Peer sexual harassment among 10-year-olds: Roles, genders, classroom occurrence, and associations with emotional problems.

This is the first study examining peer sexual harassment among 10-year-olds (N = 985), studying how being a victim, perpetrator, or witness relates to emotional problems, and how these associations are moderated by gender and class occurrence of sexual harassment. Results showed that 45% of the participants reported victimization, 17% perpetration, and 60% witnessing sexual harassment, with vast overlaps between roles. Victimization and witnessing were related to more emotional problems. Victimized girls reported more emotional problems than boys, but girls who perpetrated reported fewer emotional problems than boys. Associations between peer sexual harassment and emotional problems varied across classrooms. Our findings highlight the occurrence of peer sexual harassment in younger ages, emphasizing an ecological perspective when addressing it in school.

Peer sexual harassment, appearance esteem, and emotional problems: Testing a mediation model across early adolescence.

This study used a longitudinal sample of early adolescent boys and girls (ages 10-12; N = 1113) to test a theoretically and empirically informed model suggesting that exposure to peer sexual harassment (age 10) predicts more emotional problems (age 12), and that lower appearance esteem (age 11) mediates this relation. On the within-person level, which is the level on which the processes theoretically should play out, we found no support for the proposed mediation model for boys or for girls. Unexpectedly, we found that following times of more exposure to peer sexual harassment than usual, early adolescents instead experienced higher appearance esteem and fewer emotional problems than usual. More research is needed to replicate and understand these unexpected findings.

Being Under Pressure to Sext: Adolescents' Experiences, Reactions, and Counter-Strategies.

This study explored adolescents' experiences of being under pressure to sext (sending nude images), offering insights into what situations adolescents view as pressuring, how adolescents react to the pressure, and what counter-strategies they use. Written statements from 225 adolescents (age 13-16 years, M = 14.4 years, SD = 0.93) were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results indicated a range of situations including both explicit and implicit pressure. The pressure elicited different emotional responses, including severe physical and psychological reactions, becoming distressed, and being seemingly unconcerned. A majority of the adolescents reported successful strategies on how to ward off the unwanted sexual requests. This study provides insight into how young people cope with potentially harmful situations online.

Sexual revictimization by peers in school and organized activity contexts among adolescents: A 3-year longitudinal study.

Based on sexual revictimization theory, this study investigates the role of individual characteristics (e.g., depression and subjective well-being) and contextual factors (school and organized activities) in the development of sexual harassment revictimization among Swedish Grade 7 (46% girls; Mage = 14.09) adolescents who were followed over 3 consecutive years. The analytic sample comprises adolescents in the school context (T1 N = 678, T2 N = 563, and T3 N = 471) and in organized free-time activity contexts (T1 n = 443, T2 n = 400, and T3 n = 356). Our findings suggest that adolescents with experiences of sexual harassment victimization in Grade 7 were at an increased risk of being sexually revictimized the following 2 years across the two distinct developmental contexts. Further, our results reveal that adolescents are more sexually harassed by their peers in organized activity contexts both concurrently and over time if they were victims of sexual harassment in the school context and the other way around. The findings underscore the need for sexual harassment prevention interventions to consider different developmental contexts simultaneously and to focus on the history of adolescents' experiences of victimization. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Assessing the quality of life of health-referred children and adolescents with short stature: development and psychometric testing of the QoLISSY instrument.

BACKGROUND: When evaluating the outcomes of treatment in paediatric endocrinology, the health-related quality of life (HrQoL) of the child is to be taken into consideration. Since few self-reported HrQoL instruments exist for children with diagnosed short stature (dSS), the objective of this study was to develop and psychometrically test a targeted HrQoL instrument for use in multinational clinical research. METHODS: The target population were short stature (height<-2 SDS) children and adolescents (age 8-12 and 13-18 years) with a diagnosis of growth hormone deficiency (GHD) or idiopathic short stature (ISS), differing in growth hormone treatment status. Focus group discussions for concept and item generation, piloting of the questionnaire with cognitive debriefing, and instrument field testing with a retest were conducted simultaneously in five countries. After qualitative and preliminary quantitative analyses, psychometric testing of field test data in terms of reliability and validity including confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) was performed. RESULTS: Following item generation from focus group discussions, 124 items were included in a pilot test with a cognitive debriefing exercise providing preliminary feedback on item and domain operating characteristics. A field test with 268 participants showed high internal consistency reliabilities (alpha 0.82-0.95), good correlations with generic measures (up to r=.58), significant known group differences (e.g. in height: F=32, df 244, p<0.001) and an acceptable CFA model fit suggesting construct validity of the three-domain core structure with 22 items, supplemented by three mediator domains with 28 items. CONCLUSIONS: The QoLISSY questionnaire is a promising step forward in assessing the impact of dSS on HrQoL. It is based on items generated from the subjective experience of short stature children referred for endocrine investigation, is validated for use in five languages and it is easy to administer in clinical and research settings.

