Development of the MapMe intervention body image scales of known weight status for 4-5 and 10-11 year old children.

Background: Parents tend to visually assess children to determine their weight status and typically underestimate child body size. A visual tool may aid parents to more accurately assess child weight status and so support strategies to reduce childhood overweight. Body image scales (BIS) are visual images of people ranging from underweight to overweight but none exist for children based on UK criteria. Our aim was to develop sex- and age-specific BIS for children, based on British growth reference (UK90) criteria. Methods: BIS were developed using 3D surface body scans of children, their associated weight status using UK90 criteria from height and weight measurements, and qualitative work with parents and health professionals. Results: Height, weight and 3D body scans were collected (211: 4-5 years; 177: 10-11 years). Overall, 12 qualitative sessions were held with 37 participants. Four BIS (4-5-year-old girls and boys, 10-11-year-old girls and boys) were developed. Conclusions: This study has created the first sex- and age-specific BIS, based on UK90 criteria. The BIS have potential for use in child overweight prevention and management strategies, and in future research. This study also provides a protocol for the development of further BIS appropriate to other age groups and ethnicities.

Sociocultural drivers of body image and eating disorder risk in rural Nicaraguan women.

OBJECTIVE: Technological and economic globalisation has been suggested as a cause of increasing rates of body dissatisfaction and eating disorders globally, especially as regards the impact of mass media on internalised body ideals. This process is rarely observed in action, however. The current work investigates multiple aspects of body ideals, body image, sociocultural attitudes and eating attitudes in 62 Creole and Mestizo women living in communities at differing stages of technological development on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua METHOD/RESULTS: In Study 1, women used 3D avatar software to create their own 'ideal' body without the constraints of ready-made stimuli. Analyses of resulting avatars showed that components of the ideal body shape (upper and lower body curvaceousness) but not body size (body mass) were associated with levels of film and television consumption. In Study 2, women completed measures of variables in the sociocultural model of eating disorder risk. As expected, body dissatisfaction mediated the relationship between internalisation of sociocultural body ideals and pathological eating attitudes. In contrast, body appreciation reduced pathological eating attitudes, via reduced body dissatisfaction. Finally, Study 3 measured sociocultural influences, body image and eating attitudes at 2 or 3 timepoints per woman; body dissatisfaction covaried with pathological eating attitudes across time. Ethnicity varied in its effects across studies. DISCUSSION: Together these data show that even at early stages of media acculturation, women may show similar patterns of association between sociocultural internalisation, body dissatisfaction and eating disorder risk as in high income nations. However, they also demonstrate unique aspects of this population's body shape ideals, and the independent protective effect of body appreciation.

Body dissatisfaction and eating disorders are increasing on a global scale. It has been suggested that increasing access to globalised media maybe one factor in rising risk of eating disorders in low- and middle-income countries. We examined 3-dimensional body ideals, body satisfaction, and eating disorder risk in a population with relatively recent access to mass media. We find that although women in these communities maintain higher body weight ideals, and greater body appreciation, than Western women, those women who are internalising globalised cultural messaging about appearance are at greater risk of body dissatisfaction and, in turn, increased risk of eating disorders. This was true both when comparing between women and looking at how individual women's attitudes varied over time. These data show that cultural messaging about appearance has implications for body image and eating disorder risk even in populations which do not have a long history of promoting thin ideals.

Neuronal processing. How fast is the speed of thought?

Recent evidence suggests that sensory information is processed much faster than was previously thought and that individual neurons need to be active for only twenty to thirty milliseconds to mediate perception.

Colour vision. Dalton's eyes and monkey genes.

Recent molecular genetic studies show how changes in the protein component of a visual pigment alters its absorbance; they also explain the abnormal colour vision of one of the great pioneers of visual science.

Face recognition. What are faces for?

Recent studies suggest that the recognition of face identity and expression, and the interpretation of socially relevant information conveyed by faces, occur in distinct regions of the primate brain.

Face processing: getting by with a little help from its friends.

Functional imaging identified a putative face-specific area within the fusiform gyrus of human visual cortex; the precise role of this area is still in question, however, and recent imaging studies have implicated other cortical areas in face processing. These studies show the dangers of considering a single cortical area in isolation.

Working memory: trouble in mind.

Visual working memory has been found to depend on interactions between the prefrontal cortex and visual association areas; the neurons involved can be modulated by dopamine. These new findings have relevance for the treatment of Parkinson's disease and schizophrenia.

A solution to the binding problem? Information processing.

The brain effortlessly recombines information about the shape, colour, motion and so on of objects in the visual scene, but how it does so is not known. Synchronous neuronal firing has seemed an attractive solution to this problem, but new results and theoretical insights cast doubt on its functional role.

The molecular genetics and evolution of primate colour vision.

