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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Leisure, Obesity And Weight Loss: An Exploration Of Leisure, The Public Health Ecological Model Of Obesity And Identity Theory, Weber Player Dec 2015

Leisure, Obesity And Weight Loss: An Exploration Of Leisure, The Public Health Ecological Model Of Obesity And Identity Theory, Weber Player

All Dissertations

Obesity is a global health crisis with complex causal relationships. From the mid 1990s to 2010, obesity related research in the clinical and social sciences has exploded. This expansion has resulted in a proliferation of obesity-related articles published in top-tier journals and the creation of new journals solely devoted to obesity research. In contrast within leisure scholarship, a review of leisure journals reveals that published research on the relationship of leisure, obesity and weight loss is minimal. However, numerous leisure scholarship/theory principles are relevant to obesity prevention and treatment. Similarly, public health officials have developed numerous systems-oriented multilevel framework models …


Automatically Measuring Individual Consumption Events During Natural Eating Using A Table Embedded Scale, Ryan Mattfeld Aug 2014

Automatically Measuring Individual Consumption Events During Natural Eating Using A Table Embedded Scale, Ryan Mattfeld

All Theses

This thesis is motivated to improve the tools available for tracking energy intake. The goal of this work is to develop a table-embedded scale capable of measuring the weight of individual consumption events during unrestricted eating. The method was tested on a data set gathered from 276 subjects eating 518 courses consisting of 22,383 marked individual consumption events in a cafeteria environment. Approximately 30% of the consumption events can be detected and weighed. The remaining 70% of the events occur without participants interacting with the scale or when noisy interactions with the scale prevent weight measurement. The relationship between bite …


Using The Bite Counter To Overcome The Effect Of Plate Size On Food Intake, Phillip Jasper Aug 2014

Using The Bite Counter To Overcome The Effect Of Plate Size On Food Intake, Phillip Jasper

All Theses

According to a recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, overweight and obesity have reached epidemic levels in the United States (Flegal et at., 2010, NHANES, 2010) There are many treatments for overweight and obesity, the most popular being behavioral interventions (Berkel et al., 2005). Self-monitoring is one of the most important factors of successful behavioral interventions (Baker & Kirschenbaum, 1993). The Bite Counter is a newly developed tool for weight loss that aids in the self-monitoring process (Dong et al., 2011). The purpose of the current study was to determine if bite count feedback and an instruction on the …


Felt Stigma From Medical Professionals: Effects Of Body Mass Index On Medical Use, Adam Yates Aug 2014

Felt Stigma From Medical Professionals: Effects Of Body Mass Index On Medical Use, Adam Yates

All Theses

This thesis examines the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and perceived discrimination, using the frequency of routine medical care as a proxy for discrimination using waves I (1995) and II (2005) of the Midlife in the U.S (MIDUS) survey. This thesis examines stigma and discrimination of the obese in medical care using the theoretical framework of Felt Stigma and Identity Theory. This thesis addresses 5 research questions: (1) What effect does body mass index have on health usage patterns? (2) What effect does gender have on the relationship between body mass index and health usage patterns? (3) What effect …


Essays On Health Trends And Health Care Efficiency, Richard Gearhart May 2013

Essays On Health Trends And Health Care Efficiency, Richard Gearhart

All Dissertations

This dissertation encompasses three papers. The first paper explores health outcomes in the United States, measured by the obesity rate and the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes, which have been worsening over calendar time. I extend the model by Grossman (1972a, 1972b) to derive how the demand for preventive and reactive medical care is changing over calendar time and the impacts these changes will have on the health of an individual. Assuming that reactive medical technology's effectiveness in curing individuals of illness has increased over time, I find results that are consistent with observed health trends in America. Based on …


140 Characters To Skinny: Social Support Provided By Commercial Weight-Loss Programs Via Twitter, Sarah Arbogast May 2013

140 Characters To Skinny: Social Support Provided By Commercial Weight-Loss Programs Via Twitter, Sarah Arbogast

All Theses

The state of healthcare in the United States is changing. Amidst this change, there is a debate as to whether health is a public good or if health is a private matter. This change and debate challenges health professionals to rethink the way we go about planning health interventions to better address the many public health issues looming the general population today. The recent rise of obesity and at-risk weight in the United States is a major epidemic that has yet to be resolved. There are many approaches to addressing weight management and for many, public health campaigns have not …


