UKC

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2112209-scouts-and-guides-grow-up-to-h...

Some things are wonderful.

In reply to elsewhere:


Dibben... really?!

In reply to elsewhere:

As a life-long Scouter, I obviously agree with the idea that Scouting and Guiding is good for you. However, as I scientist, I do wonder whether this shows that Scouting leads to long-term mental health, or those who will have better long-term mental health are more likely to join the Scouts.

The first hypothesis means that the 10 year old's brain is still developing, and it is decisions after this age which determines the mental health of the person: we (society) are at least partially responsible for the mental health problems we see because of the way we treat children.

The second hypothesis means that the 10 year old has already got long-term mental health problems 'built in', and little that we can do will prevent it: all we can do is treat the symptoms. Of course, if we can identify the signs in 10 year olds, we can start treatment earlier.

Im not sure which hypothesis I would prefer to be true...

In reply to Mad Tommy:

Its no secret that I have suffered depression and anxiety, I joined Scouts at 19 as a leader. Even at that age Scouting gave me skills, resilience, time in the outdoors, the joy of sitting by the fire, a whole load of things that would be called mindfulness these days, and an amazing set of friends. My mental health hasn't been great, but without Scouting it would've been a hell of a lot worse.

In reply to Mad Tommy:


This was raised in the radio interview I heard and it's part of a much bigger data-set which allows them to say it was a benefit of scouting & guiding rather then the people who chose scouting & guiding had better mental health to start with.

Although based on your username I'm not so sure now

In reply to marsbar:

Yes, many good times spent away with you and 5th sat round numerous camp fires. Happy days.

In reply to elsewhere:
From my own perspective as a young Scout and mountaineer and later, a cyclist, I'd say that getting out in the fresh air and having no fear of being outdoors away from the trappings of "civilisation" has given me a buffer of resilience that some others may not possess. For example when I'm on a trip to Africa and I end up chasing cockroaches in a filthy sweltering hotel room in the middle of nowhere I just tell myself that it's still better than being lost on a mountain or teetering on the edge of a greasy slab in pouring rain then I stroll down to the bar and have a few beers, rather than freak out. Compared with the mortal peril of a mountain situation, nothing that office or family life throws at me can be as bad.

In reply to elsewhere:

With only 10k data points and vague hypotheses I would be very dubious about the truth of the result. Subgroup analysis is very dubious science.

http://www.badscience.net/2009/04/a-frankly-thin-contrivance-for-writing-on...

In reply to Toccata:
Very good point.

In reply to Toccata:

10k is actually a lot of data and the estimated difference of 15% is quiet large, the article does not say if the subgroup was pre-specified rather than something brought up by data dredging.

Regarding Mad Tommy's comments, many children begin scouting much earlier than 10, my two children began in beavers and continued onward, now one is in network and the other explorers. Joining of scouts initially is often a parent's wish, but remaining in scouts might be linked to the child's mental health, so maybe the groups are a bit self selecting and being in scouts is then an indicator of good mental health rather than a cause? Although the article does say they considered this and that they investigated if it was a casual effect.

Good news for my children I hope, certainly the group they go to is very mixed regarding income and also a good mix of boys and girls.

In reply to RX-78:

9700 data points pulled from an existing 17.5k database.


But as it's published it must be right...

In reply to Rigid Raider:


Bit of a thread hijack, but I'm completely different. Although I avoid it whenever possible, physical danger doesn't affect me anything like as much as say fear of losing a job, house or serious illness within the family. There are a lot more scary things to me than an epic in the mountains.

End of hijack. I was in the Scouts, and my head isn't wired entirely correctly. Not sure if that means my Scouting experiences prevent me going off the deep end, or if it didn't provide the suggested mental health benefits.

In reply to Gavin:

Lovely to see you in the summer. Did you see my post about the dog?

In reply to Toccata:

We used the National Child Development Study (NCDS), an ongoing cohort study of people born in the UK in a single week in 1958 (n∼17 500). We used the information on the 9790 study members who were interviewed age 50 in 2008 (the most recent measurement of mental health).

nothing sinister about that.

In reply to elsewhere:

I'm cautious with this.

In many cases scouting and good mental health may both be indicators of a certain level of parenting and household stability.

Clearly lots of factors at work but this one is hard to control for...

In reply to elsewhere:


.. than they did when they decided to join the scouts (?).

Sorry, couldn't resist that. Don't really mean it.

In reply to wintertree:




Also the link between the two may not necessarily be cause and effect

In other word, those who get regular outdoor exercise will have better mental health
And those who want to get outdoors may well join the scouts and guides

In my own case, the bullying I got in the year or so I was in the scouts could well have left mental issues, and certainly didn't help foster a love of the outdoors (in fact almost the opposite).

In reply to wintertree:

+1 to that!
The report, to be fair, does use the loose phrase 'linked'....there are far too many non controlled variables to establish anything firmer than a ...link'!

In reply to RX-78:

I haven't the time to go into the stats on this but simply put I do not believe all this work was done just to answer this one hypothesis. I suspect many, many variables were examined under a broad hypothesis. There would likely have been a large number of 'sub-hypotheses' and this is the one sub hypothesis that was positive. Without the context of the whole study this is nothing more than junk. I certainly would not have reviewed it favourably.

In reply to Mad Tommy:


As a scientist you should reject the conclusions of this single study based on the extensive meta studies that have found huge chunks of social science studies to not be reproducible.