The Contribution of Emotion Regulation to Body Dissatisfaction and Disordered Eating in Early Adolescent Girls

To understand whether difficulties in emotional functioning distinguish between body dissatisfaction and disordered eating, a set of emotion regulation (i.e., negative emotion, emotional awareness, coping), demographic (i.e., age), and physical (i.e., BMI (Body Mass Index)) factors were assessed in 234 early adolescent girls, grades six to eight. Compared to younger girls, older girls had higher BMI and reported increased body dissatisfaction. Age, BMI, and negative affect predicted body dissatisfaction, whereas BMI, body dissatisfaction, and lack of emotional awareness predicted disordered eating. Further, girls who reported high levels of disordered eating reported experiencing increased levels of negative affect, greater difficulties with emotional awareness, and more difficulty coping constructively with negative emotion than girls who reported low levels of disordered eating. Results support the contention that body dissatisfaction, combined with difficulties in emotional awareness are related to disordered eating.Leslie Sim is an assistant professor at the Mayo Medical School, a Senior Associate at the Mayo Clinic, and Clinical Director of the Mayo Inpatient Eating Disorders Program. She received her Ph.D. from University of Maine in Developmental and Clinical Psychology. Her research interests include eating disorders, self-injurious behavior, and emotion regulation skills in children and adolescents.Janice Zeman is an associate professor at the College of William and Mary. She received her Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in Developmental and Clinical Psychology. Her research interests include children's and adolescents' emotion regulation skills particularly as they relate to maladaptive functioning with other research interests in parental and peer socialization of emotion.     

An eight-year follow-up: Outcome from adolescent compared to adult onset anorexia nervosa

Seventy-five women were traced and reassessed on average eight years after the onset of anorexia nervosa. All patients received treatment and 88% were hospitalized at least once. Comparisons between early (11–15 years; N=35), late (16–18 years; N=24) adolescent and adult (19–27 years; N=14) onset revealed no significant differences in outcome for age at onset. For 70% of adolescent and 42% of adult onset patients the outcome was good, meaning that the weight was within ± 15% of norm with regular cyclical menstruation,17% and 21% had an intermediate, and 9% and 21%, respectively, had a poor outcome, 5.3% had died. Taken together, 59% had physically recovered and were free of any eating disorder. Severity of illness reflected in a low body mass index, excessive exercise, and poor psychosocial functioning at intake were poor prognostic indicators;length of illness and food restriction or bulimia as eating patterns were unrelated to outcome. The observation that all women with chronic anorexia nervosa, and even a third of those who had physically recovered from anorexia nervosa, qualified for one or more psychiatric diagnoses suggests that the psychosocial correlates of anorexia nervosa require further study.Supported by grant MH ROI35585-01A1.Received an M.D.-Ph.D. degree from Albert-Ludwig University in Freiburg, Germany. Research interests have been depressive disorders, eating disorders, in particular anorexia nervosa, and more recently women's health.Received M.D. degree from the University of Illinois in Chicago, Illinois. Research interest is in preventive medicine.     

SNP Miniplexes for Individual Identification of Random‐Bred Domestic Cats

Phenotypic and genotypic characteristics of the cat can be obtained from single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) analyses of fur. This study developed miniplexes using SNPs with high discriminating power for random‐bred domestic cats, focusing on individual and phenotypic identification. Seventy‐eight SNPs were investigated using a multiplex PCR followed by a fluorescently labeled single base extension (SBE) technique (SNaPshot^®). The SNP miniplexes were evaluated for reliability, reproducibility, sensitivity, species specificity, detection limitations, and assignment accuracy. Six SNPplexes were developed containing 39 intergenic SNPs and 26 phenotypic SNPs, including a sex identification marker, ZFXY. The combined random match probability (cRMP) was 6.58 × 10^?19 across all Western cat populations and the likelihood ratio was 1.52 × 10¹⁸. These SNPplexes can distinguish individual cats and their phenotypic traits, which could provide insight into crime reconstructions. A SNP database of 237 cats from 13 worldwide populations is now available for forensic applications.     

Implicit Outgroup Favoritism and Intergroup Judgment: The Moderating Role of Stereotypic Context

Implicit outgroup favoritism has been documented in a variety of socially disadvantaged groups, yet little is known about the implications of having such bias. The present research examined whether implicit outgroup favoritism predicts judgments of ingroup versus outgroup members, and whether that relationship depends on stereotypic context. One hundred and ten African-American participants were assigned a Black versus a White work partner for a task that required skills that are stereotypically White (e.g., intellect) versus Black (e.g., athleticism). Participants rated Black partners as less competent than White partners on the stereotypically White task. Furthermore, participants who implicitly favored Whites liked Black partners less than White partners, but only on the stereotypically White task. Implications for system justification theory are discussed.

Trauma‐Informed Interventions in Parent–Child Contact Cases

Parent–child contact problems may arise in the context of high conflict separation/divorce dynamics between parents. In cases where there are parent–child contact problems and children resist or refuse contact with one of their parents, there may also be incidents of child maltreatment, intimate partner violence, or compromised parenting that can be experienced by a parent or child as traumatic. The circumstances around separation and/or post‐divorce often result in intense stress for families. In this paper we distinguish between the stressful circumstances that may arise as a result of high interparental conflict and pulls for alignment from a parent, and the real or perceived trauma as a factor which contributes to resistance or refusal of a child to have contact with a parent. Interventions to address both trauma responses and the resist‐refuse dynamics are differentiated and discussed. After screening and assessment, the intent is to treat trauma responses with short‐term, evidence‐based therapy, either before or concurrent with co‐parent and family intervention.     

Asymmetric barriers in atmospheric politics of transboundary air pollution: a case of particulate matter (PM) cooperation between China and South Korea

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - Existing studies have argued that regional cooperation is urgent in order to tackle transboundary air pollution. However, few...     

The Rhythms of the Yards: Urbanism,Backyards and Housing Policy in South Africa

Modernist planners became thieves of memory. Faustian in their eagerness to erase all traces of the past in the interest of forward momentum, of growth in the name of progress, their drive-by-windscreen surveys of neighbourhoods that they have already decided to condemn to the bulldozer, have been, in their own way, as deadly as the recent drive by gang shootings in Los Angeles. Modernist planners embracing the ideology of development as progress, have killed whole communities, by evicting them, demolishing their houses, and dispersing them to edge suburbs or leaving them homeless. They have killed whole communities by not understanding the loss and grieving that go along with losing one's home and neighbourhood and friends and memories. (Sandercock 1998:208)

When watching the news, you find that the government is only concerned with shack dwellers. What about us? We are sitting with big expectations that they will build us houses. We have grown so old sitting in the backyards.

Backyard shack-dweller, Johannesburg, 1999