Unexcused absence from physical education in elementary school. On the role of autonomous motivation and body image factors.

Physical education (PE) is an essential school subject due to its potential to promote well-being and health in all children. Yet, PE stands out among other subjects in terms of truancy. This study is one of the first to examine if unexcused absence from PE is associated with early adolescents' body image and autonomous motivation towards PE. A total of 526 Swedish 6th graders (Mage = 12.28, SD = 0.31) reported the frequency of unexcused absence from PE and answered questions about aesthetic and functional body image, social physique anxiety, and autonomous motivation. Findings showed that unexcused absence from PE was associated with less autonomous motivation and higher social physique anxiety. Participants who had never been absent reported higher functional body image investment and satisfaction. Analyses showed that whereas the aesthetic aspects of body image were associated with decreased autonomous motivation toward PE, functional aspects predicted higher autonomous motivation. The study sheds novel light on the links between absence from PE, body image, and autonomous motivation. As absence may have real-life practical effects for school achievement, health, and well-being, the findings demonstrate the importance of mitigating social physique anxiety and promoting an inclusive and body positive PE context early on.

The effect of implant loss after immediate breast reconstruction on patient satisfaction with outcome and quality of life after five years - a case-control study.

Several advantages have been suggested for immediate breast reconstruction (IBR); however, there is little scientific high-quality evidence confirming those advantages. Disadvantages of IBR, compared to delayed breast reconstruction (DBR), include an increased risk for complications, such as implant loss (prevalence 5-10% vs. 1%). Little is known on how women experience implant loss and how it affects patients' long-term satisfaction and quality of life (QoL). The primary aim of our study was to compare patient satisfaction and QoL of women with implant loss after IBR, with that of women with a successful IBR. Breast-Q, Body Esteem Scale for Adults and Adolescents (BESAA) and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) were sent to women who had experienced implant loss during the last 10 years. Women of a similar age who were reconstructed, without complications, during the same period were controls. The results suggest that there might be a more permanent negative effect on satisfaction and QoL following implant loss. The proportion of possible cases of depression was higher among patients who had experienced implant loss. The findings could indicate that in patients with an elevated risk for implant loss, the possible benefits with IBR should be carefully balanced against the effects of implant loss.

Validation and reliability testing of the BREAST-Q expectations questionnaire in Swedish.

TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT04714463, 19 January 2021 Patient and public contribution: All the data were generated directly from patients.

Offender strategies for engaging children in online sexual activity.

BACKGROUND: Following technological developments, there has been increasing interest in online offenders' use of digital communication technology to sexually groom and abuse children. However, research has thus far primarily explored offenders' interactions with decoys instead of actual children, and initial evidence indicates that conversations with actual children may include more overt persuasion and extortion than conversations with decoys. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to describe online offenders' interactions with actual children when inciting them to engage in online sexual activity. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: Swedish court judgements including 50 offenders (aged 16-69, median = 28.9) and 122 child victims (aged 7-17, median = 13.0) were analyzed. METHODS: By using an explorative mixed-methods approach, we thematically analyzed what strategies the children were exposed to, and looked for patterns between the strategy used and the characteristics of the abuse, victim, or offender. RESULTS: We identified two types of strategies that the children were exposed to: pressure (threats, bribes, or nagging, N = 56), and sweet-talk (flattery, acting as a friend, or expressing love, N = 25). Overall, the offenders who used pressure were younger and targeted older children than the offenders who used sweet-talk. CONCLUSIONS: This study expands the existing knowledge about the variety of manipulative strategies used by online offenders and adds support to the initial literature showing substantially more pressure and coercion in online offenders' interactions with actual children. The study also identifies some patterns between the strategy used and the age of the offender and victim that warrant further investigation in future studies.

"All of Me Is Completely Different": Experiences and Consequences Among Victims of Technology-Assisted Child Sexual Abuse.

