The aim of this study was to assess the changes in the prevalence of overweight, obesity and high adiposity in children and adolescents from Krakow (Poland), between the years 2010 and 2020. Two cross-sectional series of anthropometric measurements were carried out in 2010 and 2020. Analysed characteristics included: body height and weight, BMI (Body Mass Index), body adiposity (%BF). The subjects were categorised according to their BMI (underweight, normal weight, overweight, obesity), as well as %BF (low, normal, high body fat).The research was conducted in randomly selected primary schools in Krakow (Poland). Studied cohorts (8-15 years of age), which represented four of the traditional residential districts: Śródmieście, Podgórze, Krowodrza and Nowa Huta. Among the girls, there was a negative secular trend regarding the prevalence of underweight and obesity. On the other hand, there also was a positive trend concerning the prevalence of overweight and low and high body fat. In boys, there was a negative secular trend regarding the prevalence of underweight and low adiposity. There was also a generally positive secular trend regarding the prevalence of overweight, obesity as well as high adiposity in boys. The findings of this study are particularly significant because detailed knowledge of the prevalence of overweight/obesity in childhood and adolescence is crucial for the future health of entire populations. Further studies should also take into account the levels of physical fitness and activity of the examined population.

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (UNAIDS) has risen as the serious public health problem across the world. Knowledge about HIV/AIDS is the cornerstone for prevention and treatment. Research is needed to explore the attitude and the effect of different demographic, geographic, and socioeconomic and media exposure factors on males knowledge about HIV in Pakistan. In this study, latest secondary data are used from Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2017-18. Sample results show that the majority of the respondents (70%) have knowledge about AIDS. Regression Modeling reveals that man’s knowledge about HIV/AIDS is associated with age, place of residence, educational level, wealth index, ethnicity and media exposure factors. Males of age group 35-39, with higher education, belonging to Pukthon ethnicity, having exposure to mass media on a daily basis and belonging to richest wealth quintile has high Knowledge of HIV/AIDS. For example, the regression model predicts that men between the ages of 35 and 39 from Islamabad who live in urban areas, have higher education, are of Pukhtoon ethnicity, are the head of the household, belong to the richest quintile, work in professional occupations, and use media exposure factors on a daily basis would have probability of 97% of having knowledge of HIV/AIDS. But there is still need to focus to increase the men’s knowledge of HIV/AIDS.

Obesity is an increasing public health concern with important mortality consequences. Weight gain or maximum adult BMI, not BMI at one point in time, has been shown to be an important risk factor in cohorts studied recently during an era of rapid increase in population levels of overweight and obesity. However, there is limited evidence on individual weight trajectories from cohorts born before the mid-twentieth century. Archival world war military personnel files from New Zealand are freely available online, and identify service in both wars. A pilot study of 316 soldiers confirmed the files contain sufficient information to examine health trajectories and lifespan. Because this cohort are now entirely deceased, nearly the entire sample can be found in death records to estimate the impact of weight increases on lifespan. Weight change over 20–30 years and its relationship with lifespan is examined using ordinary least squares regression. The study demonstrates that military records are a feasible source for collecting data on adult weight and health trajectories in the first half of the twentieth century. Although this sample is likely to be composed of men fitter than average, there is a clear pattern of increasing weight from early to mid-adulthood. Weight gain from early adulthood to middle-age was found to be more strongly associated with mortality than weight in early adulthood. A one unit increase in BMI over the inter-war period was found to be associated with an 8 month decline in lifespan. These results confirm that weight gain in adulthood has an important impact on mortality in an earlier birth cohort than previously studied, and that data exist to measure any changes more precisely over time.

The aim of this paper was to assess the association between non-clinical factors and Caesarean delivery in Uganda. Self-reported data from the individual recode file were extracted from the 2016 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS), with a sub sample of 9929 women aged 15-49 with a recent birth in the last 5 years preceding the survey. Chi-square tests and multivariate comlementary log-log regression models were used to examine the relationship between non-clinical factors and Caesarean section delivery. About one in ten (7%) of the women aged 15-49 had Caesarean deliveries. Non-clinical factors which were significantly associated with Caesarean section delivery include advanced maternal age, having the first birth compared to subsequent births, having 1-3 children compared to 4 or more children, higher level of women’s education relative to no education, being in the middle, richer, and richest wealth quintile compared to the poorest quintile. In conclusion, evidence suggests that the trend in Caesarean delivery can be attributed partially to non-clinical factors including advanced maternal age, birth order, parity, women’s education level, and wealth quintile. Thus, efforts to address the trend in Caesarean section delivery, need to take account of non-clinical factors.

