Explaining rigid dieting in normal-weight women: The key role of body image inflexibility

Ferreira, C., Trindade, I.A., & Martinho, A. (2016). Explaining rigid dieting in normal-weight women: the key role of body image inflexibility. Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity, 21(1), 49–56. doi: 10.1007/s40519-015-0188-x.Restrictive dieting is an increasing behavior presented by women in Western societies, independently of their weight. There are several known factors that motivate diet, namely a sense of dissatisfaction with one’s body and unfavorable social comparisons based on physical appearance. However, dieting seems to have a paradoxical effect and has been considered a risk factor for weight gain and obesity in women, and associated with maladaptive eating. Nevertheless, the study of the emotional regulation processes that explain the adoption of inflexible and rigid dietary patterns still remains little explored. In this line, the present study aims to explore why normal-weight women engage in highly rigid and inflexible diets. We hypothesize that body and weight dissatisfaction, and unfavorable social comparisons based on physical appearance with peers explain the adoption of inflexible eating rules, through the mechanism of body image inflexibility. The study comprised 508 female college students who presented BMIs between 18.5 and 25. Path analyses were conducted to explore the study’s hypotheses. Results revealed that the model explained 43% of inflexible eating and revealed excellent fit indices. Furthermore, the unwillingness to experience unwanted events related to body image (body image inflexibility) mediated the impact of body dissatisfaction and unfavorable social comparisons on the engagement in inflexible eating rules. This study highlights the relevance of body image inflexibility to explain rigid eating attitudes, and it seems to be an important avenue for the development of interventions focusing on the promotion of adaptive attitudes towards body image and eating in young women

Expressões de microagressões dirigidas a mulheres no contexto do sistema de saúde: uma abordagem baseada em incidentes críticos

Purpose. Patients belonging to social minorities can be exposed to various forms of discrimination in the healthcare context. Previous research in this domain has overlooked expressions of microaggressions against women and the role of intersectional identities. This study aims to uncover the themes that underly the experience of microaggressions by diverse women in Portugal. Methods. Using an interview model based on the Critical Incident Technique (Flanagan, 1954) 17 women were interviewed about their microaggression experiences in the healthcare setting. Among those with an intersectional identity, social minority membership was also based on ethnicity, LGB sexual orientation and functional diversity. Results. A total of 17 microaggressive themes were retrieved, five of which were found to be related to microaggressions towards women in general and a total of seven were unique for women with specific intersectional identities. Another four themes reflected providers’ general attitudes towards patients without being related to gender or any intersectional minority group, and one theme described systemic microaggressions. Conclusion. Some of the retrieved themes reflect microaggressions that women seem to experience in their everyday life but that are exacerbated by the health provider-patient power disparity. Some themes appear to be specific to the healthcare context and related to providers’ lack of patient-centeredness.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

What kinds of microaggressions do women experience in the health care setting? Examining typologies, context and intersectional identities

Microaggressions are everyday verbal and non-verbal indignities, promoted intentionally or by well-intentioned people towards minority and disadvantaged individuals or groups. Microaggressions are often unconscious, socially normalized and naturalized. This qualitative study intended to examine and understand microaggressions lived by women with different intersectional identities (women of Color, immigrant women, straight women, LGBTQ+ women, functionally diverse women) in the Portuguese healthcare context. Semi-structured interviews were conducted using the Critical Incident Technique. Seventeen self-identified female feminists, activists and/or that were involved with NGOs and organizations actively committed to social causes participated. Content and thematic analysis were used in order to recognize the different microaggressive forms (microinsults, microinvalidations, microassaults) and manifestations (verbal, nonverbal/behavioral, environmental) committed in the healthcare context. The results are discussed in light of diversity training opportunities to raise awareness about subtle forms of discrimination among health care practitioners.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

How to develop internal innovation in the media: A case study of best practices for media outlet

The goals intended are to analyze media outlets from the inside, to provide some guidelines on the best practices for media companies that want to shape/reshape their business to survive and grow in the currently troubled media ecosystem. The main questions are to understand how legacy media in Portugal are facing the changing media ecosystem, in special how are they using any kind of internal innovation strategies to outcome the decreasing of sales and/or audiences and advertising revenues. We also pretend to frame this national reality into a broader picture, contextualizing the analysis. So we pose the following questions: are the Portuguese media outlets seeking internal innovation to face and outcome the fall of traditional business models? How legacy media can change from the inside? What processes are they creating/recreating that affect the news production and dissemination? What processes are they creating/recreating that affect the revenue stream? How the Portuguese media ecosystem compares to the international best practices? What guidelines can be identified to help legacy media or journalistic startups to survive in a troubled sea? To achieve the objectives we use non-participatory observation on three Portuguese newsrooms, and interview some of its managers/editorial managers, chosen by its diversity: a TV network that includes, among others, a free-to-air legacy TV channel with the most viewed eight o’clock news program and a 24/7 TV news channel; a national broadcast news radio; an online only newspaper. All three have their online operations, via website and apps. Both the TV and the radio are legacy media that, through different approaches and rhythms, are reshaping their business models, news production processes and news product. Both have internal innovation strategies that we observe, register and analyze. The online newspaper was born has an online only operation, not needing to transform from a legacy/analog operation, but still develops internal innovation strategies to evolve in an always moving digital media landscape. The study cases are built from framed analysis and previous academic work produced by authors like Lucy Kung, Ramón Salaverría, Anderson, Bell & Shirky, Mark Deuze, Bastos & Zamith, Paul Bradshaw, Adelino Gomes, Gureskin, Seave & Graves, Lowe, Gregory & Brown, Storsul, Tanja & Krumsvik, Janine Warner or Barbie Zelizer. So we try to identify the focus on the practices inside the Portuguese case studies, internal innovation strategies on newsrooms, entrepreneurial strategies to change from the traditional business model and boost the financial results. We also try to deliver and promote some guidelines to media outlets that want to innovate and/or to entrepreneurs wanting to create journalistic startups, and to boost the discussion about the need to improve the internal mechanisms of change to survive in a troubled media ecosystem.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Cubus: autonomous embodied characters to stimulate creative idea generation in groups of children

