1,720,965 research outputs found

    Does Physical Activity and Sport Practice Lead to a Healthier Lifestyle and Eating Habits in Male Adolescents?

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    The prevalence of childhood obesity has been increasing rapidly and there is general consensus that good nutritional practices and physical activity should be encouraged as early as possible in life. The aim of this study was to describe and to compare the current lifestyle and dietary pattern of normal weight (NW) and overweight + obese (OW+OB) male adolescents who are physically active. This observational and retrospective study was based on clinical records analysis of male adolescents aged 11-18 years who had undergone a medical evaluation at a Medical Sport Centre (Pavia, Italy) during 2009, and had filled in a self-administered life style questionnaire. The results showed that out of 1423 clinical records 23.0% of subjects were OW, 5.4% OB and 71.6% NW. We invited all the overweight and obese subjects to participate in the study, 308 of them (75.8%) agreed. Then we randomly enrolled an equivalent num-ber of NW participants (n=308) in the medical evaluation at the sports center with similar characteristics as for socio-economic status, physical activity and age for a whole sample of 616 subjects. We handled them a validated lifestyle questionnaire. The questionnaire analysis was used to compare OW+OB and NW participants, as far as eating habits, sedentary activities and time spent in sports. All the subjects frequently skipped breakfast, did not consume fruit and vegetables daily and had a high soft drinks intake. Inverse correla-tions were found between weight and physical activity (p=0.01). Sedentary activities were preferred by about 25% and 66 % of the NW and OW+OB groups respectively. The percentage of smokers was similar within the two groups (14%). Conclusions: Adolescents eating habits are incorrect, despite BMI and sports practice. Sports practice seems contributing to lower spare time physical inactivity, but does not improve eating habits. Public health interventions should focus on the reinforcement of lei-sure time physical activity, besides nutrition education and behavioral education programs in order to prevent obesity in the adulthood

    Epicardial Fat Thickness: threshold values and lifestyle association in male adolescents

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    Abstract BACKGROUND: Obese adolescents with high proportion of visceral fat are at higher risk of developing the metabolic syndrome. OBJECTIVES: The study aims to investigate if echocardiographic epicardial fat thickness (EF) could be predictive of visceral obesity (VO) early in life and to provide EF threshold values specific for male adolescents. Further aim was to investigate the association between EF, lifestyle and metabolic disease familiarity. METHODS: Anthropometric data were collected from 102 normal weight and overweight, healthy male adolescents (mean age: 14.91 ± 1.98 years); bioelectrical impedance analysis and transthoracic echocardiogram were performed in the same sample. Each participant fulfilled a validated self-administered lifestyle questionnaire. RESULTS: We found higher EF values in sedentary adolescents (P < 0.05), in those who never eat fruit and vegetables (P < 0.05), and in those with overweight mothers (P < 0.05). The strongest independent predictor of EF was waist circumference (P < 0.0001). Using the waist to height ratio as a marker of VO, logistic regression analysis revealed that 1 mm EF gain is responsible for seven times higher VO risk (P < 0.0001). Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis showed that the optimal cut-off for EF thickness associated to youth VO is 3.2 mm. CONCLUSION: Ultrasonography EF measurement might be a second-level assessment tool, useful to detect early cardiometabolic damage stage

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Variations on the Author

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    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis

    Determinants of Binge Eating Symptoms in Children with Overweight/Obesity

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    BACKGROUND: Examining binge eating symptoms before the diagnosis of binge eating disorder in children with obesity could provide important information on prevention of future eating disorders. METHODS: We examined the prevalence and multilevel determinants of three binge eating symptoms: (1) sneaking, hiding, or hoarding food; (2) eating in the absence of hunger, and (3) inhibition or embarrassment when eating in front of others among 817 children aged 5-12 years old with overweight/obesity receiving primary care in eastern Massachusetts. We examined the associations of child and parent/household characteristics with the prevalence ratios (PRs) of these three binge eating symptoms. RESULTS: Approximately one-third of parents reported that their children would sneak, hide, or hoard food; 40% ate large amounts in the absence of hunger; and 8% were inhibited/embarrassed when eating in front of others. In multivariate analyses, greater screen time was associated with a higher prevalence of sneaking, hiding, or hoarding (PR 1.06, 95% CI: 1.01-1.11). We found that children with severe obesity (PR 1.50, 95% CI: 1.24-1.81 vs. nonsevere obesity) had higher prevalence of eating in the absence of hunger. Increased hours of screen time were associated with higher prevalence of eating in the absence of hunger, (PR: 1.07, 95% CI: 1.03-1.11), whereas longer sleep duration (PR: 0.90, 95% CI: 0.82-0.99) was associated with lower prevalence of eating in the absence of hunger. CONCLUSIONS: Eating in the absence of hunger was the most common symptom in our sample and was associated with screen time and sleep

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more sophisticated methods
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