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Traces the origins of Black body politics in the United States and its contemporary manifestations in hip-hop music and film. Winner of the 2007 Everett Lee Hunt Award presented by the Eastern Communication Association Scripting the Black Masculine Body traces the origins of Black body politics in the United States and its contemporary manifestations in popular cultural productions. From early blackface cinema through contemporary portrayals of the Black body in hip-hop music and film, Ronald L. Jackson II examines how African American identities have been socially constructed, constituted, and publicly understood, and argues that popular music artists and film producers often are complicit with Black body stereotypes. Jackson offers a communicative perspective on body politics through a blend of social scientific and humanities approaches and offers possibilities for the liberation of the Black body from its current ineffectual and paralyzing representations.

Background/Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the longitudinal effects of body size over- and underestimation and other psychosocial factors on the risk for onset of overweight (OW) or obesity (OB) 1 year later among US adolescents. Subjects/Methods: Participants with non-missing height and weight were drawn from the first two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health ( n =13 568). Multinomial logistic regressions were conducted to assess longitudinal risk factors for OW and OB onset, controlling for baseline weight status, age, race/ethnicity, parent education and family structure. Analyses were stratified by sex. Results: Compared with accurate body size perception, body size overestimation increased the relative risk (RR) of OW onset among women and men (RR=3.34, confidence interval (CI)=2.39–4.68; RR=6.01, CI=4.09–8.83, respectively, P <0.001) in fully adjusted models including body mass index z-scores. Body size underestimation decreased the RR of OW onset among women and men (RR= 0.08, CI=0.03–0.20; RR=0.13, CI=0.06–0.27, respectively) and OB onset (RR=0.05, CI=0.02–0.14; RR=0.19, CI=0.08–0.47, respectively, P <0.001 for all) in fully adjusted models. Dieting, extreme weight loss behaviors and skipping breakfast at Wave 1 increased the risk of OB onset by Wave 2. Conclusions: Contrary to a common assumption, body size underestimation did not increase, but in fact decreased, the RR for the onset of OW and of OB among adolescents using a prospective longitudinal design. However, body size overestimation predicted onset of OW 1 year later. Body size self-concept and other psychosocial factors have an important role in risk for OW and for OB among both males and females during adolescence.

Objectives: To examine the association between perceived overweight status and weight control, discrepancies between perceived and measured weight status, and opportunities for health care professionals (HCPs) to correct weight perception among US adults. Design: Population-based cross-sectional study. Subjects: In all, 16 720 non-pregnant adults from the 2003 to 2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Results: Overall, 64% (73% women, 55% men) reported a desire to weigh less and 48% (57% women, 40% men) reported pursuing weight control. Weight control was positively associated with overweight perception (odds ratio (OR) women 3.74; 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.96, 4.73; OR men 2.82; 95% CI 2.11, 3.76) and an HCP diagnosis of overweight/obesity (OR women 2.22; 95% CI 1.69, 2.91; OR men 2.14; 95% CI 1.58, 2.91), independent of measured weight status. A large proportion of overweight individuals (23% women, 48% men) perceived themselves as having the right weight. Also, 74% of overweight and 29% of obese individuals never had an HCP diagnosis of overweight/obesity. Although the majority of overweight/obese individuals (74% women, 60% men) pursued at least one weight management strategy, fewer (39% women, 32% men) pursued both dietary change and physical activity. Among overweight/obese adults, those with an HCP diagnosis of overweight/obesity were more likely to diet (74 versus 52%), exercise (44 versus 34%), or pursue both (41 versus 30%, all P<0.01) than those who remained undiagnosed. Conclusion: HCPs have unused opportunities to motivate their patients to control and possibly lose weight by correcting weight perceptions and offering counseling on healthy weight loss strategies.

Black soldiers in the American Civil War were far more likely to die of disease than were white soldiers. In Intensely Human, historian Margaret Humphreys explores why this uneven mortality occurred and how it was interpreted at the time. In doing so, she uncovers the perspectives of mid-nineteenth-century physicians and others who were eager to implicate the so-called innate inferiority of the black body. In the archival collections of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, Humphreys found evidence that the high death rate among black soldiers resulted from malnourishment, inadequate shelter and clothing, inferior medical attention, and assignments to hazardous environments. While some observant physicians of the day attributed the black soldiers' high mortality rate to these circumstances, few medical professionals—on either side of the conflict—were prepared to challenge the biological evidence of white superiority. Humphreys shows how, despite sympathetic and responsible physicians' efforts to expose the truth, the stereotype of black biological inferiority prevailed during the war and after.

