Using Group Model Building to Understand Factors That Influence Childhood Obesity in an Urban Environment

Background: Despite increased attention, conventional views of obesity are based upon individual behaviors, and children and parents living with obesity are assumed to be the primary problem solvers. Instead of focusing exclusively on individual reduction behaviors for childhood obesity, greater focus should be placed on better understanding existing community systems and their effects on obesity. The Milwaukee Childhood Obesity Prevention Project is a community-based coalition established to develop policy and environmental change strategies to impact childhood obesity in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The coalition conducted a Group Model Building exercise to better understand root causes of childhood obesity in its community. Methods: Group Model Building is a process by which a group systematically engages in model construction to better understand the systems that are in place. It helps participants make their mental models explicit through a careful and consistent process to test assumptions. This process has 3 main components: (1) assembling a team of participants; (2) conducting a behavior-over-time graphs exercise; and (3) drawing the causal loop diagram exercise. Results: The behavior-over-time graph portion produced 61 graphs in 10 categories. The causal loop diagram yielded 5 major themes and 7 subthemes. Conclusions: Factors that influence childhood obesity are varied, and it is important to recognize that no single solution exists. The perspectives from this exercise provided a means to create a process for dialogue and commitment by stakeholders and partnerships to build capacity for change within the community

Marital Transitions and Mental Health

Most research identifies marital disruption as a precursor for poor mental health but is generally unable to discount the potential selection effect of poor mental health leading to marital disruption. We use data from nine annual waves of the British Household Panel Survey to examine social selection and social causation as competing explanations. Mental health is measured using the general health questionnaire. We examine mental health at multiple time points prior to and after a marital transition through separation or divorce and compare this process to those who experience widowhood. All groups transitioning out of marriage have a higher prevalence of poor mental health afterwards but for those separated or divorced, poor mental health also precedes marital disruption, lending support to both social-causation and social-selection processes. The processes both preceding and after the transition to widowhood differ, with increased prevalence of disorder centering around the time surrounding the death itself. </jats:p

