Positive affect of insect-mediated mental healthcare program to adolescent's emotions

Abstract

Several insects have been shown to exert a strong influence positively on peoples' emotions. Insect-mediated mental healthcare program was designed to help meet the physical, behavioral and developmental needs of adolescents. They were provided with an insectmediated mental healthcare program for a total of 10 sessions, one session per wk, at 1 h per session, accompanied by a pre-and post-test for emotion. Significant differences and correlations were found according to the individual participants' planning, subjective quality of life, self-reported depression and self-worth, respectively. The results indicated that adolescents who participated in the insect-mediated healthcare program group once showed significant improvement in their planning, subjective quality of life and self-worth. However, most of all participants' self-reported depression was not influenced. These findings suggest that pet-insects positively affect adolescent's emotional health via an insect-mediated healthcare program. IntroductionInsects are easily found in nearly every environment. They are among the most diverse groups of animals on Earth. The insect species is estimated at between six and ten million, and there are more species of insects than all other animals put together (Chapman 2009;Novotny et al., 2002). Although humans regard certain insects as pests and attempt to control them using insecticides, most insects perform complex ecological roles and provide either direct or indirect economic benefits to humans (Cherniack, 2010;Ratcliffe et al., 2011). Recently, the interest of insects is increasing as food sources or as pets in many countries, including Korea.Mental problem has affected 10-20% of children and adolescents in worldwide (Kieling et al., 2011). Exposure to disadvantaged environments during early life predicts lower IQ and academic achievement, increased anti-social behavior, lower economic productivity and poor health and chronic disease in adulthood (Barker et al., 2003;Shonkoff et al., 2009

Marketing insects: can exploiting a commercial framework help promote undervalued insect species?

“…It would, after all, be commercial suicide to bring a product to market without this most fundamental of knowledge. An important first step in developing this knowledge is likely to be defining the range of values insects have, from measurable goods and services to less tangible concepts like beauty or the positive impact nature in general has on our mental health and well-being (Bae et al, 2015;Capaldi et al, 2015). The hardest cases are how to market those insects that are perceived by most people as having zero, or negative value by any measure.…”