Pornography has become a primary source of sexual education. At the same time, mainstream commercial pornography has coalesced around a relatively homogenous script involving violence and female degradation. Yet, little work has been done exploring the associations between pornography and dyadic sexual encounters: What role does pornography play inside real-world sexual encounters between a man and a woman? Cognitive script theory argues media scripts create a readily accessible heuristic model for decision-making. The more a user watches a particular media script, the more embedded those codes of behavior become in their worldview and the more likely they are to use those scripts to act upon real life experiences. We argue pornography creates a sexual script that then guides sexual experiences. To test this, we surveyed 487 college men (ages 18–29 years) in the United States to compare their rate of pornography use with sexual preferences and concerns. Results showed the more pornography a man watches, the more likely he was to use it during sex, request particular pornographic sex acts of his partner, deliberately conjure images of pornography during sex to maintain arousal, and have concerns over his own sexual performance and body image. Further, higher pornography use was negatively associated with enjoying sexually intimate behaviors with a partner. We conclude that pornography provides a powerful heuristic model which is implicated in men’s expectations and behaviors during sexual encounters.

Gay and bisexual men (GBM) have reported viewing significantly more sexually explicit media (SEM) than heterosexual men. There is evidence that viewing greater amounts of SEM may result in more negative body attitude and negative affect. However, no studies have examined these variables within the same model. A national sample of 1071 HIV-negative GBM in the U.S. participating in a larger study completed an online survey, which included measures of SEM consumption, male body attitudes, anxiety, and depression. Participants reported viewing 3 h of SEM per week, on average, and 96% of participants reported recently viewing at least some SEM. Greater consumption of SEM was directly related to more negative body attitude and both depressive and anxious symptomology. There was also a significant indirect effect of SEM consumption on depressive and anxious symptomology through body attitude. These findings highlight the relevance of both SEM on body image and negative affect along with the role body image plays in anxiety and depression outcomes for GBM. They also indicate a potential role for body image in explaining the co-occurrence of SEM consumption and negative affect. For interventions looking to alleviate negative affect for GBM, it may be important to address SEM consumption and body image as they are shown to be associated with both anxious and depressive symptomology.

Background Whether nutrition messages in popular health magazines differ by country or season has seldom been studied. We assessed the nutrition topics featured in the headlines of Men’s Health® (MH) and Women’s Health® (WH) magazines from different countries. Methods We sampled MH and WH magazines from Portugal, South Africa, Spain, the UK and the USA. Nutrition-related headlines were categorized as weight loss, weight gain, micronutrients and other. Results The most frequent topics were “Other” (44%) and “weight loss” (41%), while “micronutrients” represented 4%. Topics related to weight gain were more frequent in MH (19% vs. 2% in WH), while no difference was found for weight loss (44% vs. 37% in WH). On multivariable analysis, weight gain had a higher likelihood of being present in MH than in WH, Odds ratio and (95% confidence interval): 8.3 (2.2–90.9), p  = 0.002, while no association was found for weight loss: OR 1.1 (0.6-2.0), p  = 0.80. Weight loss was absent from the US WH and present in two thirds of the Portuguese WH; in MH, weight gain was evenly distributed between countries. Prevalence of the weight loss topic was lower in March (15% vs. 54% in January, p  < 0.01 by logistic regression) and to a lesser degree in June (35%) and July (35%). No seasonality was found for the “weight gain” topic. Conclusion In WH and MH magazines, nutrition topics vary according to gender, country, and season. Weight gain remains a male topic, while weight loss is equally prevalent in both women’s and men’s magazines.

Objectification theory (Fredrickson B. L., & Roberts, T. A. (1997). Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21, 173-206) proposes that body image concerns impair sexual function and satisfaction. The present study was designed to test whether body shame was related to sexual problems and pleasure among heterosexual men and women (N = 320). Using structural equation modeling, we tested whether adult men and women's body shame was linked to greater sexual problems (lower sexual arousability and ability to reach orgasm) and less pleasure from physical intimacy. Although women were significantly more likely to report appearance concerns than men across sexual and non-sexual contexts, appearance concerns were positively related to both men and women's sexual problems. The relationship between body shame and sexual pleasure and problems was mediated by sexual self-consciousness during physical intimacy. Men and women's body shame was related to greater sexual self-consciousness, which in turn predicted lower sexual pleasure and sexual arousability. Results persisted controlling for relationship status and age. Being in a relationship was associated with less sexual self-consciousness and less orgasm difficulty for men and women. Although some paths were significantly stronger for women than for men, results largely supported the proposition that body concerns negatively affect sexual pleasure and promote sexual problems for both men and women. Findings were discussed in terms of objectification theory and the increased cultural emphasis on physical appearance.