Reviews of Books

BARRY CUNLIFFE. Europe between the Oceans: Themes and Variations: gooo BCAD 1000. New Haven, C T and London: Yale University Press, 2008. Pp. ix, 518. $39.95 (US). Reviewed by Martin W. Lewis AYSE DEVRIM ATAUZ. Eight Thousand Years of Maltese Maritime History: Trade, Piracy, and Naval Warfare in the Central Mediterranean. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2008. Pp. xiv, 379.$69.95 (US). Reviewed by Victor Mallia-Milanes IAN WORTHINGTON. Philip II of Macedonia. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2008. Pp. xx, 303. $35.00 (US). Reviewed by Craige B. Champion FEDERICO SANTANGELO. Sulla, the Elites, and the Empire: A Study of Roman Policies in Italy and the Greek East. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Pp. xix, 230. €99.00. Reviewed by Arthur M. Eckstein ROSAMOND MCKITTERICK. Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Pp. xviii, 460.$29.99 (US), paper.Reviewed by David S. Bachrach STEVE FLANDERS. De Courcy: Anglo-Normans in Ireland, England, and France in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries. Dublin and Portland, OR: Four Courts Press, 2008. Pp. 205. $75.00 (US). Reviewed by Hugh M. Thomas JONATHAN RILEY-SMITH. The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2008. Pp. 125.$24.50 (US). Reviewed by John France NORMAN HOUSLEY. Fighting for the Cross: Crusading to the Holy Land. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2008. Pp. xiv, 357. $38.00 (US).Reviewed by Christopher Tyerman BERNARD BARBICHE in collaboration with Ségolène de Dainville-Barbiche. Bulla, Legatus, Nuntius: Études de diplomatique et de diplomatic pontificales (Xllle-XVIIe siècle). Paris: École des Chartes, 2007; dist. Geneva: Librairie Droz. Pp. 575.€55.00, paper. Reviewed by Barbara Bombi INA BAGHDIANTZ MCCABE. Orientalism in Early Modern France: Eurasian Trade, Exoticism, and the Ancien Régime. Oxford and New York, NY: Berg, 2008. Pp. vi, 409.$119.95 (US). Reviewed by Lynn Hunt JOHN A. LYNN. Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Pp. xii, 239. $24.99 (u s), paper. Reviewed by Peter H. Wilson ULBE BOSMA and REMCO RABEN. Being 'Dutch' in the Indies: A History of Creolisation and Empire, 1500-1920, trans. Wendie Shaffer. Athens, OH: Ohio University Research in International Studies, 2008. Pp. xx, 439.$28.00 (US), paper. Reviewed by Heather Sutherland DAVID ELTIS and DAVID RICHARDSON, eds. Extending the Frontiers: Essays on the Mew Transatlantic Slave Trade Database. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2008. Pp. xiii,377. $90.00 (US).Reviewed by Stephen D. Behrendt LOTHAR HÖBELT. Ferdinand III: Friedenskaiser wider Willen. Graz: Ares Verlag, 2008. Pp. 488. €29.90. Reviewed by Howard Louthan STEVE CLARK and PAUL SMETHURST, eds. Asian Crossings: Travel Writing on China, Japan, and Southeast Asia. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008; dist. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. Pp. xi, 276.$37.50 (US), paper. Reviewed by Eric Tagliacozzo TOBY BARNARD. Improving Ireland? Projectors, Prophets, and Profiteers, 1641-1786. Dublin and Portland, OR: Four Courts Press, 2008. Pp. 192. $75.00 (US).Reviewed by Padraig Lenihan LEONARD BLUSSE. Visible Cities: Canton, Nagasaki, and Batavia and the Coming of the Americans. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2008. Pp. xi, 133.$25.95 (US). Reviewed by Peter D. Reeves DAVID SORKIN. The Religious Enlightenment: Protestants, Jews, and Catholics from London to Vienna. Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2008. Pp. xv, 339. $35.00 (US). Reviewed by Thomas Munck HERVÉ HASQUIN. Joseph II: Catholique anticlérical et réformateur impatient, 1741-1790. Brussels: Éditions Racine, 2007. Pp. 328. €29.95, paper.Reviewed by Matthew Z. Mayer ANDREW LEES and LYNN HOLLEN LEES. Cities and the Making of Modern Europe, 1750-1914. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. xii, 300.$29.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by Richard Dennis MAURICE J. BRIC. Ireland, Philadelphia, and the Re-Invention of America, 1760- 1800. Dublin and Portland, OR: Four Courts Press, 2008. Pp. xix, 363. $65.00 (US); JOHN CHILDS. The Williamite Wars in Ireland, 1688-91. London and New York, NY: Hambledon Continuum, 2007. Pp. xxii, 440.$49.95 (US).Reviewed by Thomas Bartlett MATT SCHUMANN and KARL SCHWEIZER. The Seven Years War: A Transatlantic History.London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2008. Pp. x, 300. $140.00 (US). Reviewed by Stephen Conway WALTER L. HIXSON. The Myth of American Diplomacy: National Identity and US Foreign Policy. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2008. Pp. xi, 377.$35.00 (US). Reviewed by Mark Atwood Lawrence PATRICIA H. MARKS. Deconstructing Legitimacy: Viceroys, Merchants, and the Military in Late Colonial Peru. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007. Pp. x, 403. $65.00 (US). Reviewed by Natalia Sobrevilla Perea MARIANNE P. STOPP, ed. The Mew Labrador Papers of Captain George Cartwright. Montreal, QC and Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2008. Pp. xii, 256.$39.95 (CDN). Reviewed by James K. Hiller THIERRY LENTZ. Nouvelle histoire du Premier Empire: III: La France et l'Europe de Napoléon, 1804-1814. Paris: Editions Fayard, 2007. Pp. 835. €30.00, paper. Reviewed by Philip G. Dwyer MATTHEW P. FITZPATRICK. Liberal Imperialism in Germany: Expansionism and Nationalism, 1848-1884. New York, NY and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008. Pp. 237. $99.95 (US). Reviewed by Jonathan Sperber CHRISTIAN HOYER. Salisbury und Deutschland: Aufienpolitisches Denken und britische Deutschlandpolitik zwischen 1856 und 1880. Husum: Matthiesen Verlag, 2008. Pp. 507. €69.00. Reviewed by Ann Potttnger Saab ANDREW SMITH. British Businessmen and Canadian Confederation: Constitution Making in an Era of Anglo-Globalization. Montreal, QC and Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2008. Pp. viii, 229.$80.00 (CDN). Reviewed by Douglas Mccalla DUNCAN ANDREW CAMPBELL. Unlikely Allies: Britain, America, and the Victorian Origins of a Special Relationship. London and New York, NY: Continuum, 2008. Pp. viii, 307. $34.95 (US). Reviewed by Francis M. Carroll MARILYN LAKE and HENRY REYNOLDS. Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men's Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Pp. x, 371.$94.95 (US). Reviewed by Antoinette Burton CHRISTOPHER KOBRAK. Banking on Global Markets: Deutsche Bank and the United States, 1870 to the Present. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. xx, 484. $45.00 (US). Reviewed by William Glenn Gray CECILIA MORGAN. 'A Happy Holiday': English Canadians and Transatlantic Tourism, 1870-1930. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2008. Pp. xxiii, 461.$37.95 (CDN), paper. Reviewed by Katie Pickles BILL RAWLING. La mart pour ennemi: La médecine militaire canadienne, 2nd ed., trans. Pierre R. Desrosiers. Outremont, QC: Athéna éditions, 2007; dist. Boisbriand, QC: Prologue. Pp. 373. $34.95 (CDN), paper. Reviewed by Genevieve Allard SONYA GRYPMA. Healing Henan: Canadian Nurses at the North China Mission, l888-1947. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press, 2008. Pp. xviii, 292.$32.95 (CDN), paper. Reviewed by A. Hamish Ion OLIVER STEIN. Die deutscke Heeresriistungspolitik, 1890-1914: Das Militär und der Primat der Politik. Paderborn: Verlag Ferdinand Schoningh, 2007. Pp. 444. €58.00; PETER BAUMGART, BERNHARD R. KROENER, and HEINZ STUBIG, eds. Die Preussische Armee: Zwischen Ancien Régime und Reichsgriindung. Paderborn: Verlag Ferdinand Schoningh, 2008. Pp. xiii, 283. €39.90. Reviewed by Holger H. Herwig IRWIN HALFOND. Maurice Paléologue: The Diplomat, the Writer, the Man, and the Third French Republic. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2007. Pp. xiii, 189. $29.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by Ronald P. Bobroff PATRICK H. HASE. The Six-Day War ofiSgg: Hong Kong in the Age of Imperialism. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008; dist. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. Pp. xii, 276.$49.50 (US).Reviewed by Priscilla Roberts JEROME AAN DE WIEL. The Irish Factor, 1899-1999: Ireland's Strategic and Diplomatic Importance for Foreign Powers. Dublin and Portland, OR: Irish Academic Press, 2008. Pp. xx, 428. $75.00 (US). Reviewed by David Harkness NICOLAS WOLZ. Das lange Warten: Kriegserfahrungen deutscher und britischer Seeojfziere, 1914 bis 1918. Paderborn: Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2008. Pp. 519. €39.90. Reviewed by Jan Rüger PAUL O'SHEA. A Cross Too Heavy: Eugenio Pacelli: Politics and the Jews of Europe, 1917-1943. Kenthurst, NSW: Rosenberg Publishing, 2008; dist. Portland, OR: ISBS. Pp. 392.$35.00 (US), paper. Reviewed by Frank J. Coppa S. A. SMITH. Revolution and the People in Russia and China: A Comparative History. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Pp. viii, 249. $29.99 (USX paper. Reviewed by Stephen R. Mackinnon DANIELA ROSSINI. Woodrow Wilson and the American Myth in Italy: Culture, Diplomacy, and War Propaganda, trans. Antony Shugaar. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2008. Pp. x, 263.$49.95 (US). Reviewed by R. J. B. Bosworth SEAN GREENWOOD. Titan at the Foreign Office: Gladwyn Jebb and the Shaping of the Modern World. Leiden and Boston MA: Martinus Nijhoff, 2008. Pp. xxx, 440. €129.00. Reviewed by John W. Young ROLF STEININGER. Austria, Germany, and the Cold War: From the Anschluss to the State Treaty, 1938-1955. New York, NY and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008. Pp. x, 172. $60.00 (US). Reviewed by Lothar Hobelt KURT F.JENSEN. Cautious Beginnings: Canadian Foreign Intelligence, 1939-51. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press, 2008. Pp. 230.$32.95 (CDN), paper. Reviewed by John Ferris MICHAEL KENNEDY. Guarding Neutral Ireland: The Coast Watching Service and Military Intelligence, 1939-1945. Dublin and Portland, OR: Four Courts Press, 2008. Pp. x, 358. $55.00 (US). Reviewed by Keith Jeffery RICHARD WIGG. Churchill and

