OBJECTIVE To analyze the factors associated with sexual risk behavior in adolescent girls and boys in order to plan future school health interventions. METHODS A cross-sectional study with two-stage cluster sampling that included 97 schools and 9,340 students aged between 14 and 16 years old was carried out in 2005-2006 in Catalonia (Spain). For the survey, a self-administered paper-based que...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to estimate the level of body shape dissatisfaction among a large sample of adolescent boys and girls within different weight categories. METHODS A total sample of 883 adolescents aged 12 to 16 was included from junior high schools in Taipei County, Taiwan. The Contour Drawing Rating Scale was used to assess body shape dissatisfaction. RESULTS Body shap...

The current study explores the role of appearance-related social pressure regarding changes in body image in adolescent girls (n=236) and boys (n=193) over a 1-year-period. High school students aged 11-16 completed measures of body dissatisfaction (i.e., weight and muscle concerns) and appearance-related social pressure from peers and parents. Three aspects proved to be particularly crucial: Pa...

BACKGROUND The aims of the present study are to investigate whether there are differences in health-related quality of life (HRQoL) between girls and boys in two different age groups, to study how much of children's variance in HRQoL can be explained by common psychosomatic health symptoms, and to examine whether the same set of psychosomatic symptoms can explain differences in HRQoL, both betw...

OBJECTIVE To explore parents' views of extending the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programme to also include boys. DESIGN Explorative qualitative design using individual, face-to-face, interviews and inductive thematic analysis. SETTING 11 strategically chosen municipalities in central Sweden. PARTICIPANTS Parents (n=42) who were offered HPV vaccination for their 11-12 years old ...

This study examined the effects of age and sex on mental rotation performance, verbal performance, and brain-wave activity. Thirty-two 8-year-olds (16 boys) and 32 college students (16 men) had EEG recorded at baseline and while performing four computerized tasks: a two-dimensional (2D) gingerbread man mental rotation, a 2D alphanumeric mental rotation, of three-dimensional (3D) basketball play...

BACKGROUND Adolescent risk behaviours such as smoking, alcohol use and antisocial behaviour are associated with increased risk of morbidity and mortality. Patterns of risk behaviour may vary between genders during adolescence. METHODS Analysis of data from a longitudinal birth cohort to assess the prevalence and distribution of multiple risk behaviours by gender at age 15-16 years with a focu...

OBJECTIVE Parental atopy and environmental exposures are recognized risk factors for childhood asthma. However, the relative contributions of specific risk factors and the overall contributions of indoor and outdoor exposures remain unexplored. This study was undertaken to identify risk factors, estimate the population attributable risk of each exposure, and compare the data for boys versus gir...

PURPOSE The aim of this study was to study the appropriate cut-off value of visceral fat area (VFA) and waist-to-height ratio (WTHR) which increase the risk of obesity-related disorders and to validate the diagnostic criteria of abdominal obesity and metabolic syndrome in Korean children and adolescents. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total 314 subjects (131 boys and 183 girls) were included in this...

BACKGROUND Tinea capitis affects mainly children. The frequency and causative organism vary from region to region. OBJECTIVES To provide epidemiological and mycological data on tinea capitis collected in urban and rural areas of the Dominican Republic. METHODS Samples were obtained from 118 patients with tinea capitis. Sixty-three of these were from 2 schools in urban areas of the Dominican...