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Factors from social and food environments can influence the food choices of adolescents in ways not experienced during childhood. Evidence suggests these two environments influence adolescents' food choices independently, but there is limited knowledge of how the interplay between these environments influence adolescents' diets. An enhanced understanding of this interplay surrounding adolescent food choice could aid the development of more nuanced interventions and policies. This qualitative study involved 13 online focus groups with adolescents (n = 45) aged 11–18 years, attending secondary school or college in England, UK. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Social experiences which accompanied eating were perceived as more important than the food itself, and fast-food outlets were described as uniquely suited to facilitating these interactions. Young people wanted to spend their money on foods they considered worthwhile, but this did not always relate to the most affordable foods. Adolescents wanted to put little effort into making food decisions and appreciated factors that helped them make quick decisions such as prominent placement and eye-catching promotions on foods they wanted to buy. Chain food outlets were valued as they offered familiar and frequently advertised foods, which minimized the effort needed for food decisions. Adolescents' sense of autonomy underpinned all themes. Participants described having limited opportunities to make their own food choices and they did not want to waste these buying unappealing 'healthy' foods. Interventions and government policies should align with adolescents' experiences and values relating to food choice to ensure that they are effective with this important age group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The current food system in England promotes a population diet that is high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS). To address this, the UK government has implemented legislation to restrict the promotion of HFSS products in prominent locations (e.g. store entrances, checkouts) in qualifying retailers since October 2022. This study investigated the perceived impact of the legislation for affected stakeholders. Methods: A pre-implementation rapid qualitative evaluation of stakeholder interviews. One hundred eight UK stakeholders participated in the study including 34 consumers, 24 manufacturers and retailers, 22 local authority enforcement officers and 28 academic and charitable health representatives. A participatory conference was used to enable policy recommendations to be confirmed by stakeholders. Results: Stakeholders perceived the legislation to be a 'good first step' towards improving population diet but recognised this needed to be considered amongst a range of long-term obesity policies. Areas of further support were identified and these are presented as six recommendations for government to support the successful implementation of the legislation: (1) provide a free central HFSS calculator, (2) refine legislation to enhance intent and clarity, (3) conduct a robust evaluation to assess intended and unintended outcomes, (4) provide greater support for smaller businesses, (5) provide ring-fenced resources to local authorities and (6) create and communicate a long-term roadmap for food and health. Conclusions: This legislation has the potential to reduce impulse HFSS purchases and makes a solid start towards creating healthier retail outlets for consumers. Immediate government actions to create a freely accessible HFSS calculator, support smaller businesses and provide additional resources to local authorities would support successful implementation and enforcement. Independent evaluation of the implementation of the legislation will enable monitoring of potential unintended consequences identified in this study and support refinement of the legislation. A long-term roadmap is necessary to outline strategies to support equal access to healthier and sustainable food across the whole food system within the next 20–30 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines practices of critique and ambivalence among participants in a controversial Latin American investment scheme called the telares de la abundancia ('looms of abundance'). While the dominant discourses about the telares construe them as predatory, participants understand themselves as knowing subjects who reject a worldview based on economic rationality and utility in favour of one based on emotional connectedness. While this emphasis on emotional connection is not unique to the telares, what is remarkable is the central role that doubt plays: the tejedoras (weavers), as they call themselves, assert themselves quite explicitly not only as critical and knowing subjects, but also as profoundly ambivalent subjects who insist upon the incommensurability of emotional connection and financial gain even as they simultaneously pursue both. This article explores how tejedoras confront and deal with their doubts by cultivating practices of ambivalence. In so doing, it foregrounds the multiplicity of people's allegiances and intuitions in contexts marked by competing epistemologies, as is the case not only in Latin America but also in much of the world where illiberalism has become a central concern. Towards that end, the article develops the concept of 'illiberal economies' – spaces in which participants simultaneously pursue contradictory and mutually exclusive