Concordance of Child and Parent Reports of Children's Screen Media Use.

Objective: Little is known about the concordance of parent and child reports of children's media consumption, even though parents are often asked to report for their children in clinical care settings. Our objective was to understand how parent and child reports of children's media consumption differ in an era of changing screen media consumption via personal devices.

Methods: As part of a larger study about the reception of health-related cues from children's media, children ages 9 to 11 years (N = 114) and their parents independently completed identical questionnaires about specific media use and health behaviors.

Obesogenic Behavior and Weight-Based Stigma in Popular Children's Movies, 2012 to 2015.

Background: Obesity-promoting content and weight-stigmatizing messages are common in child-directed television programming and advertisements, and 1 study found similar trends in G- and PG-rated movies from 2006 to 2010. Our objective was to examine the prevalence of such content in more recent popular children's movies.

Methods: Raters examined 31 top-grossing G- and PG-rated movies released from 2012 to 2015.

Sexual Media and Childhood Well-being and Health.

Sexual content is highly prevalent in traditional media, and portrayals rarely depict the responsibilities and risks (eg, condom use, pregnancy) associated with sexual activity. Exposure to such content is linked with shifts in attitudes about sex and gender, earlier progression to sexual activity, pregnancy, and sexually transmitted infection among adolescents. However, little information is available about moderators and mediators of these effects.

Influence of product placement in children's movies on children's snack choices.

Background: Media exposure affects health, including obesity risk. Children's movies often contain food placements-frequently unhealthy foods. However, it is not known if these cues influence children's food choices or consumption after viewing.

Reducing Concurrent Sexual Partnerships Among Blacks in the Rural Southeastern United States: Development of Narrative Messages for a Radio Campaign.

In the United States, heterosexual transmission of HIV infection is dramatically higher among Blacks than among Whites. Overlapping (concurrent) sexual partnerships promote HIV transmission. The authors describe their process for developing a radio campaign (Escape the Web) to raise awareness among 18-34-year-old Black adults of the effect of concurrency on HIV transmission in the rural South.

The role of companionship, esteem, and informational support in explaining physical activity among young women in an online social network intervention.

The primary objective of the current study was to examine the relationship between social support and physical activity within the theory of planned behavior (TPB) theoretical framework. This study used data from the Internet Support for Healthy Associations Promoting Exercise randomized controlled trial. A total of 134 female undergraduate students participated in the study, which included baseline and post measures of perceived social support for physical activity (esteem, informational, and companionship), TPB variables related to physical activity (perceived behavioral control, intention, and attitude), and physical activity behavior.

Sexual health knowledge and health practices of female sex workers in Liuzhou, China, differ by size of venue.

We conducted qualitative interviews with 48 female sex workers (FSW) recruited from entertainment venues in Liuzhou, China. Analyses found that HIV knowledge and sexual health seeking strategies differed by size of venue: (1) Women in smaller venues said they douched before/after sex and used condoms with all but their regular partners and clients. Most found the brochures distributed by Chinese CDC workers "irrelevant" or "boring" and relied on friends for health advice.

"Love is all you need" A content analysis of romantic love and sex in Chinese entertainment television.

A large sample of entertainment television programs that aired on 28 channels in China in 2004 were analyzed for romantic and sexual content. Romantic scenes, typically portraying men and women already in committed relationships, appeared in 80 percent of the 196 programs analyzed. The analysis suggested that, according to Chinese television in the early part of the 21 Century, emotional love was more important than physical sexual interaction in romantic relationships.

A social media-based physical activity intervention: a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Online social networks, such as Facebook™, have extensive reach, and they use technology that could enhance social support, an established determinant of physical activity. This combination of reach and functionality makes online social networks a promising intervention platform for increasing physical activity.

Purpose: To test the efficacy of a physical activity intervention that combined education, physical activity monitoring, and online social networking to increase social support for physical activity compared to an education-only control.

The media do matter: comment on Steinberg and Monahan (2011).

Steinberg and Monahan's (2011) reanalysis of the Teen Media longitudinal survey of adolescents does not meet prevailing standards for propensity score analysis and therefore does not undermine the original conclusions of the Brown, L'Engle, Pardun, Guo, Kenneavy, and Jackson (2006) analysis. The media do matter in the sexual socialization of adolescents.

Television use and snacking behaviors among children and adolescents in China.

Purpose: Television (TV) use has been linked with poor eating behaviors and obesity in young people. This study examines the association between TV watching and paying attention to TV commercials with buying and requesting snacks seen on commercials, and eating snacks while watching TV among youth in China.

Methods: Data from 1,552 participants (ages 6-17.

Direct-to-consumer antidepressant ads and young adults' beliefs about depression.

This study examined the extent to which exposure to direct-to-consumer (DTC) antidepressant ads is associated with young adults' understanding of depression as a medical condition. A vignette-based questionnaire was presented to 285 college students. Among those who had not experienced depressive symptoms, high exposure to a DTC antidepressant commercial was significantly associated with recognition of depression cases and listing antidepressants as a treatment option.