Assessing the effects of calculated inaction on national responses to the COVID-19 crisis

How does calculated inaction affect subsequent responses to the COVID-19 crisis? We argue that when governments employ calculated inaction during crises, they are more likely to manipulate the technical (scientific) aspects of national responses and highlight symbolic politics, each in the name of projecting power and strengthening the regime's governing authority. Using theoretical insight from McConnell and 't Hart's policy inaction typology, we investigate sense-making and crisis response narratives in China and Greece. We conclude with implications for policymaking and the crisis management literature

Domestic and transnational perspectives on democratization

The disciplinary separation between comparative politics and international relations is regularly challenged but persists as a result of institutional inertia and hiring practices. This essay uses the issue of democratization in an attempt to go beyond rhetoric and to develop a framework that integrates the role of transnational activism into the analysis of domestic regime change. Comparative research on democratization confirms that underlying socioeconomic conditions affect the long-term sustainability of democratic reforms. The initiation of such reforms, as well as the process they take, can best be understood using an agency-based framework that links domestic and transnational forces. Outside interventions are a potent factor in challenging authoritarian practices, but they do not simply displace existing domestic practices and conditions. Although transnational activists and scholars often celebrate the empowering role of networking and mobilization, the long-term effects of such interventions are still poorly understood. Transnational ties may distract domestic activists from building effective coalitions at home or undermine their legitimacy overall. Transnational scholars and activists can learn from comparative research how different domestic groups use outside interventions to promote their interests at home