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Biomedical subjects

S B Austin

Publications and source records attributed to S B Austin.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2004

Snack food intake does not predict weight change among children and adolescents.

OBJECTIVE: To assess whether intake of snack foods was associated with weight change among children and adolescents. METHODS: Prospective study of 8,203 girls and 6,774 boys, 9-14 y of age in 1996, in an ongoing cohort study who completed at least two questionnaires between 1996 and 1999. Intake of snack foods was assessed in 1996-1998 with a validated food frequency questionnaire designed specifically for children and adolescents. The outcome measure was change in age- and gender-specific z-score of body mass index (BMI). RESULTS: Boys consumed more snack foods than girls during the entire study period. After controlling for Tanner stage of development, age, height change, activity, and inactivity, there was no relation between intake of snack foods and subsequent changes in BMI z-score among the boys (beta=-0.004), but snack foods had a weak inverse association (beta=-0.007, P<0.05) with weight change among the girls. However, the results were confounded by dieting status, which had a significant positive independent association with BMI change. After controlling for dieting status and whether the mother was overweight, the association between servings per day of snack foods and subsequent changes in BMI z-score were not significant in either gender. DISCUSSION: Our results suggest that although snack foods may have low nutritional value, they were not an important independent determinant of weight gain among children and adolescents.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Relation between dieting and weight change among preadolescents and adolescents.

OBJECTIVE: To assess whether dieting to control weight was associated with weight change among children and adolescents. METHODS: A prospective study was conducted of 8203 girls and 6769 boys who were 9 to 14 years of age in 1996, were in an ongoing cohort study, and completed at least 2 annual questionnaires between 1996 and 1999. Dieting to control weight, binge eating, and dietary intake were assessed annually from 1996 through 1998 with instruments designed specifically for children and adolescents. The outcome measure was age- and sex-specific z score of body mass index (BMI). RESULTS: In 1996, 25.0% of the girls and 13.8% of the boys were infrequent dieters and 4.5% of the girls and 2.2% of the boys were frequent dieters. Among the girls, the percentage of dieters increased over the following 2 years. Binge eating was more common among the girls, but in both sexes, it was associated with dieting to control weight (girls: infrequent dieters, odds ratio [OR]: 5.10; frequent dieters, OR: 12.4; boys: infrequent dieters, OR: 3.49; frequent dieters, OR: 7.30). During 3 years of follow-up, dieters gained more weight than nondieters. Among the girls, frequency of dieting was positively associated with increases in age- and sex-specific z scores of BMI (beta = 0.05 and beta = 0.04 for frequent and infrequent dieters vs nondieters). Among the boys, both frequent and infrequent dieters gained 0.07 z scores of BMI more than nondieters. In addition, boys who engaged in binge eating gained significantly more weight than nondieters. CONCLUSIONS: Although medically supervised weight control may be beneficial for overweight youths, our data suggest that for many adolescents, dieting to control weight is not only ineffective, it may actually promote weight gain.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Population-based prevention of eating disorders: an application of the Rose prevention model.

BACKGROUND: Several decades of concerted research on eating disorders have generated a broad range of proposed causal influences, but much of this etiologic research does not elucidate practical avenues for preventive interventions. Translating etiologic theory into community health interventions depends on the identification of key leverage points, factors that are amenable to public health intervention and provide an opportunity to maximize impact on the outcome of interest. Population-based preventive strategies, elaborated by epidemiologist Geoffrey Rose, can maximize the impact of public health interventions. In the case of eating disorders, Rose's model is instructive: Dieting stands out as risk behavior that may both fit Rose's model well and be a key leverage point for preventive intervention. METHODS: Grounded in Rose's work, this article lodges a theoretical argument for the population-based prevention of eating disorders. In the introductory section, existing research on the epidemiology of dieting is reviewed, showing that it is extremely common among adolescent girls and women and that the behavior has been implicated as a causal factor for disordered eating. Next, new evidence is offered to build a case for how a population-wide reduction in dieting may be an effective strategy for prevention of eating pathology. Finally Rose's prevention framework is used to introduce a unique and provocative perspective on the prevention of eating disorders. RESULTS: Dieting is a normative behavior in our culture with psychological and physiological effects in the causal chain leading to eating pathology. This behavior may represent an ideal target for population-based prevention. CONCLUSIONS: Theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that a population-wide reduction in dieting may be a justifiable and effective strategy for prevention of eating pathology.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Dieting and smoking initiation in early adolescent girls and boys: a prospective study.

