Impact of today's media on university student's body image in Pakistan: a conservative, developing country's perspective

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Living in a world greatly controlled by mass media makes it impossible to escape its pervading influence. As media in Pakistan has been free in the true sense of the word for only a few years, its impact on individuals is yet to be assessed. Our study aims to be the first to look at the effect media has on the body image of university students in a conservative, developing country like Pakistan. Also, we introduced the novel concept of body image dissatisfaction as being both negative and positive.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A cross-sectional study was conducted among 7 private universities over a period of two weeks in the city of Karachi, Pakistan's largest and most populous city. Convenience sampling was used to select both male and female undergraduate students aged between 18 and 25 and a sample size of 783 was calculated.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of the 784 final respondents, 376 (48%) were males and 408 (52%) females. The mean age of males was 20.77 (+/- 1.85) years and females was 20.38 (+/- 1.63) years. Out of these, 358 (45.6%) respondents had a positive BID (body image dissatisfaction) score while 426 (54.4%) had a negative BID score. Of the respondents who had positive BID scores, 93 (24.7%) were male and 265 (65.0%) were female. Of the respondents with a negative BID score, 283 (75.3%) were male and 143 (35.0%) were female. The results for BID vs. media exposure were similar in both high and low peer pressure groups. Low media exposure meant positive BID scores and vice versa in both groups (p < 0.0001) showing a statistically significant association between high media exposure and negative body image dissatisfaction. Finally, we looked at the association between gender and image dissatisfaction. Again a statistically significant association was found between positive body image dissatisfaction and female gender and negative body image dissatisfaction and male gender (p < 0.0001).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our study confirmed the tendency of the media to have an overall negative effect on individuals' body image. A striking feature of our study, however, was the finding that negative body image dissatisfaction was found to be more prevalent in males as compared to females. Likewise, positive BID scores were more prevalent amongst females.</p

Simulation of Oxygen Isotopes in a Global Ocean Model

Abstract: We incorporate the oxygen isotope composition of seawater δ18Ow into a global ocean model that is based on the Modular Ocean Model (MOM, version 2) of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL). In a first experiment, this model is run to equilibrium to simulate the present-day ocean; in a second experiment, the oxygen isotope composition of Antarctic Surface Water (AASW) is set to a constant value to indirectly account for the effect of sea-ice. We check the depth distribution of δ18Ow against observations. Furthermore, we computed the equilibrium fractionation of the oxygen isotope composition of calcite δ18Oc from a paleotemperature equation and compared it with benthic foraminiferal δ18O. The simulated δ18Ow distribution compares fairly well with the GEOSECS data. We show that the δ18Ow values can be used to characterize different water masses. However, a warm bias of the global ocean model yields δ18Oc values that are too light by about 0.5 ‰ above 2 km depth and exhibit a false vertical gradient below 2 km depth. Our ultimate goal is to interpret the wealth of foraminiferal δ18O data in terms of water mass changes in the paleocean, e.g. at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). This requires the warm bias of the global ocean model to be corrected. Furthermore the model must probably be coupled to simple atmosphere and sea-ice models such that neither sea-surface salinity (SSS) nor surface δ18Ow need to be prescribed and the use of present-day δ18Ow-salinity relationships can be avoided

The Effect of Social Network Site Use on Appearance Investment and Desire for Cosmetic Surgery Among Adolescent Boys and Girls

Although adolescents frequently use social network sites, little is known about whether the highly visual and self-presentation-centered character of such sites affects body-related outcomes such as investment in appearance and appearance-changing strategies. Due to gender differences in appearance pressures and appearance ideals, these effects of social network sites on body-related outcomes may differ between boys and girls. The aim of the current study was therefore to investigate the relationships between social network site use, appearance investment, and desire for cosmetic surgery among adolescents and to compare the experiences of boys and girls. We used data from a two-wave panel study among 604 Dutch adolescents (aged 11-18). Structural equation modeling showed that social network site use positively predicted adolescents’ desire to undergo cosmetic surgery indirectly through increased appearance investment. The relationships found between social network site use, investment in appearance, and cosmetic surgery desire applied to boys and girls and were not moderated by gender