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The purpose of the current study was to investigate the nutritional intake and body composition of Taekwondo (TKD) athletes during a two‐week period of weight management as they prepare to make weight classification for an international competition.

Seven male, 17‐28 years old, international TKD athletes were recruited from a known World Taekwondo Federation TKD Club in London. Habitual and pre‐competition dietary intake was assessed using a three‐day and a five‐day food diary, respectively. Body weight and percentage body fat (Holtain Calipers, seven sites) were measured at the beginning of the study and 24h before competition. Body weight was also measured on the day of competition.

Energy, total carbohydrate, calcium and water intakes were below recommendations for athletes, particularly, before competition and consumption of fat and salt exceeded recommendations. Compared with baseline, the two‐week weight management period induced a significant reduction in the athletes body weight (1.2 per cent, P<0.05), however, there was no significant reduction in percentage body fat which remained stable at a very low average of 3.2 per cent (±0.8). During the 24‐h prior to weigh‐in for competition, the athletes significantly reduced their body weight by a further 3.4 per cent (2.2kg, P<0.05). The dietary analysis showed that the athletes were consuming a sub‐optimal diet both habitually and pre‐competition, which may compromise their performance and short‐ and long‐term health.

There has been a distinctive lack of literature on nutritional studies conducted on TKD athletes. This paper helps to fill that gap.

This paper aims to draw together research which links the moral panic about the “adipose” body during the first five years of the millennium to the worsening mental health of US teens. Noting the way medical advocacy biased the news coverage in the quality press in the UK, the USA and Canada through its emphasis on weight gain in child and youth populations, it reviews evidence of a relationship between eating disorders, body dissatisfaction and the mental health of teens.

Building on research which suggests that teens ' misperception of their body can impact their mental health, the paper proposes reflexive embodiment, defined as the way an individual interprets and evaluates their own body morphology in relationship to the medical profession’s articulation of norms for weight classes, as a new construct for exploring the impact of the medical debates about obesity.

Using data sets from the US Youth Risk Behavior Survey gathered in 2001 and 2007 to compare both weight status and weight class accuracy, the study finds evidence that teens ' perceptions of their bodies have changed more than their actual weight. Noting a complex relationship between teens ' misperception of their weight status and mental health risks associated with depression and suicide, the paper explores ways that the medical stigmatization of the adipose body, and the ensuing consequences of gendered weight bias, have consequences for teen well-being.

This case study only provides an exploratory analysis of an hypothesis suggested by the theory of reflexive embodiment.

Refocus health professions on the mental health of teens.

Evidence of health implications of reflexive embodiment adds to a growing critique of medicalization of adipose body morphology.

The analysis of data contributes to a growing concern about medical stigmatization of “fat” bodies as unhealthy.

Race and ethnicity, BMI and other factors can affect ratings of one’s experiences in school, work and other settings. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of BMI, race and ethnicity and body satisfaction on the experiences of victimization in a work or academic setting. Additionally, experiences of weight/appearance-based perpetration were explored within the context of prior victimization, perpetration, BMI, race and ethnicity and body satisfaction.

A diverse sample of 1,161 female undergraduates completed a series of questionnaires online. A series of hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to examine the association between body satisfaction, BMI and race and ethnicity and weight/appearance-based teasing perpetration and victimization.

Results indicated that lower body satisfaction was significantly related to an increase in weight/appearance-based victimization. Additional analyses examining the perpetration of weight/appearance-based teasing were conducted. Participants who reported experiencing victimization were also more likely to perpetrate weight/appearance-based teasing, although BMI was not associated with perpetration.

Implications of these findings and future research directions are discussed. In particular, academic settings provide a landscape for reducing and preventing victimization because of the resources available for students in addition to policies and procedures that can be implemented.

The findings of this study provide evidence that various identities and beliefs, such as race and ethnicity, BMI and body satisfaction, play a role in victimization and perpetration. This study used a novel, emerging adulthood population.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether reading a self-help chapter on the body's regulation of weight can change weight control beliefs, and whether such changes in turn predict improvements in body dissatisfaction and self-esteem.

