religions and meals guidelines – gluttony becoming one of the 7 Deadly Sins. For a whilst, we seemed to move away from that, but in the previous 20 many years, we’ve gone back to it. We see certain foods as ‘evil’ you go to a dinner get together in London and folks will say that McDonald’s burgers are evil individuals who acquire organic see themselves as morally superior.”

For some men and women, worrying about becoming effectively can actually lead to health problems. Health anxiety – the new phrase for hypochondria – is also on the increase. The charity Nervousness Uk estimates that a third of calls to its helpline are from men and women obsessed with their personal overall health.

Dr Paul McClaren, a psychiatrist and health-related director of the Priory Hospital Hayes Grove, says individuals can benefit from cognitive behavioural therapy to aid their overall health nervousness, but says GPs want to spot the problem rather than indulge the demands of a person they may see as “worried well”.

“Doctors could believe that sending a person for exams will reassure them they are not sick, but the patient can really get hooked on needing that reassurance,” he says.

And, ironically, research has advised that men and women who complain about their overall health are much more very likely to die earlier – even when they are in the identical medical issue as non-worriers.

Just an additional point for the anxious well to fret about.

Are you one particular of the increasing numbers of the "worried well"?