The aim of the present study was to gain a first-person perspective on the experiences of technology-assisted child sexual abuse (TA-CSA), and a deeper understanding of the way it may affect its victims. Seven young women (aged 17-24) with experience of TA-CSA before the age of 18 participated in individual in-depth interviews. The interviews were teller-focused with the aim of capturing the interviewee's own story about how they made sense of their experiences over time, and what impact the victimization had on them in the short and long terms. Thematic analysis of the interviews revealed a broad range of abusive experiences that had profoundly impacted the individuals' lives, health and self-concepts. Three dominant themes emerged from the analysis - From thrilling to abusive, Negative effect on health and wellbeing, and A new self after the abuse. From thrilling to abusive captures the wide range of experiences described, starting from the child's own sexual curiosity to descriptions of having been manipulated or threatened into engaging in sexual activity, as well as the sometimes long and complex process of understanding the severity of one's experiences. Negative effect on health and wellbeing describes the victimization's comprehensive impact on the life and health of the participants, how they blamed themselves for what had happened, and the struggle of having to live with the constant fear of pictures from the abuse resurfacing. A new self after the abuse depicts how the victimization impacted the way participants viewed and thought about themselves in relation to others, and distorted their views of their bodies. The findings are discussed in relation to previous research on both offline CSA and TA-CSA, as well as theoretical and practical implications.

Study protocol for PRISE: a longitudinal study of sexual harassment during the transition from childhood to adolescence.

BACKGROUND: Sexual harassment is a widespread problem with serious consequences for individuals and societies. It is likely that sexual harassment among peers has its main onset during the transition from late childhood to early adolescence, when young people enter puberty. However, there is a lack of systematic research on sexual harassment during this developmental period. Thus, there is very little information about the prevalence of sexual harassment during this important transition, its consequences, and how to effectively intervene against and prevent the problem. The primary objective of the described project, entitled Peer Relations In School from an Ecological perspective (PRISE), is to examine sexual harassment and its developmental correlates during the transition from late childhood to early adolescence. METHODS: The PRISE study has a longitudinal design over 3 years, in which a cohort of children (N = 1000) and their main teachers (N = 40) fill out questionnaires in grades 4, 5, and 6. The questionnaires assess aspects of peer sexual harassment and potential correlates including biological (e.g., pubertal development), psychosocial (e.g., self-assertiveness, self-image, peer relations), and contextual (e.g., classroom climate, norms) factors. In addition, we will examine school readiness and policies in relation to sexual harassment and collect register data to assess the number of reports of sexual harassment from the participating schools. DISCUSSION: The PRISE study will enable the researchers to answer fundamental, unresolved questions about the development of sexual harassment and thus advance the very limited understanding of sexual harassment during the transition from childhood to adolescence - a central period for physical, sexual, and social development. Due to the sensitive nature of the main research concepts, and the age of the participants, the ethical aspects of the research need particular attention. Ultimately, the hope is that the PRISE study will help researchers, policy makers, and practitioners develop, and implement, knowledge that may help in combating a major, current societal challenge and adverse aspect of young people's developmental ecologies.

What can my body do vs. how does it look?: A qualitative analysis of young women and men's descriptions of their body functionality or physical appearance.

The aim of this study was to explore the themes that emerge when individuals are asked to describe their body functionality, and those that emerge when individuals are asked to describe their physical appearance. Data were gathered from undergraduate women and men's (N = 75, Mage = 20.66) responses to a writing exercise (Alleva et al., 2014), wherein they were either asked to describe their body functionality or their physical appearance. Through thematic analysis, six themes were identified from participants' descriptions of their body functionality (ordered by frequency): (a) evaluating the functionality of the body, (b) positive body-self connection, (c) resilient body, (d) comparisons to the norm, (e) body behind the scenes, and (f) enjoyment of body functions. Five themes were identified from participants' descriptions of their physical appearance (ordered by frequency): (a) comparisons to the norm, (b) evaluating the appearance of the body - own evaluations, (c) evaluating the appearance of the body - other people's evaluations, (d) the body project, and (e) appearance appreciation. Overall, the findings suggest that the themes that emerge when people are asked to reflect on their body functionality tend to be more positive, as they can be linked to positive embodiment, gratitude, and less self-objectification.

Performance or appearance? Young female sport participants' body negotiations.

The aim of this qualitative study was to examine young female sport participants' experiences and thoughts in terms of sport, their bodies, and social appearance norms. Six focus groups with female sport participants (N=25) from Sweden were conducted. Participants raised many positive experiences in relation to their sport participation, but they also witnessed a conflict in the intersection between the culture within their sport (emphasizing physical performance) and the culture outside their sport (emphasizing physical appearance). Through thematic analysis, four themes illustrating the balancing act between these two cultures were formed: (a) the performing body versus the objectified body, (b) food as fuel versus source of shame, (c) appreciation of body type diversity versus appearance prejudice, and (d) empowerment and agency versus disempowerment and restraints. The findings of this study indicate that young women who engage in sport have to face complex, ambiguous, and restricting norms and notions.

