Relationship between perceived body weight and body mass index based on self- reported height and weight among university students: a cross-sectional study in seven European countries

Mikolajczyk RT, Maxwell AE, El Ansari W, Stock C, Petkeviciene J, Guillen-Grima F. Relationship between perceived body weight and body mass index based on self- reported height and weight among university students: a cross-sectional study in seven European countries. BMC Public Health. 2010;10(1): 40.Background Despite low rates of obesity, many university students perceive themselves as overweight, especially women. This is of concern, because inappropriate weight perceptions can lead to unhealthy behaviours including eating disorders. Methods We used the database from the Cross National Student Health Survey (CNSHS), consisting of 5,900 records of university students from Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Spain and Turkey to analyse differences in perceived weight status based on the question: "Do you consider yourself much too thin, a little too thin, just right, a little too fat or much too fat?". The association between perceived weight and body mass index (BMI) calculated from self-reported weight and height was assessed with generalized non-parametric regression in R library gam. Results Although the majority of students reported a normal BMI (72-84% of males, 65-83% of females), only 32% to 68% of students considered their weight "just right". Around 20% of females with BMI of 20 kg/m2 considered themselves "a little too fat" or "too fat", and the percentages increased to 60% for a BMI of 22.5 kg/m2. Male students rarely felt "a little too fat" or "too fat" below BMI of 22.5 kg/m2, but most felt too thin with a BMI of 20 kg/m2. Conclusions Weight ideals are rather uniform across the European countries, with female students being more likely to perceive themselves as "too fat" at a normal BMI, while male students being more likely to perceive themselves as "too thin". Programs to prevent unhealthy behaviours to achieve ill-advised weight ideals may benefit students

Does living in urban or rural settings affect aspects of physical fitness in children? An allometric approach.

The aim of this study was to investigate physical fitness in relation to fatness in urban and rural Greek children by means of allometric scaling. METHODS: The sample consisted of 360 (189 urban and 171 rural; age 12.3+/-0.42 years) boys and 247 (125 urban and 122 rural; age 12.3+/-0.43 years) girls. The sample was highly representative (32-64%) of all 12 year old children registered in the prefecture of Trikala, Greece. All volunteers were assessed for BMI and % body fat, as well as sit and reach, basketball throw (BT), vertical jump (VJ), handgrip strength (HG), 40 m sprint, agility run, and 20 m shuttle run. To correct for possible associations between fatness and fitness, a single cause allometric scaling was employed using the natural logarithms (ln) of fitness parameters that were significantly correlated with the ln body fat. RESULTS: Independent-samples t tests revealed that VJ (p<0.05) was significantly higher in boys living in urban settings compared to their rural counterparts. Similarly, BT was found to be significantly better (p<0.05) in urban girls, whereas HG was significantly higher (p<0.05) in rural girls. CONCLUSION: Considering that (a) only three out of the 14 possible cases (seven fitness parameters for boys and seven for girls) were significantly different between urban and rural children, and (b) these differences were not uniformly distributed in children living in either urban or rural environments, it is concluded that the place of residence has no clear impact on physical fitness as studied herein

Can secondary school students' self-reported measures of height and weight be trusted? An effect size approach

Background: Self-reported measures of height and weight are a cost-effective alternative to direct measures in large-scale studies. This study was designed to examine the accuracy of adolescent students' self-reported height and weight taking into consideration the magnitude of the differences. Methods: Self-reported height and weight were taken from 300 secondary public schools students. Participants' actual height and weight were subsequently verified. Body mass index (BMI; kg/m(2)) was calculated separately from reported and from actual measures. Adolescents' whose measured BMI was above the 85th percentile were characterized as 'at risk for overweight/obese'. Results: There was no gender effect on the discrepancy between reported and actual measures. Overall adolescents significantly underestimated their weight and BMI. Although correlation coefficients were high, eta-square (eta(2)) values indicate large bias for weight (0.36) and BMI (0.31). 'At risk for overweight/obese' individuals underestimated their weight and BMI to a greater extent than their 'normal weight' counterparts. Conclusions: The magnitude of the discrepancies call into question the accuracy of self-reported weight and consequently the estimated BMI. Correlation coefficients did not provide any valuable information about the discrepancy between the self-reported and actual measures. A better understanding of the validity of self-reported height and weight could be reached if interpretation of the results is based on both statistical significance and magnitude of the differences

The influence of intrinsic motivation on an endurance field test

Aim. The aim of the present study was to examine the influence of various aspects of intrinsic motivation on the levels of performance in an endurance field test. Methods. The sample of the study consisted of 144 undergraduate Physical Education students. A Greek version of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) was administered to participants after the completion of the 20 m shuttle field test. Results. The 20 m shuttle run test was significantly and positively associated with the interest-enjoyment, perceived competence and effort-importance subscales. Regression analysis showed that only the perceived competence subscale could significantly contribute to the prediction the 20 in shuttle run scores. Conclusion. It was concluded that the perceived competence subscale of the IMI significantly predicted 20 in shuttle run performance and thus could be used to explain an additional percent of the variation in the participants' performance scores

Greek adolescents, fitness, fatness, fat intake, activity, and coronary heart disease risk.