OBJECTIVES: This analysis tested the relation between dieting frequency and risk of smoking initiation in a longitudinal sample of adolescents. METHODS: From 1995 to 1997, 1295 middle school girls and boys participated in a nutrition and physical activity intervention study. The prospective association between dieting frequency at baseline and smoking initiation 2 years later was tested. RESULTS: Compared with girls who reported no dieting at baseline, girls who dieted up to once per week had 2 times the adjusted odds of becoming smokers (odds ratio = 2.0; 95% confidence interval = 1.1, 3.5), and girls who dieted more often had 4 times the adjusted odds of becoming smokers (odds ratio = 3.9; 95% confidence interval = 1.5, 10.4). CONCLUSIONS: Dieting among girls may exacerbate risk of initiating smoking, with increasing risk with greater dieting frequency.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Consumerism: its impact on the health of adolescents.

Marketplace practices are integral to the larger economic and social context of adolescent health risk behaviors. To corporations and marketers, adolescents represent a gold mine of current and future profits. Adolescent incomes increased by almost a third in the 1990s. The annual spending of the U.S. adolescent population is estimated now to have reached 155 billion US dollars. The sheer size of the adolescent population and its spending power are of keen interest to corporations and marketers. This chapter presents a brief history of youth-targeted marketing and examines the major avenues in the media and inside schools that marketers and corporations use today to reach adolescents with their messages and products. It outlines the impact of consumerism and marketing on adolescent health using five case examples: tobacco, alcohol, cosmetic surgery, laxatives, and diet pills. It then concludes with a discussion of resistance efforts, led by health advocates, policy makers, parents, and youth themselves to restrict sales of harmful products to youth and curtail advertisers' access to adolescents in schools. A critical role for adolescent health researchers and advocates is to contribute a public health perspective into ongoing debates over regulating business practices that negatively affect the health of young people.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Prevention research in eating disorders: theory and new directions.

BACKGROUND: Over the past two decades, scores of articles and several books have been published calling for more attention to the prevention of eating disorders, but less than two dozen prevention intervention studies have been conducted to date. METHODS: This paper reports the results of a systematic review of 20 empirical intervention studies on eating disorders prevention, discussing the data accumulated on what has and has not been effective. Beyond a description of study design and findings, this paper devotes special attention to the theoretical orientations of the studies and their implied assumptions about preventive strategies. RESULTS: Though there has been a compelling interest in social, political and economic factors influencing the incidence of disordered eating, little of this interest has been carried over into the prevention end of eating disorders research. Most studies reported thus far have been designed to target and measure change principally on the individual level, to the exclusion of considering leverage points for intervention in the larger social environment. CONCLUSIONS: This paper concludes with a recommendation for new attention to a model of proactive primary prevention targeted at environmental change and cross-disciplinary collaboration to achieve a reduction in the incidence of eating disorders.

Confounding Factors, Epidemiologic↗
PubMedDate not supplied

U.S. federally funded television public service announcements (PSAs) to prevent HIV/AIDS: a content analysis.

This article reports a content analysis of 56 English-language public service announcements (PSAs) for HIV/AIDS prevention produced since 1987 by the U.S. federal government for television broadcast. These PSAs do not lead target audiences through a logical sequence from awareness to motivation, skill building, and maintenance. The PSAs underutilize a strategy of "strategic ambiguity" to craft individual PSAs that can address the needs of and appeal to multiple target audiences, thereby directing information not only to heterosexuals, the primary target of these PSAs, but also to homosexuals and bisexuals. The PSAs largely ignore issues related to injection drug use and needle sharing. What drug-related portrayals there are focus on African American street junkies, which perpetuates racial stereotypes and fails to address occasional injection drug use. The PSAs exploit fear of HIV/AIDS to discourage drug use but do not offer drug treatment or counseling information. PSAs produced by the Clinton administration to promote condom use do not fully address key reasons why people fail to use condoms: concern about sexual pleasure, embarrassment about obtaining condoms, and lack of skills to negotiate condom use with sexual partners. Implications of these conclusions for the future of U.S. HIV/AIDS prevention are discussed.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