forms of value – as a way of shedding light on broader political and economic dynamics that can seem simultaneously (and paradoxically) nonsensical and irrational, on the one hand, and manipulative and instrumental, on the other. In so doing, the article foregrounds the ambivalent dynamics that are at the heart of illiberal economies in order to open up analytic possibilities for grappling with illiberalism more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, disappointment has emerged as a prominent topic of anthropological inquiry and theorization. We explore this disciplinary interest in order to probe the conditions that have made it possible, the lines of inquiry it opens up, and the self-reflexive critiques it underscores. Running throughout the anthropological literature on disappointment is a pressing concern with the messy, unpredictable, and friction-laden dimensions of social life, dimensions that eschew easy categorization in terms of the heroic/abject, agentive/passive, macro/micro, righteous/wrong-headed, or progressive/reactionary. After exploring the conditions that underlie disappointment, we discuss comparison, poetics, and slog as three domains of its anthropological analysis, highlighting key methodological innovations, ethnographic genres, and research questions within each area. We close with reflections on disappointment within the discipline, focusing on the experience of field research, the moral optimism of the discipline, and the institutional conditions that shape knowledge production and professional life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This project aimed to identify the perceptions of body weight that vary by body mass index. First, a qualitative study explored body weight perceptions in 17 individuals with overweight. Second, a questionnaire was developed and completed by a UK sample with body mass index from 16.6 to 59.7 kg/m2 (N = 328). A higher body mass index was associated with perceptions of less personal control and responsibility. Body mass index in females was also associated with three other questionnaire factors and body mass index in males with illness/medication. Thus, body mass index was associated with different perceptions of body weight. Focussing on personal control and responsibility may be useful for treatment and prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our introduction to this special issue, we take stock of where the anthropological literature on corruption has come and where it might go next. Our goal is neither to provide an exhaustive literature review nor to summarize the papers gathered together in this issue. Rather, we aim to identify especially promising areas in need of more focused research and analytic attention and to articulate pressing questions within those areas. Toward that end, we theorize corruption as an object of analysis by framing it as a globalized concept, the practical and social life of which anthropology is especially well suited to study. Finally, we specify how such an approach is especially helpful in disentangling the stubborn problematics that have so persistently dogged both analytic and practical engagements with corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the experience of corruption as an unavoidable and self-destructive dynamic of everyday life in post-crisis Argentina. Embedded in both everyday practices and popular evaluations of those practices, corruption in this context of neoliberal crisis operated as a folk category of socio-moral critique much like witchcraft does in some other settings, for it named a cannibalistic logic that imperiled the very framework of sociality. In order to grasp the reflexive pragmatics of this category, the essay attends first to the conceptual, then to the ethnographic, and finally to the historical dimensions of its practical life. Moving across these three dimensions, it argues that corruption indexed a very particular moral sensibility, marked by the sense of exhausted historical possibilities and inevitable national crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ABSTRACT The 2001-2002 Argentine financial crisis entailed a dramatic currency devaluation. I argue that the devalued peso served as a key site for self-reflexive national critiques, which circulated as a privileged currency of middle-class distinction. This essay engages with the ambivalences of a world of critical practice in which practitioners framed their own critiques as the compulsory labor of a people trapped by a paradoxical monetary reality, posited as socially constructed yet nonetheless inescapable. Tracing the links among disparate modes of signification and evaluation, the essay sketches a post-crisis, middle-class representational economy predicated on these practices of suspicious interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environments need to be designed such that they support successful orientation for older adults and those with dementia who often experience marked difficulties in their orientation abilities. To better understand how environments can compensate for decreasing orientation skills, voice should be given directly to those experiencing dementia to describe how they find their way and to understand their design preferences. This study explored the navigational experiences and design preferences of older adults with memory difficulties living in a retirement development. In-depth semi-structured interviews with 13 older adults experiencing memory difficulties were conducted. All