A dramatic increase in adult mortality rates from coronary heart disease (CHD) in Greece, accompanied by increased prevalence of CHD risk factors in children, has been documented. However, there is controversy about the independent effects of certain lifestyle parameters on primary CHD risk factors. This article examine the association between CHD risk factors (HDL-C, LDL-C, HDL-C/TC, triglycerides, systolic and diastolic blood pressure) and lifestyle parameters (fitness, fatness, fat intake, and physical activity) in 210 12-year old Greek pupils. Correcting for the fixed factors of gender and maturation, analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) with backward elimination of the lifestyle covariates revealed significant associations between three CHD risk factors (HDL-C, HDL-C/TC, systolic blood pressure) and physical activity levels. In contrast, the covariates aerobic fitness, fatness and fat intake failed to reach significance with any of the CHD risk factors. In Greek schoolchildren, primary CHD risk factors are mainly associated with physical activity levels, independently of fitness, fatness, and/or fat intake. Prevention strategies should concentrate on enhancing physical activity early in life, if the increased prevalence of Greek adult CHD mortality is to be diminished

THE INFLUENCE OF MULTIPLE ADMINISTRATION OF A PSYCHOMOTOR TEST ON PERFORMANCE AND LEARNING

Tsigilis, N and Theodosiou, A. The influence of multiple administration of a psychomotor test on performance and learning. J Strength Cond Res 22(6): 1964-1968, 2008-Exercise scientists frequently use criterion measure tests to assess levels of motor performance and physical fitness or to evaluate the success of their intervention programs. During this process, the same motor test might be administered multiple times. The aim of the present study was to examine whether familiarization with a psychomotor test would influence performance and/or learning. One hundred thirty (n = 130) primary school students participated in the study. Participants were randomly divided into two groups, experimental (n = 60, mean age = 10.74 years old, minimum = 9.08, maximum = 11.83) and control (n = 70, mean age = 10.68 years old, minimum = 9.5, maximum = 11.79). The flamingo balance test was used to examine the postulated hypothesis. Initially, both groups executed the balance test. Then, only the experimental group performed two additional trials, one trial every 3 days. A final trial was administered to all participants, followed by a retention trial 1 week later. The results revealed that both groups improved their performance. The experimental group outperformed the control group. The retention trial showed that performance levels for both groups continued to improve, suggesting that familiarization with the test influenced not only performance but learning as well. Exercise scientists who implement psychomotor tests, such as balance tests, for evaluative purposes should be aware that performance improvement does not necessary represent changes in individuals' performance, but it may reflect individuals' familiarization with the test

Development and validation of an instrument measuring core job characteristics

Purpose: Much of prior research focused on the dimensionality of the part of Job Diagnostic Survey that measures the core job characteristics, with mixed findings. The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate an instrument assessing core job characteristics. Design/methodology/approach: Public school teachers (n=685) serving in elementary and secondary schools filled in the Core Job Characteristics Inventory (CJCI). CJCI comprises 29 items to assess job autonomy, task significance, task identification, skill variety and feedback from the job. The development of the CJCI undergone the following stages: development of an initial pool of items, examination of its content validity by ten experts and a pilot study. Findings: Exploratory factor analysis revealed five factors with satisfactory internal consistency. Confirmatory factor analysis showed mixed results. Application of exploratory structural equation modeling procedures revealed that a correlated five-factor model yielded an adequate fit to the data. Associations among the five work features were significant, positive and yielding moderate values. Correlations among the five-core job characteristics and two affective job responses (job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion) provided evidence of CJCI concurrent validity. Practical implications: Human resources managers can use CJCI to measure core job characteristics or to evaluate interventions in the work places. Originality/value: A new instrument was developed to measure core job characteristics, and to address previous shortcomings reported in the literature. The rigorous methodological procedure, which followed for the development of the CJCI combined with a cross-validation approach best guarantees its applicability. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

Impact factor and education journals: a critical examination and analysis

Scientific journals are the primary mode of formal communication in science. The ISI Impact factor, a bibliometric indicator that measures the citation rate of the "average" article in a journal, has been widely used for the assessment of the quality of scientific production of individuals, research teams or institutions. The purpose of this paper was to present the impact factor, examine the main limitations in its calculation and applications and to give a general overview of the impact factor of education journals for the period 2000-2005. Several problems related to the calculation of the impact factor have raised serious concerns about its validity and usefulness. Our findings suggest that education journals included in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) represent about 11% of the active, referred, academic journals. Education journals have relative low impact factors, in absolute values and in comparison to other Social Science categories. Application of the intraclass correlation coefficient showed that journals belonging to the "Education and Educational Research" category had relative stable impact factor values for the examined 6 years. This was not the case for the journals from the "Education, Special" category. It was concluded that the use of impact factor for the evaluation of journals, articles and researchers should be done with considerable care. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Temporal stability of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory

To examine the temporal stability of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory a Greek version was administered to 144 undergraduate students after all endurance field test. The same procedure was repeated one week later. Factor analysis followed by varimax rotation showed that three factors (Perceived Competence, Interest/enjoyment, and Effort/importance) explained 65.26% of the total variance. computed intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) were .61 for the Perceived Competence sub-scale, .86 for the Interest/enjoyment, .60 for the Effort/importance, and .70 for the overall scale. The results, however, were modified when the sample was divided in two groups. The first represented small changes in perceived competence between the first and the second measurement, while the second one represented large changes between the two measurements, Recalculated intraclass correlation coefficients for individuals Whose Perceived Competence score remained relatively stable yield a high value (.92), whereas individuals whose Perceived Competence changed yield an extremely low value (.60). It was concluded that the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory provides a temporally stable measure, given that perceived competence has not been markedly changed