Search results

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the creation of safe academic (education and research) environments that offer proper protections to adult academics and staff, so that academia and society at large may benefit from the fruits of safe workplaces. Not all academic environments are entirely safe, and there are recorded cases of victims of harassment and sexual abuse.

Given that co-workers in a laboratory, or research subjects in a research project, may be victims of harassment or sexual abuse, and that the same individuals may then become co-authors or anonymized research subjects, respectively, in academic papers, there is a need to appreciate what structural protection exists for such victims at the post-publication level. What should academia do with the literature of legally recognized sex offenders who have published in peer-reviewed and indexed academic journals?

Currently, there is no specific guidance by ethics organizations (e.g., Committee on Publication Ethics and International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) to deal with this issue, so protective mechanisms for adult victims, as well as punitive measures against perpetrators at the post-publication stage, are needed.

There may be career-altering repercussions – personal, professional and reputational – for co-authors of legally recognized sex offenders in papers published in peer-reviewed and indexed journals. There may also be life-altering outcomes to victims of sexual abuse who are the study subjects of such papers. Thus, a robust form of post-publication protection (and justice) based on unbiased and independent ethical and legal investigations, coordinated by editors, publishers and research institutes, needs to be established.

Social expectations of body image can generate negative body feelings, exacerbate compensatory behaviors and discourage healthy food choices. This study examined the food choices and perceptions of adult consumers dissatisfied with their body image about food products available in the “healthy foods” section of a Brazilian supermarket.

Exploratory, descriptive and qualitative study. Body image dissatisfaction was assessed with the self-reported silhouette scale validated for the Brazilian population. Chosen items were classified according with degree of processing. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 26 men and women and transcribed and thematically analyzed.

Participants chose 81 food products, most of which (53%) were ultra-processed. Thematic analysis revealed that participants were motivated mainly by consumption habits, preference, convenience and brand loyalty. Participants questioned the concept of health promoted by the supermarket and suggested that the kind of food items available in “healthy foods section” may confuse consumers about the healthfulness of packaged processed foods (PF). Despite being critical of the concept of healthfulness promoted by the supermarket, participants predominantly selected ultra-processed foods (UPF) mentioning health-related motivations for their selection, revealing a realm of contradictions. The results indicate that, for individuals dissatisfied with their body image due to overweight and with emotional eating behavior, the environment of the healthy foods section of supermarkets is not conducive to healthy food shopping.

Qualitative approach can bring results which add to the body of evidence on the importance of the food environment's influence on food choices, especially of individuals prone to making poor choices for the sake of improving their perceived body image.