participants were residents of one retirement development in the United Kingdom. Questions began broadly, for example, to describe their experiences of navigating in their living environment, before discussing any specific navigation difficulties in detail. Thematic analysis identified three main themes: highlighting environmental design that causes disorientation, strategies to overcome disorientation, and residents’ suggestions to improve the design. The design suggestions were particularly informative, heavily focusing on the importance of having memorable and meaningful spaces which were favoured more than signage as an orientation aid. The findings demonstrate the need to consider environmental design to support orientation for those with memory difficulties. Of particular importance is the use of meaningful and relevant landmarks as orientation aids which can additionally stimulate conversation and increase wellbeing. Given the range of suggestions in dementia-friendly design guidelines aimed to support orientation, it is crucial to speak directly to those living in different environments to learn how they find their way around and what design works in their environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Digital behaviour change interventions (DBCIs) might offer an opportunity to support people with osteoarthritis (OA) to self-manage and monitor their levels of physical activity (PA). Objectives: To determine the effectiveness of DBCIs for increasing physical activity in people with OA; to identify theory and techniques used; to examine outcome measures for physical activity; to document how uptake and usage is reported. Methods: Electronic databases were searched up to July 2017. Interventions for adults with OA, which aimed to increase levels of physical activity, delivered via a digital platform, were included. Results: Nine studies met the inclusion criteria. Six reported significant increases in physical activity. Interventions were mostly based on Social Cognitive Theory. Numerous behaviour change techniques (BCTs) were used. Most common physical activity outcomes measures were; self-reported aerobic exercise and self-reported strengthening exercises. Two studies used wearable activity monitors. A wide variety of methods were employed to report uptake and usage of DBCIs. Conclusions: Existing DBCIs can have a short-term positive effect on levels of physical activity in this population, but it remains unclear how effective they might be, over a longer period of time. It is vital to document and evaluate how individual components influence the outcome and effectiveness of an intervention. Future interventions should identify BCTs used in the development stages, and use valid measures of both physical activity, and intervention usage, so that results are transparent and comparable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Variants of uncertain significance (VUS) are frequently reclassified but recontacting patients with updated results poses significant resource challenges. We aimed to characterize public and patient preferences for being recontacted with updated results. A discrete choice experiment (DCE) was administered to representative samples of the Canadian public and cancer patients. DCE attributes were uncertainty, cost, recontact modality, choice of results, and actionability. DCE data were analyzed using a mixed logit model and by calculating willingness to pay (WTP) for types of recontact. Qualitative interviews exploring recontact preferences were analyzed thematically. DCE response rate was 60% (n = 1003, 50% cancer patient participants). 31 participants were interviewed (11 cancer patients). Interviews revealed that participants expected to be recontacted. Quantitatively, preferences for how to be recontacted varied based on certainty of results. For certain results, WTP was highest for being recontacted by a doctor with updates ($1075, 95% CI: $845, $1305) and for contacting a doctor to request updates ($1038, 95% CI: $820, $1256). For VUS results, WTP was highest for an online database ($1735, 95% CI: $1224, $2247) and for contacting a doctor ($1705, 95% CI: $1102, $2307). Qualitative data revealed that preferences for provider-mediated recontact were influenced by trust in healthcare providers. Preferences for a database were influenced by lack of trust in providers and desire for control. Patients and public participants support an online database (e.g. patient portal) to recontact for VUS, improving feasibility, and provider-mediated recontact for certain results, consistent with usual care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Osteoarthritis (OA) affects approximately 8.75 million people in the United Kingdom. Physical activity is recommended as a core treatment, yet 44% of people with OA are inactive. Motivation and self‐efficacy for exercise are considered to be key factors contributing to sustained engagement with physical activity. The aim of this study was to explore the beliefs, motives (what an individual aims to attain through participating in physical activity) and gains (what people feel they might get from participation) associated with physical activity engagement in a group of people with OA. Design and method: This study adopted a cross‐sectional survey research design, using two validated questionnaires: the Exercise Motives and Gains Inventory and the Exercise Self‐Efficacy Scale. Results: Data were gathered from 262 people with OA between August 2015 and January 2016. Those who were