The relationship of fear of intimacy, body image avoidance and body mass index

Issues of body image and ability to achieve intimacy are connected to body weight, yet remain largely unexplored and have not been evaluated by gender. The underlying purpose of this research was to determine if avoidant attitudes and perceptions of one's body may hold implications toward its use in intimate interactions, and if an above average body weight would tend to increase this avoidance. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES, 1999-2002) finds that 64.5% of US adults are overweight, with 61.9% of women and 67.2% of men. The increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity in men and women shows no reverse trend, nor have prevention and treatment proven effective in the long term. The researcher gathered self-reported age, gender, height and weight data from 55 male and 58 female subjects (determined by a prospective power analysis with a desired medium effect size (r=.30) to determine body mass index (BMI), determining a mean age of 21.6 years and mean BMI of 25.6. Survey instruments consisted of two scales that are germane to the variables being examined. They were (1) Descutner and Thelen of the University of Missouri‘s (1991) Fear-of-Intimacy scale; and (2) Rosen, Srebnik, Saltzberg, and Wendt's (1991) Body Image Avoidance Questionnaire. Results indicated that as body mass index increases, fear of intimacy increases (p<0.05) and that as body mass index increases, body image avoidance increases (p<0.05). The relationship that as body image avoidance increases, fear of intimacy increases was not supported, but approached significance at (p<0.07). No differences in these relationships were determined between gender groups. For age, the only observed relationship was that of a difference between scores for age groups [18 to 22 (group 1) and ages 23 to 34 (group 2)] for the relationship of body image avoidance and fear of intimacy (p<0.02). The results suggest that the relationship of body image avoidance and fear of intimacy, as well as age, bear consideration toward the escalating prevalence of overweight and obesity. An integrative approach to body weight that addresses issues of body image and intimacy may prove effective in prevention and treatment.

Turning Passive Detection Systems into Field Experiments: An Application Using Wetland Fishes and Enclosures to Track Fine-Scale Movement and Habitat Choice

Understanding habitat selection and movement remains a key question in behavioral ecology. Yet, obtaining a sufficiently high spatiotemporal resolution of the movement paths of organisms remains a major challenge, despite recent technological advances. Observing fine-scale movement and habitat choice decisions in the field can prove to be difficult and expensive, particularly in expansive habitats such as wetlands. We describe the application of passive integrated transponder (PIT) systems to field enclosures for tracking detailed fish behaviors in an experimental setting. PIT systems have been applied to habitats with clear passageways, at fixed locations or in controlled laboratory and mesocosm settings, but their use in unconfined habitats and field-based experimental setups remains limited. In an Everglades enclosure, we continuously tracked the movement and habitat use of PIT-tagged centrarchids across three habitats of varying depth and complexity using multiple flatbed antennas for 14 days. Fish used all three habitats, with marked species-specific diel movement patterns across habitats, and short-lived movements that would be likely missed by other tracking techniques. Findings suggest that the application of PIT systems to field enclosures can be an insightful approach for gaining continuous, undisturbed and detailed movement data in unconfined habitats, and for experimentally manipulating both internal and external drivers of these behaviors.

Detecting Calcareous Periphyton Mats in the Greater Everglades Using Passive Remote Sensing Methods

Use of remotely sensed data for environmental and ecological assessment has recently become more widespread in wetland research and management and advantages and limitations of this approach have been addresses (Ozesmi and Bauer 2002). Applications of remote sensing (RS) methods vary in spatial and temporal extent and resolution, in the types of data acquired, and in digital processing and pattern recognition algorithms used.

The Relationship of Fear of Intimacy, Body Image Avoidance and Body Mass Index

Issues of body image and ability to achieve intimacy are connected to body weight, yet remain largely unexplored and have not been evaluated by gender. The underlying purpose of this research was to determine if avoidant attitudes and perceptions of one’s body may hold implications toward its use in intimate interactions, and if an above average body weight would tend to increase this avoidance. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES, 1999-2002) finds that 64.5% of US adults are overweight, with 61.9% of women and 67.2% of men. The increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity in men and women shows no reverse trend, nor have prevention and treatment proven effective in the long term. The researcher gathered self-reported age, gender, height and weight data from 55 male and 58 female subjects (determined by a prospective power analysis with a desired medium effect size (r =.30) to determine body mass index (BMI), determining a mean age of 21.6 years and mean BMI of 25.6. Survey instruments consisted of two scales that are germane to the variables being examined. They were (1) Descutner and Thelen of the University of Missouri’s (1991) Fear-of-Intimacy scale and (2) Rosen, Srebnik, Saltzberg, and Wendt’s (1991) Body Image Avoidance Questionnaire. Results indicated that as body mass index increases, fear of intimacy increases (p<0.05) and that as body mass index increases, body image avoidance increases (p<0.05). The relationship that as body image avoidance increases, fear of intimacy increases was not supported, but approached significance at (p<0.07). No differences in these relationships were determined between gender groups. For age, the only observed relationship was that of a difference between scores for age groups [18 to 22 (group 1) and ages 23 to 34 (group 2)] for the relationship of body image avoidance and fear of intimacy (p<0.02). The results suggest that the relationship of body image avoidance and fear of intimacy, as well as age, bear consideration toward the escalating prevalence of overweight and obesity. An integrative approach to body weight that addresses issues of body image and intimacy may prove effective in prevention and treatment.

From Passive to Active Community Conservation: A Study of Forest Governance in a Region of the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, Mexico

This thesis investigates how seven communities in a subregion of the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca are conserving high forest cover in the absence of national protected areas. To conduct this study I relied on archival research and the review of community documents, focus group interviews and land use transects to explore historical and current land use. I found that communities have conserved 88.34% of the subregion as forest cover, or 58,596 hectares out of a total territory of 66,264 hectares. Analysis suggests that the communities have undergone a historical transition from more passive conservation to more active, conscious conservation particularly in the last decade. This thesis further contends that communities deserve additional financial compensation for this active conservation of globally important forests for biodiversity conservation and that exercises in systematic conservation planning ignore the reality that existing biodiversity conservation in the subregion is associated with community ownership.