Until recently, the genetic basis of colour vision could only be inferred from measuring the colour vision of family groups. However, in the past few years the sites of the genes for visual pigments have been located and sequenced. The genes that specify the opsins for the rod and short-wavelength cone pigments are located on the third and seventh chromosomes, respectively. In Old World primates the genes for the middle- and long-wavelength pigments are located on the q arm of the X chromosome in a head-to-tail array. The close sequence similarity of the two genes on the X chromosome leads to a high frequency of unequal inter- and intragenic recombination leading to gene deletion or the creation of hybrid genes. In New World primates there is only a single locus on the X chromosome for a middle- to long-wavelength cone pigment. However, three alleles can occur at this locus and each codes for a slightly different cone pigment. As a result there are three types of male dichromat and three types of female dichromat and trichromat in each species. Colour vision in New World primates might be an intermediate stage between the uniform dichromacy of non-primate mammals and the uniform trichromacy of Old World primates. Alternatively, colour vision in New World primates might be an adaptation to allow a wide variety of colour-vision types within a single family group.

Processing speed in the cerebral cortex and the neurophysiology of visual masking.

In experiments to investigate the duration of the time for which cortical neurons respond when the identification of a visual stimulus is just possible, we presented a test face stimulus for 16 ms, and followed it at different intervals by a masking stimulus (either an N-O pattern or a face) while recording from single neurons in the temporal visual cortex of macaques. When there was no mask the cells responded to the 16 ms of the test stimulus for 200-300 ms, far longer than the presentation time. We suggest that this reflects the operation of a short-term memory system implemented in cortical circuitry. If the mask was a stimulus which did not stimulate the cells (either a non-face pattern or a face which was a non-effective stimulus for that cell), then, as the interval between the onset of the test stimulus and the onset of the mask stimulus (the stimulus onset asynchrony) was reduced, the length of time for which the cells fired in response to the test stimulus was reduced. It is suggested that this is due to the mask stimulating adjacent cells in the cortex which by lateral inhibition reduce the responses of the cells activated by the test stimulus. When the stimulus onset asynchrony was 20 ms, face-selective neurons in the inferior temporal cortex of macaques responded for a period of 20-30 ms before their firing was interrupted by the mask. With the same test-mask stimulus onset asynchrony of 20 ms, humans could just identify which of six faces was shown.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Maternal waist-to-hip ratio does not predict child gender.

It has been suggested that a high pre-conceptual waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is a good predictor of male offspring and, thus, in cultures that value male children, an androgenous body shape may be judged as most attractive. The predictive value of WHRs is based on studies measuring women who already have children and correlating their WHRs with the proportion of existing male offspring. However, carrying a male child may alter WHRs in a different way to carrying a female child, and a high WHR may be an effect rather than a cause of male offspring. In order to test the predictive power of a pre-conceptual WHR and offspring gender, we took WHR measures from 458 women who intended to become pregnant and then correlated this with the genders of their subsequent children. We found no significant correlation. It is therefore not clear why a high WHR is preferred in some cultures. We suggest that differences in attractiveness preferences between different ethic groups are actually based on weight scaled for height (the body mass index or BMI) rather than the WHR since although there will be a preferred optimal BMI for each ethnic group, which will balance environmental and health factors, this optimal BMI may differ between groups and environments.

The estimation of body mass index and physical attractiveness is dependent on the observer's own body mass index.

A disturbance in the evaluation of personal body mass and shape is a key feature of both anorexia and bulimia nervosa. However, it is uncertain whether overestimation is a causal factor in the development of these eating disorders or is merely a secondary effect of having a low body mass. Moreover, does this overestimation extend to the perception of other people's bodies? Since body mass is an important factor in the perception of physical attractiveness, we wanted to determine whether this putative overestimation of self body mass extended to include the perceived attractiveness of others. We asked 204 female observers (31 anorexic, 30 bulimic and 143 control) to estimate the body mass and rate the attractiveness of a set of 25 photographic images showing people of varying body mass index (BMI). BMI is a measure of weight scaled for height (kg m(- 2)). The observers also estimated their own BMI. Anorexic and bulimic observers systematically overestimated the body mass of both their own and other people's bodies, relative to controls, and they rated a significantly lower body mass to be optimally attractive. When the degree of overestimation is plotted against the BMI of the observer there is a strong correlation. Taken across all our observers, as the BMI of the observer declines, the overestimation of body mass increases. One possible explanation for this result is that the overestimation is a secondary effect caused by weight loss. Moreover, if the degree of body mass overestimation is taken into account, then there are no significant differences in the perceptions of attractiveness between anorexic and bulimic observers and control observers. Our results suggest a significant perceptual overestimation of BMI that is based on the observer's own BMI and not correlated with cognitive factors, and suggests that this overestimation in eating-disordered patients must be addressed directly in treatment regimes.