Accuracy Of A Bite-Count Based Calorie Estimate Compared To Human Estimates With And Without Calorie Information Available, James Salley May 2013

Accuracy Of A Bite-Count Based Calorie Estimate Compared To Human Estimates With And Without Calorie Information Available, James Salley

All Theses

Obesity is an increasing health problem in the US, associated with such dangerous health risks as heart disease and diabetes. Self-monitoring in the form of calorie counting is a critical aspect of successful weight loss. However, calorie estimations are subject to several perceptual and cognitive biases, and there are limited tools available to assist these estimations. The present study seeks to assess the accuracy of participants' estimations of the calorie content of meals in the presence or absence of calorie information, and to compare their accuracy with calorie estimations based on bite count. Data were analyzed for 87 participants from …


Sources Of Variance In Bite Count, Jenna Scisco May 2012

Sources Of Variance In Bite Count, Jenna Scisco

All Dissertations

The obesity epidemic affects millions of individuals worldwide. New tools that simplify efforts to self-monitor energy intake may enable successful weight loss and weight maintenance. The purpose of this study was to examine predictors of the number of bites recorded by the bite counter device during daily meals in natural, real world settings. Participants (N = 83) used bite counters to record daily meals for two weeks. Participants also recorded their daily dietary intake using automated, computer-based 24-hour recalls. Predictors of bite count were explored at the meal-level and individual-level using multilevel linear modeling. A positive relationship between kilocalories and …


The Role Of Planning Tools As Strategies For Combating Childhood Obesity, Jacquelyn Coats May 2011

The Role Of Planning Tools As Strategies For Combating Childhood Obesity, Jacquelyn Coats

All Theses

The failure of traditional health models to successfully combat childhood obesity is apparent when considering its sustained prevalence in the United States. Childhood obesity rates have tripled over the past three decades and health officials recognize the need for integrative strategies in order to reverse the trend (CDC, 2010). The historical roots of planning and public health offer a potential venue for collaborative strategies to address the macro level factors that affect community health. This thesis examines how planning tools have been adapted to incorporate health strategies, whether or not such methods are sustainable, and what relationships are essential for …


The Relationship Between Energy Balance Understanding And Measures Of Wellness, Stephanie Fishel-Brown Jan 2010

The Relationship Between Energy Balance Understanding And Measures Of Wellness, Stephanie Fishel-Brown

All Dissertations

Much emphasis on the fight against obesity is placed on education and food labeling, yet very little research has been performed to measure how much people know about energy balance and the relationship of this knowledge to measures of wellness. The primary objective of this study was to determine if college students' (N = 262) performance on an energy balance questionnaire is associated with measures of wellness. Performance on the questionnaire as a whole was not significantly correlated (p > .05) with body mass index (BMI; rs = .04), percent body fat (rs = .05), waist to hip ratio …


The Bite Detector: A Device For The Behavioral Treatment Of Overweight And Obesity, Jenna Scisco Dec 2009

The Bite Detector: A Device For The Behavioral Treatment Of Overweight And Obesity, Jenna Scisco

All Theses

Overweight and obesity are primary health concerns worldwide and particularly in the United States. Currently, the most effective treatments are behavioral interventions, and a reduction of eating rate is one behavioral method that may help individuals eat less and lose weight. Additionally, adaptive eating behaviors, such as intuitive eating, have been identified as healthy body weight predictors. The purpose of Study 1 was to examine the accuracy of the bite detector, a wrist-worn device designed to detect bites of food. Participants (N = 21) ate a meal in the laboratory, and the sensitivity and positive predictive value (PPV) of the …


Are Obese People Choosing More Sedentary Jobs?, Ashley Cluley Dec 2006

Are Obese People Choosing More Sedentary Jobs?, Ashley Cluley

All Theses

Throughout the developed world there are a growing number of people becoming obese. Advancing technology continues to make our jobs less physically demanding. I show that a person with a higher body mass index (BMI) does not choose a more sedentary job position.
Job strenuousness is found by using principal component analysis. The three instrumental variables used for two-stage least squares are youth health, the number of restaurants per state per thousand residents, and an indicator variable if a person plays computer games at home. I reviewed 2SLS, JN2SLS and ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions and based on the testing …