This study investigates the relationship between media consumption and weight control, using data from a nationally representative study on adolescent health to examine differences between younger and older females (N=2,519). No relationship was found between television viewing and weight control for the sample as a whole; however, a negative association was noted for younger girls when the ages were split. There was no significant finding for the relationship between TV hours and negative body image for either age group. Positive relationships were noted for both groups in terms of negative body image and weight control. These results do not support the hypothesis that media use is predictive of weight control behaviors. Though a connection between negative body image and weight control was supported, no link was found between body image and media consumption. These results underscore the need for further research on weight control that can lead to eating disorders. / Department of Sociology

This dissertation examines the discourse generated by students and teachers at an American missionary school in Constantinople (Istanbul) between 1871, the year the school was founded, and 1923, the year of the Ottoman Empire's end and the Turkish Republic's beginning. From its position as religious proselytizer in a locale that was not a Western colony, the American College for Girls (also known as Constantinople Woman's College) gradually re-presented itself as a secular, independent institution of higher learning that offered a modem education in the English language to Ottoman women of diverse religious and linguistic backgrounds. The College's re-imaging occurred in response to local conditions: although missionaries had found Protestant evangelism to be largely ineffective, many Ottoman families desired a Western education for their daughters. In addition, the American female teachers in Constantinople found intellectual and professional opportunities for their own development that they likely would not have had access to in the United States. Thus, the Americans' moderation of their religious rhetoric occurred in response to: 1) their role within the shifting objectives of the missionary movement; 2) the demands of their Ottoman clientele for a Western-style education for women; and 3) their personal desires to preserve their professional status as college-level educators. Nonetheless, in its pedagogical discourse and in its depictions of students, the College's rhetorical production exhibits racialized views of "nation" as well as an Orientalist, in Edward Said's meaning of the term, view of the school's role as Western educator. Similarly, the College's continual blurring of the designations of "race" and "nation," in which the students are always viewed within their racialized, "national" identities, exemplifies Homi Bhabha's categories of colonial ambivalence and mimicry. This dissertation, while acknowledging the American teachers' complicity in the construction and repetition of Orientalist discourse and the Ottoman students' internalization of this racializing discourse, also problematizes current postcolonial theoretical assumptions by identifying a mutuality of purpose within the discourse of the Ottoman students and the American teachers in the non-colonial but still "Oriental" late Ottoman Empire. / Department of English

Canadian females grow up in a sociocultural environment full of contradictory discourses that rarely reflect the social reality they experience. Adolescent girls face abject forms of objectification, sexualization, unequal power relations and high levels of violence in their communities, yet these experiences remain largely unexamined with adolescent girls themselves. In the following thesis I describe a research project I undertook with seven girls between the ages of twelve and fifteen. Using the method biomythography, I ask the girls to tell me who they are in an attempt to determine how these girls relate their social environment to their identity. An analysis of the discourses emerging in the biomythographies as well as in discussion in the research space demonstrates that the girls recognize links with sociocultural environment, yet they do not highlight the effects of this culture on their identity in their biomythographies. Instead, they used the space of the biomythographies to resist, dream, and focus on the best aspects of themselves and those in their social world. At the same time, the physical creation space became an important secondary site of analysis. The analysis of both the biomythographies and the project space demonstrates the importance of girl-only space in the community. Such space allows girls to come together as girls to critique and analyse what it means to grow up female in Canadian society. This space must also provide opportunities for girls to self-reflect on their own social position and identity. / Graduate

Thesis (MAppSc in Physiotherapy) -- University of South Australia, 1992

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Michigan, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 247-265). Also available online (PDF file) by a subscription to the set or by purchasing the individual file.

Thesis (M,A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on October 30, 2007) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: Michele Peterson-Badali.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 38-42). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-142).