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To discover whether positive affect and purpose in life (eudaimonic well-being) are associated with good sleep independently of health problems and socioeconomic status, and to evaluate their role in mediating the influence of psychosocial risk factors on poor sleep.A cross-sectional study was carried out with 736 men and women aged 58-72 years, with positive affect assessed by aggregating ecological momentary samples. Sleep problems were assessed with the Jenkins Sleep Problems Scale, and psychosocial risk factors were measured by standardized questionnaires.Both positive affect and eudaimonic well-being were inversely associated with sleep problems after adjustment for age, gender, household income, and self-rated health (P.001). Negative psychosocial factors including financial strain, social isolation, low emotional support, negative social interactions, and psychological distress were also related to reported sleep problems. The strength of these associations was reduced by 20-73% when positive affect and eudaimonic well-being were taken into account, suggesting that effects were partly mediated by positive psychological states.These results suggest that both positive affect and eudaimonic well-being are directly associated with good sleep and may buffer the impact of psychosocial risk factors. The relationships are likely to be bidirectional, with disturbed sleep engendering lower positive affect and reduced psychological well-being, and positive psychological states promoting better sleep.

Eight hundred and forty-six children from multi-cultural schools in neighbourhoods of differing socio-economic background were interviewed concerning their attitudes to weight and eating. The results suggested that weight concern was high in the girls, with more than 50% feeling too fat and wanting to lose weight. The levels of weight concern were almost as high in the 11 year olds as in the 18 year olds, which suggests that weight concerns are beginning earlier than in the past. White girls reported more concern than black or Asian girls. Girls from higher SES background schools showed more concern than those from lower SES schools, although they were actually slimmer. Dieting was also more common in the girls and especially so in white girls and in those from the higher SES schools. However, it was not as common as has been found in North American samples. Within the field of psychological problems these results are unusual in finding evidence for less difficulty in the children from the least socially and culturally privileged backgrounds.

Objective This study aims to assess the mood changes induced by mild acute inflammatory stimulation (typhoid vaccination). Methods Using a double blind study design, 26 healthy volunteers underwent baseline assessments of mood, financial strain and work stress and were randomised to injection of Salmonella typhi vaccine or placebo injection. Mood, symptoms and body temperature was assessed by a modified version of the Profile of Mood States at 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8 h post injection. Results Typhoid vaccination induces no increases in physical symptoms or temperature. Mood improved over the day in the placebo but not in the vaccine condition. Negative changes in mood following injection were correlated with chronic stress (financial strain) in the vaccination condition ( r =−.65, P Conclusion A mild acute inflammatory stimulus induces transient negative mood, and responses were modulated by chronic stress. Implications for depressed mood in physical illness are discussed.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the associations between work stress and nutritional status in relation to dietary restraint in a community sample of adults. Methods: The design included a cross-sectional and a longitudinal study element. Ninety staff members (58 women and 32 men) of a large department store were assessed on four occasions over a 6-month period with measures of diet, weight, and perceived stress. Work stress was indexed in terms of the hours of work over the past 7 days, which provided an objective indicator of demand. Results: Participants worked an average of 47 hours on the high-work-stress session compared with 32 hours on the low-work-stress session. The highest work-stress session was compared with the lowest work-stress session in the longitudinal analyses, and the moderating effects of gender and restrained eating were examined. High-workload periods were associated with higher energy and saturated fat and sugar intake. There was a significant moderating effect of restrained eating, with a hyperphagic response to work stress in restrained eaters, compared with no effect in unrestrained eaters. Conclusion: The results indicate that the associations between restraint and stress-induced eating that have been observed in the laboratory extend to the real-life setting. They raise the possibility that restrained eaters are particularly vulnerable to adverse effects of stress on health, through influences on food intake.

The debate about possible adverse effects associated with low or lowered serum cholesterol has raised important scientific questions concerning the links between lipids and behaviour. One of the most unexpected findings has been an association between cholesterol-lowering treatment and accidental death. A similar association has also emerged among the prospective cohort studies, with higher-than-expected numbers of suicide deaths in the lowest cholesterol groups. These observations have prompted speculation that behavioural or emotional disturbances could be part of the process linking lipids and accidental death. In this paper, the epidemiological literature is reviewed briefly, then the evidence for depression as a mediating condition is discussed. Two conclusions are drawn from this review of the literature. One is that understanding the relationship between the biology of lipids and the psychobiology of mood is demonstrably an important scientific and public health issue. The second is that the introduction of new treatments or preventive programmes should include a careful evaluation of the psychological as well as the physical effects.

The present study evaluated body image, body satisfaction and dieting practices in pregnancy: a stage of life when social pressures for slimness might be expected to be relaxed. Pregnant women had lower scores on the Drive for Thinness subscale of the Eating Disorder Inventory, and when Body Mass Index was controlled for, had significantly lower Body Dissatisfaction Scale scores than non-pregnant women. They also rated themselves as less overweight in terms of body size. Dietary restraint was lower and current attempts to lose wieght were less frequent in the pregnant group. However, there was no evidence that pregnancy was associated with any relaxation of body image ideals: pregnant women chose a similar size of figure to non-pregnant women as their ideal. These results suggest that the state of pregnancy can be associated with reduced weight concern despite an increased body size, but the effect appears to be state-dependent and is not mediated by shifts in body size ideals.

The benefits of cancer screening programmes accrue to those who have cancer or identifiable precancerous conditions, and in whom the disease progression is slowed or halted by earlier intervention. The costs accrue to the rest of the population for whom there is no direct benefit to health. Attention has been given to the medical risks of screening procedures and to the economic costs, but there has been very little regard paid to the psychological costs. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the psychological impact of screening. Screening participants who are found to have untreatable disease, or for whom the interventions prove ineffective, have a greater proportion of their life as a cancer patient with all the associated psychological (and perhaps physical) distress, but no increase in their life expectancy. Those who receive false positive results may experience acute psychological distress produced by the prospect of a grave diagnosis before they are found to be free from serious disease. Even the procedure of screening itself, with the disturbance of the invitation, the discomfort of the tests and the wait for the diagnosis, can have a significant impact upon some patients. This paper evaluates the psychological costs which may be involved across the whole screening procedure, from the possible alarm of receiving an invitation to participate in screening, to the trauma of a cancer diagnosis for someone who had been unaware of any symptoms.

This study is a validation of the Dutch Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (DEBQ). Results from normal men and women confirmed the presence of three robust factors of restraint, emotional eating and external eating. Data from women attending 'weightwatchers', and patients with diagnoses of anorexia nervosa and bulimia indicated that the DEBQ was largely successful in identifying the eating styles which are thought to characterise these three client groups. The results were also evaluated in the light of predictions from restraint theory which suggest that chronic restraint is causally related to higher levels of externality and emotional eating.

Eating behaviour, unlike many other biological functions, is often subject to sophisticated cognitive regulation. One of the most widely practised forms of cognitive control over food intake is dieting, i.e. attempting to restrict intake as a means of weight regulation. In this paper the development of dieting will be discussed, followed by an evaluation of the impact of cognitive control on food intake regulation. Cross-sectional studies, comparing dieters with non-dieters, suggest that dieting is linked with a variety of disturbances of food intake control, and that it may even provoke paradoxical overeating. An experimental investigation of the link between cognitive control and paradoxical overeating will also be discussed, along with the implications of this work for the understanding and treatment of eating disorders.

Sensation information, perceived control and distraction were compared with routine dentistry in a study of the effect of psychological context on pain and anxiety during dental treatment. The results indicated that the provision of sensation information was the most effective treatment.