most active reported higher levels of both motivation and self‐efficacy and were active for enjoyment, to avoid negative health, and for health and fitness reasons. A comparison of motives and gains revealed higher gain scores for social engagement and enjoyment, compared with associated motive scores. Conclusion: This study provides evidence of the central role that motives, gains and self‐efficacy play in facilitating engagement with physical activity in this population. Future interventions should aim to foster increased self‐efficacy for physical activity and promote autonomous forms of motivation by emphasising the importance of choosing activities which are enjoyable, as well as highlighting the value of social engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evolutionary adaptation to extreme environments often requires coordinated changes in multiple intersecting physiological pathways, but how such multi-trait adaptation occurs remains unresolved. Transcription factors, which regulate the expression of many genes and can simultaneously alter multiple phenotypes, may be common targets of selection if the benefits of induced changes outweigh the costs of negative pleiotropic effects. We combined complimentary population genetic analyses and physiological experiments in North American deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) to examine links between genetic variation in transcription factors that coordinate physiological responses to hypoxia (hypoxia-inducible factors, HIFs) and multiple physiological traits that potentially contribute to high-altitude adaptation. First, we sequenced the exomes of 100 mice sampled from different elevations and discovered that several SNPs in the gene Epas1, which encodes the oxygen sensitive subunit of HIF-2α, exhibited extreme allele frequency differences between highland and lowland populations. Broader geographic sampling confirmed that Epas1 genotype varied predictably with altitude throughout the western US. We then discovered that Epas1 genotype influences heart rate in hypoxia, and the transcriptomic responses to hypoxia (including HIF targets and genes involved in catecholamine signaling) in the heart and adrenal gland. Finally, we used a demographically-informed selection scan to show that Epas1 variants have experienced a history of spatially varying selection, suggesting that differences in cardiovascular function and gene regulation contribute to high-altitude adaptation. Our results suggest a mechanism by which Epas1 may aid long-term survival of high-altitude deer mice and provide general insights into the role that highly pleiotropic transcription factors may play in the process of environmental adaptation. Author summary: Adaptation often requires coordinated evolutionary changes across multiple dynamic systems to maintain physiological function. For example, high-altitude habitats place a premium on tissue-oxygen delivery to cope with limited oxygen availability (hypoxia). Circulatory O2 transport is regulated dynamically, changing on the order of seconds, and results from several interacting physiological processes. The mechanisms of adaptation in such complex phenotypes are poorly understood. One promising candidate is the gene Epas1, which encodes a transcription factor that regulates physiological responses to hypoxia. We used population genomic analyses and physiological assays to explore the connections between Epas1 genetic variation and physiological function in high-altitude deer mice, which exhibit evolutionary adaptations to hypoxia. We identified a mutation in Epas1 that is associated with variation in cardiovascular function: the predominant variant at high altitude is associated with the maintenance of an elevated heart rate under hypoxia and with differences in the expression of genes that influence heart rate and are regulated by Epas1. Our population genomic analyses demonstrated that Epas1 exhibits a signature of natural selection at high altitude, suggesting that these phenotypic effects influence Darwinian fitness. Our results suggest that adaptation in complex and dynamic traits may be attributable to relatively simple genetic changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: People with eating disorders can have low motivation to change their eating disorder behaviors. Interventions aiming to enhance motivation to change have been increasingly advocated in their treatment. Questions remain regarding the strength of the evidence supporting the effectiveness of interventions that specifically focus on improving motivation. This review explored the evidence for improving motivation to change in eating disorders via clinical interventions. Method: Searches of the published and unpublished literature were conducted by searching databases (PubMed, PsychInfo, Web of Science) and trial registries (WHO ICTRP), and by contacting authors. Studies were included if they investigated an intervention for eating disorder patients, included a pre‐post outcome measure of motivation to change and were published in English. Risk of bias was also assessed. Results: Forty‐two studies were included in the final review. Evidence was found to support the use of interventions to improve motivation to change, though it was unclear whether motivational interventions present a more effective option than approaches that do not exclusively or specifically focus on motivation. However, motivational interventions were identified as being more effective than low intensity treatments. Risk