Participants of a mixed racial sample of undergraduate college women (n=154) completed measures of personal weight control beliefs, body dissatisfaction, self-esteem and knowledge before and after they read a self-help education chapter.

Exposure to the education was associated with improvement in knowledge, body dissatisfaction and self-esteem and change in weight control beliefs. Increase in the belief in “striving for a healthy lifestyle with acceptance of one's natural weight” predicted improvement in body dissatisfaction and self-esteem.

This paper provides preliminary evidence that realistic information about weight control can impact weight control beliefs, and that this in turn is associated with improvement in body satisfaction and self-esteem. The major limitation of the study is the lack of control group to ensure changes are not due to factors like social desirability. Future directions would be to replicate this research using a control group, and to look at the role of education and weight control beliefs in eating disordered and bariatric populations.

This is the first study to look at the impact of providing young women with realistic information about the body's regulation of weight and weight loss outcomes on their beliefs about weight control, body dissatisfaction and self-esteem. This information is valuable for health care providers and educators working with young women.

Several recent observational studies detected inverse associations between dietary calcium intake and body weight. It was demonstrated that low calcium diets lead to an increase in intracellular calcium concentrations, which in turn act to promote body fat deposition, reduce lipolysis and reduce thermogenesis. Most of the studies have been conducted on adults, however, it was recently demonstrated that longitudinal calcium intake is negatively associated with children's body fat levels. The purpose of the current study is to investigate possible associations between habitual calcium intake and body weight in a group of 7–10 years old children.

Eighty‐five children, 21 boys and 64 girls (mean age: 9.2±0.9) were recruited from 12 primary schools in the London area. Dietary intake was measured using the 7‐day weighed inventory method. Body weight and height measurements were also recorded.

Data suggested that girls have significantly lower intakes of calcium than boys and that 48 per cent of boys and 38 per cent of girls were overweight (above the 91st centile). However, there were no significant correlations between body weight or body mass index (BMI) and habitual intake of dietary calcium in this age group, which is in contrast with the results of similar studies conducted in adults.

One explanation could be that the possible effect of calcium on adiposity and body weight is more pronounced in adulthood than in childhood. It is important for future studies to measure levels of body fat in children together with body weight in conjunction with calcium intake in order to elucidate the original hypothesis.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the associations between adolescents’ perceptions of their parents’ and peers’ opinions about body weight and their actual weight status.

A total of 795 Jordanian adolescents, 15-18 years of age, were recruited in this study. Adolescents completed a questionnaire to evaluate their perceptions: about how their parents’ and peers’ viewed their weight, regarding any criticism of their parents and peers about their weight and if their parents compared their weight against their siblings.

The study found that the majority of non-overweight adolescents thought their parents and peers considered them to have a normal weight (94.9 and 94.6 per cent for boys, 76.6 and 85.5 per cent for girls, respectively). For obese girls, 83.4 per cent thought their parents and 91.7 per cent thought their peers perceived them as overweight. The risk of being obese was significantly related to the amount of parental criticism perceived by adolescent girls with OR = 3.9 (95 per cent CI: 1.6-9.4; P = 0.01), while perception of peer criticism showed an increased trend of risk for obesity in boys. Adolescents’ perceptions regarding parental comparisons between their body weights against their siblings’ body weight was found to increase the risk for obesity significantly among girls.

The current study highlights that most of the obese adolescents perceived that their parents and peers underestimated their actual weight status. While obese boys were more likely to report being criticized about their body shape by their peers, obese girls indicated that they received more criticism about their weight from their parents.

It is commonly asserted that a lot of people may gain about 2.5 kg of weight or more over holiday periods, however data are limited. The purpose of this paper is to assess potential changes that may occur in body weight, body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference during Easter holidays.

A total of 138 college students participate in the study in the morning after a 12 h fasting. Body weight is assessed using an electronic scale (Seca ± 0.1 g), wearing minimal clothing. Paired t‐test is used to assess changes in body weight before and after a holiday period.

