Drawing from Pierre Bourdieu’s socio-cultural approach, this qualitative research project aimed to: (a) understand the responses to current body norms and expectations tied to health and physical appearances amongst underprivileged young women; and; (b) understand to what extent the dominant obesity discourse is inscribed in these women’s bodily habits. Results highlight that participants were aware of the dominant obesity discourse through their perceptions, sentiments, and dispositions towards bodily norms and expectations. Despite their awareness, underprivileged living conditions generated other sets of priorities, such as motherhood, achieving economic stability, completing education, and gaining physical independence which were far greater preoccupations. Underprivileged young women’s ‘choice of the necessary’ is based on optimizing resources and prioritizing needs and responsibilities. Findings support the use of Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts which consider the effects of various aspects of underprivileged living conditions on lifestyles.

The main aim of my dissertation is to understand the different ways problem youngsters cope with reality, construct identity and make choices of lifestyles. From a common starting point, the assessment home, I have by means of continual interviews followed fourteen youngsters, six girls and eight boys, for almost three years in the boundary zone between "the normal life" and "the deviating behaviour". In the assessment home they where defined as socially vulnerable and problematical. I was able to establish co-operation, got close and through narratives, gain insight into the "order" they gave themselves for experiences, thoughts and identity in choices of lifestyles. My interest was focused on life historical narratives and their own version of events. Even if different choices and lifestyles are experienced as individual they are not only a personal construction. Choosing is also the obvious way of doing gender, making a place for one's own thread, weaving it into the collective warp. Gender and reality differences leads to gender specific choices. Females gave priority to Intimacy before Identity and the males gave priority to Identity before Intimacy. I also found two types of social inheritance and life history scenarios that gave structure to choices and orientations. Choices of lifestyles were related to social action, ways of doing gender, dealing with social inheritance in situational ways. In an individual way actions had much to do with "a play around self-esteem" in which habits and routinized practice provided security and self-confidence. The power of habit gave security to create and recreate known figures even if the figures generated fear and respect in others' eyes. Social choices are decisions not only about how to act but who to be and the main theme for all the youngsters was to be somebody and to fit in somewhere. / <p>Diss. Umeå : Umeå universitet, 1998</p> / digitalisering@umu

Drawing from Pierre Bourdieu’s socio-cultural approach, this qualitative research project aimed to: (a) understand the responses to current body norms and expectations tied to health and physical appearances amongst underprivileged young women; and; (b) understand to what extent the dominant obesity discourse is inscribed in these women’s bodily habits. Results highlight that participants were aware of the dominant obesity discourse through their perceptions, sentiments, and dispositions towards bodily norms and expectations. Despite their awareness, underprivileged living conditions generated other sets of priorities, such as motherhood, achieving economic stability, completing education, and gaining physical independence which were far greater preoccupations. Underprivileged young women’s ‘choice of the necessary’ is based on optimizing resources and prioritizing needs and responsibilities. Findings support the use of Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts which consider the effects of various aspects of underprivileged living conditions on lifestyles.

Older adults represent a growing part of the population of the United States. Due to decreased physical activity, dietary changes, and alterations in metabolic rate this population is susceptible to an increased rate of diseases. The generation entering older adulthood is one which welcomed fast food and meal replacement foods allowing them to adapt to a more sedentary lifestyle and to need programs of preventative health. The Nutrition and Life Satisfaction Survey was used to investigate gardening as a preventative health intervention for older adults. This instrument was used to compare older (age 50+) gardeners and nongardeners on their perceptions of personal life satisfaction, nutrition, health, and gardening habits. The instrument was posted online at the Aggie Horticulture website in spring 2005. Respondents differentiated themselves as gardeners or nongardeners by responding positively or negatively to the question “Do you garden?” Then, they completed the questionnaire about their quality of life andhealth status and, for gardeners, their gardening habits. Results indicated that gardeners had more desirable responses: Overall quality of life scores were higher for gardeners compared to nongardeners, and four individual quality of life statements yielded more positive answers by gardeners. Additionally, gardeners reported a higher consumption of total fruits and vegetables, including herbs, and of vegetables only including herbs. Personal reports of physical activity and of perceived health were higher among gardeners. Females were more likely than males to garden and spend a higher percentage of their budget on fruits and vegetables. Higher consumption of fruits and vegetables and higher levels of physical activity result in healthier lifestyles and, in turn, can increase quality of life.