of bias in included studies was generally high. Discussion: Motivation was found to increase across treatments in general, whether or not the focus of the intervention was on enhancing motivation. It is unclear if interventions specifically targeting motivation to change provide additional benefit over and above established treatment approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, Turkey has witnessed the proliferation of new means for representing and mourning the Armenian genocide. This essay examines how the practice of criticizing historical atrocity, central to discourses of human rights, is itself institutionally regimented. Exploring the institutional impetus for critique, the essay offers a theoretical framework for understanding how oppositional groups challenge the parameters that designate the legitimate objects of critique. I focus attention on what I term an uncanny medium of critique, that is, a representational medium that makes the form of its publicity appear at once familiar and unsettling. The medium in question has been developed by the Saturday Mothers--a group that regularly gathers to publicize forcible disappearances that took place largely in Kurdish-majority provinces in the 1980s and 1990s. More recently, the organization has begun to publicly commemorate the deportation and killing of Armenians in 1915. The essay analyzes how the vigils evoke even as they unsettle ideological boundaries that are constitutive of social life in the contemporary nation-state--between public and private, the political and the domestic, and the past and the present. The Saturday Mothers mobilize the discourse of kinship and motherhood that has undergirded a militarized nationalism, but they do so for the sake of claiming familial responsibility for Armenians who have been historically defined as an ethnicized enemy. The group's practices allow us to place at the center of anthropological analysis moments of semiotic opacity, in which the medium that facilitates and undergirds social transactions becomes densely, even disruptively, apparent as a figure within that social field. With the concept of an uncanny medium, I suggest that opacity in mediation can be socially generative and put to political work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Tobacco and non-tobacco-based waterpipe smoking has increased exponentially in many countries in recent decades, particularly among youth and young adults. Although tobacco smoking is banned in many indoor public places, waterpipe smoking, ostensibly non-tobacco, continues in Ontario and other jurisdictions where only tobacco smoking is prohibited. This study assessed air quality and exposure in waterpipe cafes using multiple methods and markers. Methods Indoor (n=12) and outdoor (n=5) air quality was assessed in Toronto, Canada waterpipe cafes from 30 August to 11 October 2012. Real-time measurements of air nicotine, fine particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in diameter (PM2.5) and ambient carbon monoxide (CO) were collected in 2 h sessions. Levels of CO in breath were collected in non-smoking field staff before entering and upon leaving venues. Observations of occupant behaviour, environmental changes and venue characteristics were also recorded. Results In indoor venues, mean values were 1419 mg/m3 for PM2.5, 17.7 ppm for ambient CO, and 3.3 mg/m3 for air nicotine. Levels increased with increasing number of active waterpipes. On outdoor patios, mean values were 80.5 mg/m3 for PM2.5, 0.5 ppm for ambient CO, and 0.6 mg/m3 for air nicotine. Air quality levels in indoor waterpipe cafes are hazardous for human health. Outdoor waterpipe cafes showed less harmful particulate levels than indoors, but mean PM2.5 levels (80.5 mg/m3) were still ‘poor'. Conclusions Staff and patrons of waterpipe cafes are exposed to air quality levels considered hazardous to human health. Results support eliminating waterpipe smoking in hospitality venues indoors and out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to determine if and how photoproducts contribute to the antitumor effect of merocyanine-mediated PDT. A panel of barbituric, thiobarbituric and selenobarbituric acid analogues of Merocyanine 540 was photobleached, and the resulting photoproducts were characterized by absorption, fluorescence emission, mass, energy dispersive X-ray, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and tested for cytotoxic activity against tumor cell lines and freshly explanted bone marrow cells. While all dyes were readily photobleached, only photoproducts of selone dyes showed cytotoxic activity. One-hour incubations with micromolar concentrations of selone-derived photoproducts were sufficient to reduce leukemia/lymphoma cells ≥10 000 fold, whereas preserving virtually all normal CD34-positive bone marrow cells. Of six multidrug-resistant tumor cell lines tested, five were as sensitive or more sensitive to photoproducts than the corresponding wild-type lines. Physicochemical characterizations of the cytotoxic activity indicated that it consisted of conjugates of subnano particles of elemental selenium and (lipo)proteins. The discovery of cytotoxic Se-protein conjugates provides a rare example of photoproducts contributing substantially to the antitumor effect of PDT and challenges the long-held view that Se in oxidation state zero is biologically inert. Agents modeled after our Se-protein conjugates may prove useful for the treatment of leukemia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]