This study aimed to assess to what extent differences in socioeconomic factors between regions correlate to dramatic disparities in the prevalence of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) across Tanzania. The data from the 2004, 2010, and 2016 Tanzania Demographic Health Surveys were used in this analysis. The estimates from multilevel variance components for FGM/C were compared before and after adjusting for socioeconomic variables (residence, marital status, education, and wealth quintile) and age. The three-level structure of the sample sorted women into individual (level-1), neighborhood (level-2), and regional (level-3) categories. The pooled data included a total of 27587 women of reproductive age with a median age (IQR) of 29 (21–36) years. The random-effects results revealed that of the total age-adjusted variance in FGM/C, 76.7% was attributed to the between region and neighborhood differences. Despite the large between region variations, only 3.7% was explained by socioeconomic factors. Despite the large contribution of between region and neighborhood differences to variance in FGM/C prevalence, less of this variation was explained by socioeconomic factors. Therefore, it is possible that maternal and reproductive educational programs tailored to such neighborhood differences, beyond socioeconomic factors alone, could contribute to a radical shift in perspective for regions with high prevalence.

The aim of this study was to determine the trend of consanguineous marriage among the Arab population in Israel. Socio-demographic data for the Arab population were extracted from national health surveys conducted in Israel in 2007 and 2017. The prevalence of consanguineous marriage among the Arab population in Israel increased significantly from 36.3% to 41.6% in the decade from 2007 to 2017. First-cousin and closer marriages constituted about 50% of total consanguineous marriages in the two periods surveyed. Consanguinity was found to be significantly related to religion and place of residence. Thus, the prevalence of consanguineous marriage remains high among the Arab population in Israel, similar to other Arab societies. These findings affect the health of future generations and impose a challenge for health care professionals.

This article examines the relationship between the height of adult males and marital outcomes, including likelihood of marrying, age at marriage, and marital fertility, in rural Spain. For this analysis, a sample of 4,501 men born between 1835 and 1975 living in 14 villages in northeastern Spain was taken. Previous research has shown that shorter individuals are less likely to marry. However, it is still disputed whether differences exist in the timing of marrying based on height, and little attention has been paid to the effect(s) of height on offspring. Family data were obtained from parish records and interviews with individuals and their families, while height data were obtained from military records, with individuals in Spain being conscripted at the age of 21 years. The data were linked according to nominative criteria using family reconstitution methods. The results confirm that shorter individuals were less likely to marry. Individuals of medium and medium-high height were the first to marry, with a small gap between them and shorter individuals. With regard to marital fertility, no difference in terms of average fertility by height were found, but there were small differences in timing of childbirth, possibly as a result of delayed marriage.

To promote long-term care policies for older adults, accurate mapping of the often invisible and insufficiently recognized role of their informal caregivers is needed. This paper measures the prevalence of informal caregivers in the European population, illustrates current difficulties in gathering unequivocal information on this topic and deals with the scientific and policy implications of the problem. Using the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS), the European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) and the Study on Health and Ageing in Europe (SHARE), the current difficulties in gathering unequivocal information on this topic are illustrated. In most countries, the share of informal caregivers varies, sometimes markedly, among the three surveys. As for the sex of caregivers, while confirming the well-known higher prevalence of caregivers among women than among men, large variations emerge across the three surveys in most countries in respect of the two sexes. The takeaway message of the paper is that it is urgent to promote international concerted action in gathering comprehensive informal caregiving information and/or exploring in greater depth the different intercultural understandings of informal care itself.

An analysis of the distribution of surnames through time and space allows us to understand the structure of human groups, their exchanges or even their possible isolation. The French population has already been studied through surnames and it has been shown that the Sud-Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region differed from the rest of France in both the 20th and 21st centuries (Mourrieras et al., 1995; Scapoli et al., 2005). The objective of this study was to understand the population evolution and particularities of the Sud-Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region through an analysis of the distribution of surnames over an earlier period: the 19th century. For this work, 806,069 birth records from 521 communes between 1810 and 1890 were recorded and a total of 23,340 surnames were collected. The estimation of various isonymic parameters has allowed a description of this corpus never exploited before. In order to appreciate the population evolution, the data set was divided into three periods of 25 years. The canton was the geographical unit of this study, and similarities and differences between each of them were evaluated using Lasker distances, which allow the construction of dendrograms. A positive and significant correlation (p<0.0001) was found between Lasker distances and geographical distances using the Mantel test. The lowest inbreeding estimates were found in the Durance Valley. Migration, estimated from the v-index of Karlin and McGregor (1967), showed higher values in the south-western quarter of the region. The decrease in R st values across the three periods is consistent with a homogenization of the patronymic between the cantons. This three-period approach showed a population evolution influenced by linguistic, cultural, historical and migratory phenomena since the Middle Ages, disrupted by the socioeconomic changes of the 19th century.