Transitions into underage and problem drinking: summary of developmental processes and mechanisms: ages 10-15.

Adolescents ages 10-15 experience dramatic changes in their biological, cognitive, emotional, and social development as well as in their physical and social environments. These include the physiological and psychological changes associated with puberty; further development of the brain; changes in family, peer, and romantic relationships; and exposure to new societal and cultural influences. During this period, many adolescents also begin to use alcohol.

Media and breastfeeding: friend or foe?

The mass media have the potential to be powerful friends or foes in promoting breastfeeding. The media could help by putting the issue of breastfeeding on policy agendas and by framing breastfeeding as healthy and normative for baby and mother. Currently, however, it looks as if the media are more often contributing to perceptions that breastfeeding is difficult for mothers and potentially dangerous for babies.

From Calvin Klein to Paris Hilton and MySpace: adolescents, sex, and the media.

In the absence of effective sex education at home or school, the media have become important sources of sexual information for adolescents in the United States. Mainstream media inundate teenagers with sexual images and innuendoes. In the most recent content analysis of American primetime TV, more than three-fourths of the shows had sexual content; yet less than 15% contained any references to responsible sexuality, abstinence, the risk of pregnancy, or the risk of sexually transmitted infections.

Transitions into underage and problem drinking: developmental processes and mechanisms between 10 and 15 years of age.

Numerous developmental changes occur across levels of personal organization (eg, changes related to puberty, brain and cognitive-affective structures and functions, and family and peer relationships) in the age period of 10 to 15 years. Furthermore, the onset and escalation of alcohol use commonly occur during this period. This article uses both animal and human studies to characterize these multilevel developmental changes.

"Let's Talk About Sex": pilot study of an interactive CD-ROM to prevent HIV/STIS in female adolescents.

The purpose of this study was to develop and pilot-test an interactive CD-ROM aimed at the prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in female adolescents. The CD-ROM includes prevention information, models skills for negotiating abstinence and consistent condom use, teaches media literacy, and allows the user to choose a culturally appropriate host to guide them through the CD-ROM. Forty-seven female adolescents attending a health department clinic were randomized to receive the CD-ROM plus an educator-led didactic session versus the didactic session alone.

Sad Kids, Sad Media? Applying Mood Management Theory to Depressed Adolescents' Use of Media.

Mood management studies typically have found that adults will select media that enhance positive moods and reduce negative moods. In this study, adolescents diagnosed with major depressive disorder and control adolescents without psychiatric disorders were called on customized cell phones up to 4 times a day and asked about their current mood state and media use for five extended weekends across an 8-week period. Mood effects on subsequent media use, mood during media consumption, and media effects on subsequent mood were examined.

R-rated movies, bedroom televisions, and initiation of smoking by white and black adolescents.

Objective: To test movie exposure and television use as predictors of smoking initiation among white and black adolescents who had never smoked cigarettes.

Design: Survey research using audio computer-assisted self-interviews at baseline and at 2-year follow-up (2002-2004).

Setting: Participants' homes located in central North Carolina.

Music videos, pro wrestling, and acceptance of date rape among middle school males and females: an exploratory analysis.

Exposure to televised music videos and pro wrestling were associated with rape acceptance (lower levels of agreeing with the statement "forcing a partner to have sex is never OK") among males, but not females, in a sample of 904 middle school students (controlling for overall television exposure, parenting style, and demographics).

Does MTV reach an appropriate audience for HIV prevention messages? Evidence from MTV viewership data in Nepal and Brazil.

In response to the growing numbers of young people affected by HIV around the world, MTV (Music TV), the world's largest television network, has aired a global HIV prevention campaign since 1999, expanding it into a multicomponent campaign in 2002. Questions have been raised, however, about whether MTV is an appropriate channel for these messages, given its provocative content and its reach to those at the upper end of the socioeconomic scale. To address questions about who MTV reaches, viewership data were analyzed from baseline surveys conducted as part of an evaluation of the 2002 HIV prevention campaign.

Early adolescents' cognitive susceptibility to initiating sexual intercourse.

Context: Better methods for investigating sexual risk before the initiation of sexual intercourse are needed to support programming for younger adolescents, especially for abstinent adolescents who are susceptible to initiating intercourse.

Methods: A sample of 854 adolescents in seventh or eighth grade who had never had sexual intercourse completed sexuality surveys in 2002 and 2004. A five-item index that assessed beliefs and expectations about the onset of intercourse was created to indicate adolescents' cognitive susceptibility to initiating intercourse.

Sexy media matter: exposure to sexual content in music, movies, television, and magazines predicts black and white adolescents' sexual behavior.

Objective: To assess over time whether exposure to sexual content in 4 mass media (television, movies, music, and magazines) used by early adolescents predicts sexual behavior in middle adolescence.

Methods: An in-home longitudinal survey of 1017 black and white adolescents from 14 middle schools in central North Carolina was conducted. Each teen was interviewed at baseline when he or she was 12 to 14 years old and again 2 years later using a computer-assisted self interview (audio computer-assisted self-interview) to ensure confidentiality.