Preventive medicine
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Preventive medicine · Nov 1997
The Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project: intervention, evaluation, and baseline results of a diabetes primary prevention program with a native community in Canada.
Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project is a 3-year community-based, primary prevention program for non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus in a Mohawk community near Montreal, Canada. Objectives are to improve healthy eating and encourage more physical activity among elementary school children. ⋯ Implementing a Native community-based diabetes prevention program is feasible through participatory research that incorporates Native culture and local expertise.
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To address limited longitudinal nutrition data on children and adolescents, a self-administered food frequency questionnaire was designed for older children and adolescents. Initially, the Youth/Adolescent Questionnaire (YAQ) was developed and demonstrated to be reproducible. This study was conducted to evaluate its validity. ⋯ A simple self-administered questionnaire completed by older children and adolescents can provide nutritional information about this age group.
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Preventive medicine · Sep 1997
Determinants of obesity in relation to socioeconomic status among middle-aged Swedish women.
It has been previously demonstrated that obesity is common among women with low socioeconomic status (SES), but the factors accounting for this association are not well known. According to our hypothesis, low SES is associated with psychosocial stress, an unhealthy lifestyle, and reproductive history, which may increase the likelihood of women with low SES to be overweight or obese. ⋯ Reproductive history, unhealthy dietary habits, and psychosocial stress accounted for a large part of the association between low SES and obesity. Dietary habits and psychosocial stress are potentially modifiable factors, which should be taken into account in intervention programs among women with low SES.
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A useful way to summarize the placebo-nocebo theme is to consider the tension and interaction between conviction and responsibility. With the conviction of the mainstream biomedical paradigm prevalent today, it would be tempting to say to Dr. Engel's patient: "That question is nonsense. ⋯ Engel was both true to his convictions and responsible for providing the highest standard of care by understanding the patient's convictions and needs for comfort. The biopsychosocial concept provides a blueprint to bring the old-fashioned medical art of "humanness" to modern scientific care. Identifying the interactions of the problem, the person, and the totality of resources permits a focus on therapeutic strategies to promote placebo effects and prevent the consequences of nocebo.