Bombarded by various waves of consumer information,Taiwan has hit the road to the so-called ¡§style society¡¨ with the trend towards aestheticization of daily lives and growing emphasis on tastes, and in the meantime the industries, while churning out products, do not forget to compete for the interpretive power and symbolic control over the media. In Taiwan, as far as cultural tastes and lifestyle modeling are concerned, the ¡§Eslite phenomenon¡¨ shall not be ignored. With content analysis, this research probes into the editorial logic by which the Eslite Bookstore, as one of the important indicators on the map of Taiwan culture consumers¡¦ tastes, has tried to design its style-based Eslite Book Review and Eslite Reader magazines. In the end, the researcher deliberates over some visages of bourgeois tastes shaped by Eslite and contextualizes the findings in the class struggles for culture distinction as well as the recent social-economic changes in Taiwan. As the research shows, the main editorial notion of Eslite Bookstore is to construct an orthodox and legitimized legitimate taste domain by the voices of those culturally powerful male experts. It aims to build up a consumer style that is different from the past bourgeois conspicuous consumption and offers certain symbolic repertoires for the pursuit of delicate culture and life.Proclaiming itself as with higher cultural capital, Eslite prefers to involve more cultural activities and discourses to demonstrate its superiority, and to balance practical functions with more style innovations to distinguish itself from peers. In general, Eslite Book Review and Eslite Reader maintain a consistent style that uniquely belongs to Eslite . During the period of Eslite Book Review, it stresses mainly on life attitude, aesthetic style the second; whereas, Eslite Reader puts aesthetic style on the top of life attitude. Neither in these two periods have conventional values been emphasized. Eslite skillfully takes advantage of the existing cultural capital from the academic and expert systems to polish its cultural taste, and then elegantly projects such a cultural taste onto its consumers.By doing so, it successfully attains the identification from the readership and achieves its purpose of accumulating cultural capital and transforming it into economic capital.

Background: Childhood obesity remains a major public health concern. While preventing childhood obesity is important, the effectiveness of existing prevention strategies is indefinite. Important obesity contributors are speculated to be overlooked while the role of well-studied obesity-related factors has been questioned. Objectives: 1) Although the association between lifestyle and obesity is seemingly well-established, how an overlooked dietary factor, breakfast location, associates with obesity was investigated 2) At a time where inconsistencies in findings for the frequently studied association between TV viewing and obesity still exist, this thesis tested for the existence of the said association in the understudied Chinese population 3) The effect of mental health on childhood obesity is understudied. Using self-esteem as a mental health indicator, the effect of self-esteem on childhood obesity was investigated To understand the role of lifestyle factors in the association between self-esteem and obesity, how 4) breakfast habit and 5) TV viewing habit associates with self-esteem was explored Methods: A cohort of 83405 primary 4 (P4) Department of Health Student Health Service participants (49.7% male, mean age 9.9 years) in 1998-2000 were successfully tracked for 2 years into primary 6 (P6). A self-administered health questionnaire collected information on the breakfast and TV habits of participants alongside other lifestyle characteristics. Self-esteem was assessed using the four Culture Free Self-Esteem Inventories for Children (SEI) subscales. Body mass index (BMI) was derived using objectively measured weight and height. Weight status was classified in accordance to International Obesity Task Force standards. Logistic, multinomial logistic and linear regression were used to yield adjusted odds ratios (AOR) and β-coefficients for becoming overweight/obese in P6 (among P4 normal weight children), breakfast skipping/location, TV viewing habit and SEI subscale scores. Breakfast skipping behaviour was tested as a mediator in the association between self-esteem and obesity using standard mediation procedures. Breakfast and TV viewing habits were tested as effect modifiers in the same association by inclusion of interaction terms in models. Results: Among normal weight P4 children, those who skipped breakfast (AOR: 1.24; 95% CI: 1.02 to 1.51) or ate away from home (1.39; 1.20 to 1.60) were more likely to become overweight/obese in P6. Poor self-esteem was also associated with higher AORs for becoming overweight/obese, particularly among girls. While TV viewing in P4 did not predict overweight/obesity in P6, those who increased TV watching hours (≤2h/day to 2h/day) during the two follow-up years were 32% more likely to become overweight/obese in P6 than their counterparts who maintained watching ≤2h/day. Breakfast habit and self-esteem was bi-directionally associated. Although a curvilinear inverted J-shaped relation between P4 TV viewing and P6 self-esteem was observed, self-esteem did not predict TV viewing habit. While neither breakfast nor TV viewing habit significantly interacted with self-esteem to predict obesity, breakfast skipping was found to be a potential partial mediator in the association between self-esteem and obesity. Conclusion: Breakfast location, self-esteem and TV viewing patterns over time are important to consider in relation to childhood obesity. Additionally, the association between self-esteem and obesity could be mediated by lifestyle factors. / published_or_final_version / Community Medicine / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Drawing from Pierre Bourdieu’s socio-cultural approach, this qualitative research project aimed to: (a) understand the responses to current body norms and expectations tied to health and physical appearances amongst underprivileged young women; and; (b) understand to what extent the dominant obesity discourse is inscribed in these women’s bodily habits. Results highlight that participants were aware of the dominant obesity discourse through their perceptions, sentiments, and dispositions towards bodily norms and expectations. Despite their awareness, underprivileged living conditions generated other sets of priorities, such as motherhood, achieving economic stability, completing education, and gaining physical independence which were far greater preoccupations. Underprivileged young women’s ‘choice of the necessary’ is based on optimizing resources and prioritizing needs and responsibilities. Findings support the use of Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts which consider the effects of various aspects of underprivileged living conditions on lifestyles.

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 January 10, 2008) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, [2002]. / "A thesis submitted to the University of Western Sydney in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Health) " Bibliography: leaves 180-229, and Appendices.

Thesis (MAppSc) -- Auckland University of Technology, 2004. / Also held in print (98 leaves, 30 cm.) in Wellesley Theses Collection. (T 613.70993 MIG)