The mean (±SD) weight increases significantly during the holiday period (+1.5 ± 2.4 kg, p < 0.001) and (+1.7 ± 1.3 kg, p < 0.001) for both males and females, respectively. When subjects are classified by BMI as normal or overweight (OW)/obese, a significant 2.6 ± 3.5 kg gain is found (p < 0.05) in the OW/obese group (≥25 kg/m²). The average holiday gain is less than what is commonly asserted. This gain is not usually reversed and may contribute to the increase of body weight that frequently occurs during adulthood.

A convenience sample (college students), rather than a population‐based sample is used; also the activity level of the subjects is not measured, which might influence the body weight gain.

The paper should be of value to nutritionists and clinical dietetics.

Garlic supplementation may be inversely contributed to body weight and composition; however, previous results have been inconsistent. This study aims to evaluate the effect of garlic supplementation on body weight and composition using a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Online databases of PubMed, ISI Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar were searched up to January 2020. The random-effects model was used to calculate the effect sizes of the included studies. The risk of bias of included studies was assessed using the Cochrane collaboration’s tool. Besides, the NutriGrade scoring system was applied to judge the credibility of the evidence.

In total, 18 studies (with 1,250 participants) were included in the meta-analysis. The pooled analysis revealed that garlic supplementation has a significant increase in body weight [weighted mean difference (WMD) = 0.31 Kg, 95% CI: 0.09, 0.53 Kg, P = 0.005, n = 12 effect sizes]. Waist circumference (WC) does remarkably reduce [WMD = −1.28 cm, 95% CI: −2.08, −0.47 cm, P = 0.002, n = 4 effect size]. However, body mass index, body fat percent and fat-free mass do not dramatically change (P > 0.05). Notably, the pooled analyses on body weight and WC were sensitive to two included studies. NutriGrade’s score was rated low for this meta-analysis.

Although garlic supplementation could slightly increase weight and simultaneously might decrease WC, these associations were not strong enough to corroborate the findings. Also, other anthropometric indices do not significantly change. Further well-designed randomized clinical trial studies are needed to confirm the results.

The purpose of this paper is to present anthropometric measurements on 42 premature infants nursed in the neonatal intensive care unit of Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong.

Birth information, including maturity, age, gender, birth weight and present weight, were recorded. About 13 body size measurements, including stature, hand girth, armscye girth, chest girth, arm length, max girth, abdomen girth, hand length, thigh girth, shoulder width, head to nape length, inside leg to heel length and foot length, were measured for each infant. Using these data, the body size distribution, the correlation between each body size measurement, and linear regressions of present weight and stature with other body size measurement were analyzed.

It was found that present weight and stature of premature infants were the most desirable and significant size parameters for the development of a measurement chart for premature infants.

The paper provides anthropometric measurement details of premature infants.

The purpose of this study is to explore beliefs and experiences of Turkish immigrant women in Norway related to body weight, nutrition and exercise practices.

This study has a qualitative research design. Ten semi-structured interviews and a focus group were conducted with a purposive sample of Turkish immigrant women residing in Oslo, Norway. Themes were identified in the transcripts using systematic text condensation.

Participants viewed Turkish women as more commonly overweight or obese compared to Norwegian women. Weight was discussed openly among Turkish women and a preference to lose weight, both as individuals and among community members more broadly, also emerged. For participants, this represented a generational shift. Participants identified their barriers to weight loss, including norms around socialization and food in their community and exercise and eating practices during the long Nordic winter.

Participants expressed a tension between concern about health impacts of overweight and obesity and the desire to uphold cultural practices around food. Weight-related health-care initiatives for Turkish immigrant women can take into account such experiences shaped by their interaction with multiple cultures.

Participants emphasized that perspectives about weight in their Turkish immigrant community were influenced by the transition toward thin weight ideals in Turkey. Self-image regarding weight was also situated within the context of being immigrants in Norway.