Recovery self-efficacy and intention as predictors of running or jogging behavior: a cross-lagged panel analysis over a two-year period

Objectives: The study investigates whether two kinds of self-efficacy and intention predict regular running or jogging behavior over 2 yr. Maintenance self-efficacy refers to beliefs about one's ability to maintain a behavior, whereas recovery self-efficacy pertains to beliefs about one's ability to resume a behavior after a setback. Design and methods: Longitudinal data from runners (N=139, 80% men) were collected twice with a time gap of 2 yr. Results: Cross-lagged panel analysis revealed that recovery self-efficacy and intention jointly predicted running/jogging behavior 2 yr later, whereas running/jogging behavior did not predict recovery self-efficacy and intention. No effects of maintenance self-efficacy were found. The majority of participants (n=120) experienced at least one 2-week period of decline in running or jogging behavior. Among those who experienced lapses, recovery self-efficacy remained the only significant social-cognitive predictor of behavior. Conclusions: Recovery self-efficacy is a crucial predictor of regular running or jogging behavior over 2 yr

Obesity: should there be a law against it? Introduction to a symposium

The rapid rise in rates of overweight and obesity among adults and children in Australia and New Zealand has intensified debate about the most effective policies for obesity prevention. Law has much to contribute to this policy discussion, although its role is often misunderstood. The articles in this symposium follow on from a conference hosted in September 2006 by the Centre for Health Governance, Law & Ethics in the Faculty of Law, University of Sydney, titled: Obesity: should there be a law against it? In different ways, these articles provide a variety of perspectives on regulatory responses to obesity, including theoretical justifications for a legal approach, conceptual models that assist in making sense of law's role, as well as specific legal strategies for obesity prevention in various settings

What's law got to do with it Part 2: Legal strategies for healthier nutrition and obesity prevention

This article is the second in a two-part review of law's possible role in a regulatory approach to healthier nutrition and obesity prevention in Australia. As discussed in Part 1, law can intervene in support of obesity prevention at a variety of levels: by engaging with the health care system, by targeting individual behaviours, and by seeking to influence the broader, socio-economic and environmental factors that influence patterns of behaviour across the population. Part 1 argued that the most important opportunities for law lie in seeking to enhance the effectiveness of a population health approach

From Harm to Robustness: A Principled Approach to Vice Regulation

John Stuart Mill’s harm principle maintains that adult behavior cannot justifiably be subject to social coercion unless the behavior involves harm or a significant risk of harm to non-consenting others. The absence of harms to others, however, is one of the distinguishing features of many manifestations of “vices” such as the consumption of alcohol, nicotine, recreational drugs, prostitution, pornography, and gambling. It is with respect to vice policy, then, that the harm principle tends to be most constraining, and some current vice controls, such as prohibitions on drug possession and prostitution, violate Mill’s precept. In the vice arena, we seem to be willing to accept social interference with what Mill termed “self-regarding” behavior. But does that willingness then imply that any social intervention into private affairs is justifiable, that the government has just as much right to outlaw Protestantism, or shag carpets, or spicy foods, as it does to outlaw drugs? In this paper I argue that advances in neuroscience and behavioral economics offer strong evidence that vices and other potentially addictive goods or activities frequently involve less-than-rational choices, and hence are exempt from the full force of the harm principle. As an alternative guide to vice policy, and following some guidance from Mill, I propose the “robustness principle”: public policy towards addictive or vicious activities engaged in by adults should be robust with respect to departures from full rationality. That is, policies should work pretty well if everyone is completely rational, and policies should work pretty well even if many people are occasionally (or frequently) irrational in their vice-related choices. The harm and robustness principles cohere in many ways, but the robustness principle offers more scope for policies that try to direct people “for their own good,” without opening the door to tyrannical inroads upon self-regarding behavior

“We can see that peace is coming” A Case Study of the Kids4Peace Peace-building Initiative in Jerusalem

This paper is a case-study of the Kids4Peace (K4P) interfaith children’s organization in Jerusalem, Israel/Palestine. The goal of the paper is to evaluate the current peace-building methodologies of K4P. The research from the past year focused on the tools and methods used during the K4P bi-monthly meetings in Jerusalem. In light of the discoveries, some suggestions will be made in regards to peace-building strategies and curriculum which will be useful for K4p. Until now there has not been a professional examination or evaluation of this program that has been running for over ten years. The paper examines the following themes in: • The connection between the contact hypothesis and the K4P educational model. • Examines unique model of children’s interfaith dialogue. The paper takes an indepth look at the advantages and disadvantages of interfaith dialogue in context to the region (Middle East) and the target population (children). • The target population: Is K4P a grassroots organization? • The key issue of language in K4P. • The role of parents in the program. Does there need to be a parents’ program? • The importance of continuing the program after the initial ten months

Today’s nonmedical opioid users are not yesterday’s patients; implications of data indicating stable rates of nonmedical use and pain reliever use disorder

Jeffrey A Singer,1–3 Jacob Z Sullum,4,5 Michael E Schatman6,7 1Valley Surgical Clinics, Ltd., Phoenix, AZ, USA; 2Department of Health Policy Studies and Center for the Study of Science, Cato Institute, Washington, DC, USA; 3Goldwater Institute, Phoenix, AZ, USA; 4Reason Magazine, Los Angeles, CA, USA; 5Creators Syndicate, Hermosa Beach, CA, USA; 6Research and Network Development, Boston PainCare, Waltham, MA, USA; 7Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA   According to the narrative underlying current policies aimed at reducing opioid-related deaths, the problem can be traced to a dramatic increase in opioid prescribing that began in the late 1990s. This trend supposedly was fueled by unscrupulous pharmaceutical company representatives who convinced practitioners that opioids posed a low risk of misuse and overdose (although a recent analysis1 suggests there were probably 30 or more root causes of the crisis). To illustrate this narrative, politicians and journalists have cited examples of patients who accidentally became “hooked” on opioids while taking them for pain, such as teenagers with orthopedic injuries who found the analgesics prescribed for them so alluring that they progressed to lives of drug abuse and addiction.2 This narrative drives policies targeting the prescription of opioids to patients in pain, with the goal of reducing the risk of addiction as well as the diversion of prescription opioids to the underground market. These policies include state prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs), abuse-deterrent formulations of prescription opioids, prescribing guidelines, and legal restrictions on prescribing for both acute and chronic pain.&nbsp