Creativity is an ability that is crucial in nowadays societies. It is, therefore, important to develop activities that stimulate creativity at a very young age. It seems, however, that there is a lack of tools to support these activities. In this paper, we introduce Cubus, a tool that uses autonomous synthetic characters to stimulate idea generation in groups of children during a storytelling activity. With Cubus, children can invent a story and use the stop-motion technique to record a movie depicting it. In this paper, we explain Cubus’ system design and architecture and present the evaluation of Cubus’ impact in a creative task. This evaluation investigated idea generation in groups of children during their creative process of storytelling. Results showed that the autonomous behaviors of Cubus’ virtual agents contributed to the generation of more ideas in children, a key dimension of creativity.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

An enhanced simulation-based iterated local search metaheuristic for gravity fed water distribution network design optimization

The gravity fed water distribution network design (WDND) optimization problem consists in determining the pipe diameters of a water network such that hydraulic constraints are satisfied and the total cost is minimized. Traditionally, such design decisions are made on the basis of expert experience. When networks increase in size, however, rules of thumb will rarely lead to near optimal decisions. Over the past thirty years, a large number of techniques have been developed to tackle the problem of optimally designing a water distribution network. In this paper, we tackle the NP-hard water distribution network design (WDND) optimization problem in a multi-period setting where time varying demand patterns occur. We propose a new simulation-based iterated local search metaheuristic which further explores the structure of the problem in an attempt to obtain high quality solutions. Computational experiments show that our approach is very competitive as it is able to improve over a state-of-the-art metaheuristic for most of the performed tests. Furthermore, it converges much faster to low cost solutions and demonstrates a more robust performance in that it obtains smaller deviations from the best known solutions

The impact of early protein intake and nutritional status in critically ill patients

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Are perceived benefits of heated tobacco products consumption aiding smoking cessation?

Background: The tobacco industry has been facing several transformations, considering that technology has evolved and health concerns have increased. One way for this industry to meet the growing social and health concerns is to provide alternative solutions. Heated tobacco products (HTPs) were the solution found, but they nevertheless pose several challenges to regulators, companies, and consumers, since HTPs are advertised as a less harmful alternative to conventional cigarettes. Focus of the Article: This study aims to analyze smokers' perception of HTPs to provide insights for social marketing campaigns targeting behavioral change. Research questions: The main objectives of this research are: (1) to assess whether smokers and ex-smokers view HTPs as less harmful to health than traditional cigarettes; and (2) to determine to what extent HTPs can help increase the intention to quit smoking. Methods: This study explores smokers’ perception of HTPs consumption using a modified version of the Health Belief Model (HBM). A survey study involving 250 smokers and ex-smokers was conducted to test the conceptual model using PLS-Path modeling to validate the research hypotheses. The data were analyzed using the SPSS 27 and SmartPLS 3.3 programs. Results: The results suggest that the perceived benefits of heated tobacco consumption negatively influence the likelihood of quitting smoking. Therefore, HTPs do not work as auxiliary products with regard to the intention to quit smoking. In some cases, the effect is quite the opposite, as HTPs use increases tobacco consumption and dependence. Perceived susceptibility and perceived severity are not significant predictors of the decision to quit smoking. Research limitations: Future research could use a sample that includes only HTPs smokers and ex-smokers, analyze HTPs benefits and understand the primary motivation behind replacing conventional cigarettes with HTPs. Practical implications: Entities attempting to promote the reduction of tobacco consumption should equate HTPs to conventional tobacco and focus on campaigns targeting only HTPs smokers. Whenever studying perceptions on HTPs, it is important to consider smokers’ dependence on nicotine and the particularities of the devices used to consume HTPs. Importance to the Social Marketing Field: Considering the social relevance and growth of heated tobacco consumption, as well as the increase of the tobacco industry’s economic power, this research offers relevant insights into consumers’ perceptions toward HTPs.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Unconventional Metallic Magnetism in LaCrSb{3}

Neutron-diffraction measurements in LaCrSb{3} show a coexistence of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic sublattices below Tc=126 K, with ordered moments of 1.65(4) and 0.49(4) Bohr magnetons per formula unit, respectively (T=10 K), and a spin reorientation transition at ~95 K. No clear peak or step was observed in the specific heat at Tc. Coexisting localized and itinerant spins are suggested.Comment: PRL, in pres