Visual cues to female physical attractiveness.

Evolutionary psychology suggests that a woman's sexual attractiveness is based on cues of health and reproductive potential. In recent years, research has focused on the ratio of the width of the waist to the width of the hips (the waist-to-hip ratio (WHR). A low WHR (i.e. a curvaceous body) is believed to correspond to the optimal fat distribution for high fertility, and so this shape should be highly attractive. In this paper we present evidence that weight scaled for height (the body mass index (BMI)) is the primary determinant of sexual attractiveness rather than WHR. BMI is also strongly linked to health and reproductive potential. Furthermore, we show how covariation of apparent BMI and WHR in previous studies led to the overestimation of the importance of WHR in the perception of female attractiveness. Finally, we show how visual cues, such as the perimeter-area ratio (PAR), can provide an accurate and reliable index of an individual's BMI and could be used by an observer to differentiate between potential partners.

Oscillatory activity is not evident in the primate temporal visual cortex with static stimuli.

It has been suggested in studies in the visual system of anaesthetized cats that oscillatory activity with a frequency of 40-60 Hz occurs during the presentation of moving visual stimuli and reflects a synchronization process between neurons that could implement the binding together of related neurons into different sets. We found no evidence for such oscillations in the inferior temporal visual cortex and related areas of awake macaques fixating effective static visual stimuli, which for the neurons analysed were faces. We put forward the possibility that temporal synchronization between neurons to implement binding may not be generally used in the visual system as a solution to the binding problem, at least when static objects are being processed and recognised in higher parts of the visual system.

Rapid visual learning in neurones of the primate temporal visual cortex.

The human visual system can learn to recognize visual stimuli rapidly. For example, humans can accurately reconstruct meaningful objects out of fragmentary evidence, once they have seen the same object in its unambiguous form. The anterior temporal cortical areas of macaques contain some neurones with invariant visual responses which appear to provide a representation of complex patterns and objects, such as faces. Remarkably, these neurones show an enhancement of response after brief (e.g. 5 s) exposure to the unambiguous stimulus, an effect that appears to reflect the neural basis of the rapid perceptual learning seen in humans.

The relationship between cone pigments and behavioural sensitivity in a New World monkey (Callithrix jacchus jacchus).

Microspectrophotometric measurements of visual pigments and behavioural measurements of spectral sensitivity are reported for individual marmosets from 3 family groups. The sex differences and polymorphism that characterise the long-wave cone pigments in this species are well reflected by variations in the behavioural sensitivities. With one exception, the pattern of inheritance is compatible with a genetic model in which the long-wave pigment is specified by a single polymorphic locus on the X-chromosome. Measurements are also reported for the spectral absorbance of the marmoset lens, and these are used to reconstruct short-wave behavioural sensitivity from the microspectrophotometric measurements of the short-wave cones.

Female and male perceptions of female physical attractiveness in front-view and profile.

Two important cues to female physical attractiveness are body mass index (BMI) and shape. In front view, it seems that BMI may be more important than shape; however, is it true in profile where shape cues may be stronger? There is also the question of whether men and women have the same perception of female physical attractiveness. Some studies have suggested that they do not, but this runs contrary to mate selection theory. This predicts that women will have the same perception of female attractiveness as men do. This allows them to judge their own relative value, with respect to their peer group, and match this value with the value of a prospective mate. To clarify these issues we asked 40 male and 40 female undergraduates to rate a set of pictures of real women (50 in front-view and 50 in profile) for attractiveness. BMI was the primary predictor of attractiveness in both front and profile, and the putative visual cues to BMI showed a higher degree of view-invariance than shape cues such as the waist-hip ratio (WHR). Consistent with mate selection theory, there were no significant differences in the rating of attractiveness by male and female raters.

Differences in eye-movement patterns between anorexic and control observers when judging body size and attractiveness.

Attentional biases may influence the eye-movements made when judging bodies and so alter the visual information sampled when making a judgment. This may lead to an overestimation of body size. We measured the eye-movements made by 16 anorexic observers and 16 age-matched controls when judging body size and attractiveness. We combined behavioural data with a novel eye-movement analysis technique that allowed us to apply spatial statistical techniques to make fine spatial discriminations in the pattern of eye-movements between our observer groups. Our behavioural results show that anorexic observers overestimate body size relative to controls and find bodies with lower body mass indexes more attractive. For both judgments, the controls' fixations centre on the stomach, but the anorexic observers show a much wider fixation pattern extending to encompass additional features such as the prominence of the hip and collar bones. This additional visual information may serve to alter their behavioural judgments towards an overestimation of body size and shift their ideal body size towards a significantly lower value.