Investigating relationships between ancestry, lifestyle behaviors and perceptions of heart disease and breast cancer among Canadian women with British and with South Asian ancestry.

BACKGROUND: Ethnic minority groups including Asians in Canada have different knowledge and perceptions of heart disease and breast cancer compared with the ethnic majority group. AIM: Examine relationships between perceptions of heart disease and breast cancer, and lifestyle behaviors for Canadian women with British and with South Asian ancestry. METHODS: Women with South Asian ( n = 170) and with British ( n = 373) ancestry ( Mage = 33.01, SD = 12.86) reported leisure time physical activity, intended fruit and vegetable consumption, disease perceptions (ability to reduce risk, control over getting the diseases, and influence of family history), and demographic information. Mann-Whitney tests and multiple hierarchical linear regressions were used to examine the relationships between lifestyle behaviors and disease perceptions, with ancestry explored as a possible moderator. RESULTS: Participants with South Asian ancestry believed they had greater ability to reduce their risk and have control over getting breast cancer than participants with British ancestry. Family history influences on getting either disease was perceived as higher for women with British ancestry. Age was positively related to all three perceptions in both diseases. Intended fruit and vegetable consumption was positively related to perceptions of ability to reduce risk and control of both diseases, but was stronger for women with South Asian ancestry regarding perceptions of breast cancer. Leisure time physical activity was positively related to perceptions of control over getting heart disease for women with British ancestry. CONCLUSIONS: Women's disease perceptions can vary by ancestry and lifestyle behaviors. Accurate representation of diseases is essential in promoting effective preventative behaviors.

Believability of messages about preventing breast cancer and heart disease through physical activity.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this research was to examine the relationships of self-reported physical activity to involvement with messages that discuss the prevention of heart disease and breast cancer through physical activity, the explicit believability of the messages, and agreement (or disagreement) with specific statements about the messages or disease beliefs in general. METHODS: A within subjects' design was used. Participants (N = 96) read either a breast cancer or heart disease message first, then completed a corresponding task that measured agreement or disagreement and confidence in the agreement or disagreement that 1) physical activity 'reduces risk/does not reduce risk' of breast cancer or heart disease, 2) that breast cancer or heart disease is a 'real/not real risk for me', 3) that women who get breast cancer or heart disease are 'like/not like me', and 4) that women who get breast cancer or heart disease are 'to blame/not to blame'. This task was followed by a questionnaire measuring message involvement and explicit believability. They then read the other disease messages and completed the corresponding agreement and confidence task and questionnaire measures. Lastly, participants completed a questionnaire measuring physical activity related attitudes and intentions, and demographics. RESULTS: There was no difference in message involvement or explicit believability of breast cancer compared to heart disease messages. Active participants had a higher confidence in their agreement that physical activity is preventive of heart disease compared to breast cancer. Multinomial regression models showed that, in addition to physical activity related attitudes and intentions, agreement that physical activity was preventive of heart disease and that women with heart disease are 'like me' were predictors of being more active compared to inactive. In the breast cancer model only attitudes and intentions predicted physical activity group. CONCLUSIONS: Active women likely internalized messages about heart disease prevention through physical activity, making the prevention messages more readily available within memory, and active women may therefore process such information differently. The study of how health-related beliefs are created and are related to perceptions of prevention messages is a rich area of study that may contribute to more effective health promotion.

Heart disease and breast cancer perceptions: Ethnic differences and relationship to attentional bias.

Differences in perceptions of susceptibility, seriousness, and fear of heart disease and breast cancer were examined and related to attentional bias for disease-related words among Canadian women of various ethnic ancestry. Women (n = 831) completed an online survey, and 503, among them, also completed an attentional bias task. Perceived seriousness of breast cancer predicted attentional bias for breast cancer in women of South Asian ancestry. Lifestyle behaviors were related to breast cancer attentional bias in women with British ancestry. Understanding relationships between modifiable risk factors, disease risk perceptions, and attentional biases among different ethnic groups can help create targeted promotional campaigns.

Exploring media representations of weight-loss surgery.

Scholars have problematized popular culture and media (re)presentations of obesity/overweight. However, few have considered the ways bariatric surgery, a rapidly growing treatment for morbid obesity, fits within the discussion. In this article, we explore news media (re)presentations of bariatric surgery using an eclectic approach to critical discourse analysis. Our findings reveal dominant discourses about bariatric surgery and the surgical population, providing an understanding of media (re)presentations as possible contributors to bias, stigmatization, and discrimination. Novel in our findings was our identification of subject positions in the dominant discourses (which were biomedical and benevolent government). We argue that existing (re)presentations of bariatric surgery are highly problematic because they reinforce oversimplistic and binary understandings of weight-loss surgery and obesity, weaving a highly gendered fairy-tale narrative and ultimately promoting weight-based stigmatization.

Gender differences in perceived environmental correlates of physical activity.

BACKGROUND: Limited research has been conducted on gender differences in perceived environmental correlates of physical activity (PA). The purpose of this study was to explore the potential role of gender in the link between perceived environment and PA. METHODS: Using a telephone-administered survey, data was collected on leisure time physical activity (LTPA), perceptions of the neighbourhood environment, and self-efficacy in a representative sample of 1209 adults from the province of Alberta, Canada. LTPA was regressed on ten measures of perceived neighbourhood environment and self-efficacy in a series of logistic regressions. RESULTS: Women were more likely than men to perceive their neighbourhood as unsafe to go for walks at night (chi2 = 67.46, p < 0.001) and to report seeing people being active in their neighbourhood (chi2 = 6.73, p < 0.01). Conversely, women were less likely to perceive easy access to places for PA (chi2 = 11.50, p < 0.01) and availability of places to buy things within easy walking distance from home (chi2 = 4.30, p < 0.05). Adjusting for age, education, income, and place of residence, access to places for PA (OR = 2.49) and interesting things to look at in the neighbourhood (OR = 1.94), were associated with higher levels of LTPA in men. Access to places for PA (OR = 2.63) and reporting seeing people being active (OR = 1.50) were associated with increased LTPA among women. After controlling for sociodemographic variables and self-efficacy, the presence of shops and places to buy things within easy walking distance from home (OR = 1.73), interesting things to look at in the neighbourhood (OR = 1.65), and access to places for PA (OR = 1.82) were associated with higher levels of LTPA in men. Among women, no significant relationships were observed between perceived environment and LTPA after adjusting for self-efficacy. CONCLUSION: The results provide additional support for the use of models in which gender is treated as a potential moderator of the link between the perceived environment and PA. Further, the results suggest the possibility of differential interventions to increase PA based on factors associated with gender.