Acceptance of cosmetic surgery, body appreciation, body ideal internalization, and fashion blog reading among late adolescents in Sweden.

This study examined adolescents' attitudes of cosmetic surgery, as well as the relationships between these attitudes, body appreciation, body ideal internalization, and fashion blog reading. The sample comprised 110 (60 boys, 50 girls) late adolescents (mean age 16.9 years) from a Swedish high school. The results indicated that younger adolescents seem somewhat more accepting of cosmetic surgery. This was especially the case for boys' acceptance of social motives for obtaining cosmetic surgery (boys' M=2.3±1.55 vs. girls' M=1.7±0.89). Girls', and to a limited extent boys', internalization of the thin ideal was related to more favorable cosmetic surgery attitudes. Athletic ideal internalization and body appreciation were unrelated to these attitudes. Finally, girls who frequently read fashion blogs reported higher thin ideal internalization, and also demonstrated a slight tendency of more cosmetic surgery consideration.

On being victimized by peers in the advent of adolescence: prospective relationships to objectified body consciousness.

Previous research indicates that peer victimization is tied to children's negative appearance evaluations. The current study examines whether early peer victimization is also prospectively related to objectified body consciousness. Six-hundred-and-two Swedish boys and girls answered questionnaires at age 10, and again at age 18. Main findings showed that being the target of peer victimization at age 10 was related to more habitual appearance monitoring and body shame at age 18. Gender moderated the relations between victimization and body shame, with victimized girls experiencing stronger body shame than victimized boys. Additionally, whereas boys experienced less body shame than girls, they were equally likely to monitor their appearance. In sum, this study provides preliminary support to the notion that peer victimization is involved in the processes by which young adolescents' self-objectify. Future studies are warranted to further validate these findings.

Ten-year-old girls' and boys' body composition and peer victimization experiences: prospective associations with body satisfaction.

This study examined prospective associations between 10-year-olds' weight and height, their perception of shape and stature, frequent experiences of peer victimization, and different aspects of body esteem at age 13. Participants were 474 girls and 400 boys participating in a two-wave longitudinal questionnaire study. Main results were that whereas actually being heavier built at age 10 was associated with girls' increments in body dissatisfaction, the mere perception of being too heavy was associated with boys' poorer body satisfaction. Also, boys who believed that they were too short were more dissatisfied at follow-up. Whereas frequent peer victimization had long-term associations with girls' weight-esteem, teasing targeted towards appearance was associated with boys' more negative beliefs about what others think about their appearance. Finally, participants had become significantly more dissatisfied at age 13, suggesting that this is a time in life when both girls and boys risk becoming increasingly critical towards their appearance.

Dieting behaviors, body shape perceptions, and body satisfaction: cross-cultural differences in Argentinean and Swedish 13-year-olds.

This exploratory study represents a cross-cultural effort to examine differences in dieting practices and weight loss attempts, perceived body shape, and body satisfaction between young Argentinean and Swedish adolescents. The study group consisted of 358 Argentinean (193 girls, 165 boys) and 874 Swedish (474 girls, 400 boys) 13-year-olds. A main finding was that Argentinean and Swedish adolescents did not differ on body satisfaction, although girls in both countries displayed greater body dissatisfaction than did boys. Dieting and weight loss attempts were more prevalent among the Argentinean adolescents, especially among girls, and did not appear to depend on overweight or perception of body shape. The samples also differed in their perceptions of body shape and the effect those perceptions had on their body satisfaction, with Swedish adolescents suffering more from negative body shape perceptions.

Is peer victimization related to body esteem in 10-year-old girls and boys?

Several studies show that a history of exposure to appearance-related teasing is linked to body dissatisfaction. This study extends those findings by examining the impact of bullying, and other forms of peer victimization, on different aspects of 10-year-old girls' and boys' body esteem. Participants were 960 Swedish 10-year-olds, 515 girls and 445 boys. Principal results show that social exclusion is related to 10-year-olds' evaluations of their general appearance, to evaluations of their weight, and to beliefs about how others perceive their appearance. Furthermore, bullied girls have poorer body esteem in terms of beliefs of how others perceive their appearance than do bullied boys. Appearance teasing was associated with girls' poorer body esteem in terms of general appearance and beliefs of others views of their appearance. For boys, teasing was associated with poorer body esteem on all dimensions. Thus, this study implies that a wider range of peer victimization relates to children's negative self-perceptions than was former known.