Tackling childhood overweight: treating parents exclusively is effective.

OBJECTIVE: In general, treatment of childhood obesity focuses on treating the obese children. The results of child-directed treatments are disappointing in the long run. In the current study, it is tested whether a treatment aimed solely at obese children's parents results in positive effects on the children's weight status. In addition, potential predictors of treatment success are identified. METHODS: The parents of 98 overweight or obese children (aged 7-13 years) were randomly assigned to either the cognitive-behavioural group treatment (eight sessions) or the waiting-list control group. RESULTS: With respect to child body mass index (BMI) percentile, the parents' treatment was successful in reducing overweight from pretreatment to posttreatment: BMI percentile decreased significantly by 2.4% in the treatment group, whereas there was no change in the waiting-list control group. There was no significant relapse at follow-up (3 months). Child BMI percentile did not decrease in the waiting-list control group. In addition, significant main effects of time were found for both groups with respect to eating psychopathology (decrease), self-esteem (increase) and negative thoughts (decrease). Finally, parental BMI decreased significantly only in the treatment group. Four predictors were identified with respect to treatment success, namely, lower socioeconomic status, younger age of the child, higher parental attendance and lower BMI percentile of the child before treatment. CONCLUSIONS: The parents' treatment had significant effects on child and parent BMI. Long-term endurance of these positive effects needs to be studied. Striking are the positive effects of time in the waiting-list control group for some psychological outcome measures. Obviously, waiting for treatment already affects psychological processes (but not behaviour) in the children.

Disgust and spider phobia.

Twenty-four women with spider phobia and 45 nonphobic women completed the Disgust Questionnaire (DQ; P. Rozin, A. E. Fallon, & R. Mandell, 1984) and the Spider Phobia Questionnaire (SPQ; R. Klorman, T. C. Weerts, J. E. Hastings, B. G. Melamed, & P. J. Lang, 1974). Participants also underwent behavioral tests concerning disgust sensitivity and fear of spiders. Spider phobic women showed stronger disgust sensitivity than nonphobic women, and spiders were found to have a disgust-evoking status that was related to participants' fear of spiders. The relationship between DQ and SPQ was independent of neuroticism and introversion. DQ scores were not associated with a global measure of phobic complaints (i.e., Fear Questionnaire; I. M. Marks & A. Mathews, 1979). Results are consistent with a disease-avoidance model of spider phobia (G. Matchett & G. C. L. Davey, 1991), which emphasizes the role of disgust in spider phobia.

Learning history in fear of blushing.

Two studies, investigating the learning history (i.e. traumatic conditioning experiences, vicarious learning, informational learning) of individuals with and without fear of blushing, are presented. In study 1, individuals high (n = 61) and low (n = 59) in fear of blushing completed the (revised) Phobic Origin Questionnaire [POQ; Ost, L. G., & Hugdahl, K. (1981). Acquisition of phobias and anxiety response patterns in clinical patients. Behavior Research and Therapy, 19, 439-447]. In study 2, individuals who applied for treatment for fear of blushing (n = 31) and a nonfearful, matched control group (n = 31) were interviewed with the same instrument, taking into account only specific memories. High fearful individuals reported more negative learning experiences in connection with blushing than low fearful individuals, irrespective of the type of questioning. Meanwhile, study 1 (written POQ) produced higher percentages of negative learning experiences for both high and low fearful individuals than study 2 (interview). It is concluded that the POQ interview showed a more realistic picture than the written POQ. The possible role of learning history in the acquisition of fear of blushing is discussed.

Fear of blushing: fearful preoccupation irrespective of facial coloration.

Women, with high (n = 29) and low (n = 28) fear of blushing, were exposed to a mild social stressor (watching a television test card in the presence of two male confederates) and to an intense social stressor (watching their own prerecorded 'sing' video, in the presence of two male confederates). Facial coloration and facial temperature were measured and participants rated their own blush intensity. No differences in actual blushing emerged between both groups. Meanwhile, high fearful individuals' self-reported blush intensity was significantly higher than that of low fearful individuals. Thus, fear of blushing seems to reflect a fearful preoccupation, irrespective of differential facial coloration. The present findings concord with cognitive models of social phobia.

Disgust sensitivity and the sex difference in fears to common indigenous animals.

Davey's mediational hypothesis [Davey, G. C. L. (1994). Self-reported fears to common indigenous animals in an adult UK population: the role of disgust sensitivity. British Journal of Psychology, 85, 541-554.] suggests that the sex difference in self-assessed animal fears can be accounted for by the sex difference in disgust sensitivity. An empirical test failed to support this hypothesis in a non-clinical sample (N = 214). Holding constant the influences of confounders such as age, fear of contamination, sex roles, neuroticism, psychoticism and disgust sensitivity, biological sex kept emerging as a significant predictor in relation to four types of animal fears (fear-relevant animals, dry or non-slimy invertebrates, slimy or wet looking animals and farm animals). Other things being equal, high disgust sensitivity either lost its predictive capability (in relation to dry or non-slimy invertebrates and slimy or wet looking animals) or predicted high fear of fear-relevant animals and of farm animals inequivalently across, respectively, the sexes (high in females only) and age groups (high in the old only). A multifactorial, interactionist approach should be advocated in the study of the aetiology of animal fears if progress in this area is to be achieved.