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The purpose of this experiment was to study the self-selected dietary intakes and some of the food practices of twenty-six preadolescent girls as determined from two-week dietary records and to compare the calculated self-selected intakes with Recommended Dietary Allowances of the National Research Council. Subjects between the ages of seven and nine years and in the height-weight range considered normal for this sex-age group were chosen. After different methods of dietary survey were considered the two-week record of food intake was used. Forms and instructions for recording data were given to the mothers and they recorded foods consumed by the subjects in household measurements. Nutrient intakes for each subject were calculated using United States Department of Agriculture Handbook Number 8. The mean dietary intakes for all subjects were equal to or above allowances of the National Research Council. The seven year old group had higher nutrient intakes than the eight or nine year old groups. Food habits were studied. The consumption of about a quart of milk per day per subject and the practice of eating substantial breakfasts were practices to which credit was due for above average rating in nutrient intake. Since girls in this study were to be subjects in a metabolism balance study to follow, it was imperative that their typical food intakes be at least equal to and compare favorably with the average for this age group. Their dietary histories and their physical examinations proved them to be entirely acceptable. / Master of Science

This study evaluated the effects of Project PACE, a program designed to increase physical activity, on the physical activity level and selected psychosocial variables of sedentary adolescent females ages 12 to 18. Psychosocial variables included self efficacy, attitude, perception of barriers, perceived social support, and knowledge. Of the 69 participants, 40 were enrolled in the treatment group and 29 were enrolled in the control group at the start of the study. The only significant differences were found for attitudes towards physical activity at base line. Findings from this study suggest that implementation of Project PACE protocol in school settings may produce some positive effects, but no significant findings were detected.

This study discusses how adolescent Black and Latina girls read the femininities made available in pop culture texts and how they take up those femininities when they narrate personal experiences. The purpose of the study is to explore how girls engage in pop culture on an ongoing basis, how these everyday engagements shape their understandings of themselves as girls, and how these engagements are themselves performances that both maintain and threaten the boundaries between boy and girl. In addition, this study witnesses the deconstruction of those meanings (Derrida, 1967/1997), exploring how attempts to make femininity mean something ultimately undermines itself. As pop culture has come to saturate everyday life, American schools, following the Common Core State Standards’ (NGA, 2010) mandate for curriculum driven by “sufficiently complex,” canonical texts, have narrowed the scope and purposes of literacy instruction in schools. This research serves as a starting point for curricula that support young people in making sense of pop culture and their relationship to it. Situated within a poststructural feminist theoretical framework, this study uses qualitative methods to make the literacy processes through which girls make sense of pop culture texts visible and to elicit narrations of the personal experiences in which girls take up the femininities made available pop culture texts. The findings suggested that girls make sense of these femininities by reading both in-narrative and out-of-narrative—standing back from the text and treating it as a text. In their readings and discussions of pop culture texts, the girls cited and inscribed discourses of femininity, constituting themselves as respectable girls by deliberately making judgments about women’s physical appearance on screen. Specifically, they acted to draw a line between what they saw as appropriate and what they saw as inappropriate. This repetitive act was one way they performed respectable femininity, stabilizing discursive meanings of gender and also holding open the possibility of the line being placed differently. The findings also suggested that storytelling as a site of discursive agency as the distance between the moment of experience and the moment of narration held open the possibility of reformulation and renegotiation of meanings.

This study explores the intrapersonal and interpersonal ecological factors that influence adolescent females' perceptions of sex and the extent to which their perceptions of sex impact onset of sexual intercourse as they mature. Particular attention is given to how depression influences individual, personal and social factors in an adolescent female's life, to shape her attitudes towards sex, and determine her engagement in sex as she reaches young adulthood. Ecological Systems Theory is used to examine the extent to which individual, family, and social factors impact adolescent females' perceptions of sex and onset of sexual intercourse. Data are from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Multinomial logistic regression reveals that the factors associated with less positive perceptions of sex are age, self-esteem, sexual intercourse, religiosity and connection to mother and peers, as well as, depression in combination with religiosity and connection to one's peers. More positive perceptions of sex are linked with depression, connection to one's school, as well as, depression in conjunction with aging and sexual intercourse. Results from the logistic regression analysis determines that less positive perceptions of sex delay onset of sexual intercourse among adolescent females; however, adolescent females' attitudes towards sex vary greatly in determining onset of sexual intercourse as they mature. Furthermore, there is no association between depression and adolescent females' perceptions of sex in predicting onset of sexual intercourse as they progress into young adulthood. The findings from this study suggest that programs focused on shaping attitudes toward sex should assist young women in forming a definite opinion about their decision to have sexual intercourse or abstain from engagement in sexual intercourse. A female's age, sense of self-worth, emotional state, and religiosity as well as the strength of her relationships with parents, peers and school must be considered when addressing her sexual health. This investigation supports the use of Ecological Systems Theory as a useful theoretical framework for examining the factors that influence adolescent females' perceptions of sex and engagement in sexual intercourse. A more cognitive investigation of the relationship between depression and the factors in an adolescent female's life that influence her attitudes towards sex and how depression affects an adolescent female's perception of sex and her decision to engage in sexual intercourse is warranted as this study finds only minor support for the use of Ecological Systems Theory when exploring the association between depression and adolescent female sexual health. / Graduation date: 2006

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri--Columbia, 2003. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 285-308).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 139-148). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 139-148). Also available on the Internet.