The decline in fertility, rapid urbanization and the increase in women’s education levels in Turkey are simultaneous transformations. The coexistence and interaction of these transformations is the focal point for the interpretation of fertility trajectories in Turkey. This article explores Turkey’s heterogeneous fertility structure by examining the fertility trajectories of women between 1949 and 1978 cohorts. It also examines changes in these trajectories in light of Turkey’s fertility decline and interprets those changes through comparisons of women whose fertility behaviors are similar. Using three waves (1998, 2008 and 2018) of the Turkey Demographic and Health Survey data, we employed sequence analysis to calculate fertility trajectories and form clusters from these trajectories. The background similarities of women in the same fertility clusters were investigated with distance analysis, and we calculated predicted probabilities from multinomial logistic regression results and predicted cluster membership. The heterogeneous nature of fertility in Turkey during the demographic transition period shaped the transition process and it can be predicted that such heterogeneity will shape post-transition fertility. The behavior of having two children became the norm during this period, and greater spacing between births or even stopping after the first child became a preferred option among educated women who grew up in cities. For women who grew up in rural areas and uneducated women, we observed a transition from higher parities to three-norm.

The maxim of proponents of pseudoscience is to spread ignorance through false perceptions of its scientific status. One of its most attractive — and simultaneously harmful — manifestations is complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Despite the scientific evidence against them, CAM has taken hold in today’s society as a therapeutic model for a growing segment of the population. We analysed 379 articles on homeopathy, acupuncture, reiki and Bach flower remedies published in mainstream Spanish newspapers (El País, El Mundo, La Vanguardia, El Periódico and ABC) for the period 2011-2016, finding that disinformation is participated in actively by the Spanish press. CAM content was detected in these newspapers, together with a lack of an editorial perspective. In most of the cases, the uncritical articles were found in the interpretive genre and the society section. We also characterized the pseudoscientific discourse aimed at the public, finding that it is irrational and fraudulent in sowing fear and distrust regarding science. On the basis of theories invalidated by the scientific method and on appeals to the emotions, pseudoscience not only threatens scientific knowledge, but directly undermines public health by encouraging the abandonment of conventional medicine. In order to remedy this situation, better scientific training, informative screening and editorial commitment is urgently needed in the Spanish press.

This research studied the preferences reported by women and men about their Ideal Body Image for the Opposite Sex (IBIOS), and its association with body mass index (BMI). It also analysed the preferences of each sex for a woman’s ideal body image (W-IBI) and a man’s ideal body image (M-IBI). A total of 450 participants aged 18–70 years with different weights were studied. Their IBIOS was assessed using standard figural stimuli. The sample was divided in four groups by sex and age (<45 years; ≥45 years). Sex and age differences in IBIOS, as well as sex differences in the preferences for a woman’s ideal body image (W-IBI) and a man’s ideal body image (M-IBI), were tested using a non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test. The association between IBIOS and BMI was analysed using Spearman’s correlation. In all groups, the most chosen silhouette as IBIOS was number 4. In the under-45 years group, women chose bigger silhouettes for the opposite sex than men did (p<0.05). In this age group women chose as ideal smaller silhouettes for the female body than men did (p<0.01). In addition, women and men in the younger age group and with normal weight chose smaller silhouettes, while those who were overweight or obese selected larger silhouettes (p<0.001). Age was found to be a relevant factor in IBIOS preferences, and in the association between IBIOS and nutritional status as measured by BMI, which was only observed to be significant in the younger age group.

Digit ratio (2D:4D) – a proxy for prenatal sex steroids – shows sex, nationality and ethnic differences and is linked to pubertal onset. It is unclear whether right-left 2D:4D (Dr-l) also correlates with prenatal sex steroids, as evidence of these differences has been less conclusive. The present study examined the effects of sex, nation, ethnicity, age and self-reported pubertal development (i.e. the rate of physical development and age at menarche [females] or first shave [males]) on Dr-l in a large online study (the BBC internet study). Digit lengths were self-measured in 201,865 adults (110,955 males) and the sample of nations included 41 countries. Participants reported the self-perceived rate of physical pubertal development on a five-point scale (from very slow to very fast) and provided information on the age at menarche or first shave. Adult (>17 years) males had lower Dr-l than females with weak effect size across 41 nations (males-females; d = −.065, p < .0001). There were sex and ethnicity effects on Dr-l across seven ethnic groups with males < females and lower Dr-l in Whites and Middle/Near Eastern participants compared to Asian, Black and Chinese respondents. Considering age effects, the authors focused on participants >12 years; there were stable sex differences and a weak positive effect of age on Dr-l. Dr-l showed a positive relationship with the rate of physical development and a negative relationship with age at menarche or first shave. Relationships were present in males and females with stronger effects in the latter. It is concluded that Dr-l shows a weak sex difference (males < females) independent of nation, ethnicity and age, and suggest that Dr-l is a proxy for prenatal sex steroids.