Publications by authors named "Lawrence Monocello"

Cultural consonance, defined as the extent to which one is able to approximate a given cultural model in one's own life, is a highly adaptive theory and method which anthropologists have used for decades to demonstrate direct connections between individuals' variation in relation to meaning systems and their health outcomes. However, it has been limited by use of a "cultural consonance score" which treats cultural consonance unidimensionally. Because people enact cultural models in multiple ways, cultural consonance may be better operationalized multidimensionally.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Internalized weight stigma (IWS) negatively impacts mental and physical health, leading to a need for targeted psychological interventions.
  • A systematic review of 161 articles identified 20 studies that showed these interventions are generally feasible, acceptable, and effective at reducing IWS and improving related health outcomes.
  • However, more rigorous research, especially randomized controlled trials, is necessary to confirm these findings and better understand the effectiveness of different interventions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * A systematic review of 161 articles led to 20 studies showing that psychological interventions are feasible and generally well-accepted, with many reporting significant reductions in IWS and improvements in health outcomes.
  • * The findings suggest that current interventions hold promise for enhancing the wellbeing of individuals with IWS, though more rigorous research, like randomized controlled trials, is essential to establish their effectiveness further.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: The eating disorders field has been limited by a predominant focus on White, Western women, and there is growing recognition of the need to understand cross-cultural variation in key constructs (i.e., ideal body types).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Researchers explored strategies to boost participation in online mental health surveys, finding that motivational appeals in emails ironically decreased participation rates in a screening survey.
  • In a follow-up experiment using a TikTok influencer video, participation rates did not significantly change compared to a humorous gif, although the video performed better among White and non-Hispanic participants.
  • The study highlights the importance of carefully considering email content length and the effectiveness of different strategies among diverse groups before applying them broadly.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: This review provides an update to a previous Evidence Base Update addressing behavioral treatments for overweight and obesity in children and adolescents.

Method: Articles were identified through a systematic search of the biomedical literature in PubMed/MEDLINE (1946-), Elsevier EMBASE (1947-), SCOPUS (1823-), Clarivate Web of Science Core Collection (WOS, 1900-), PsycINFO (1800-), The Cochrane Library and Clinicaltrials.gov published between June 2014 and August 2022.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Eating disorders are serious mental illnesses, but little research explores non-Western men's cultural experiences of body image and what affects their risks of disordered eating. Drawing on data collected over 17 months (August 2019 to January 2021) of fieldwork in Seoul, South Korea, the lens of intersectionality is employed alongside multiple regression and moderation analysis to understand how two axes of identity which emerged as important from the ethnography-sexual identity and university prestige-shape the ways in which young Korean men's cultural consonance with their local model of the ideal male body, influenced heavily by the kkonminam (flower boy), relates to risk for developing an eating disorder. Among young Korean men, intersections of university prestige and sexual identity frame embodiment of cultural models of male body image as a strategy for the making and maintenance of social relations and the advancement of social status in a precarious neoliberal economy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Men's body image is an issue of increasing importance as related illnesses continue to grow in prevalence around the world. However, cross-cultural attention to men's body image experiences has been relatively understudied. Based on data derived from cognitive anthropological methods of cultural domain analysis, I develop the concept of "muscularities" to more effectively examine the expectations inherent in multifarious models of body image men continuously navigate.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Body image disturbance and eating disorders are rising all over the world. However, little is known about experiences of body image in men across cultural groups, and measurement tools often fail to account for the profound ways in which culture and gender can affect these data. An American cultural model of the ideal male body was compared with that of South Koreans using cultural domain analysis and residual agreement analysis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Elevation of hemoglobin concentration, a common adaptive response to high-altitude hypoxia, occurs among Oromo but is dampened among Amhara highlanders of East Africa. We hypothesized that Amhara highlanders offset their smaller hemoglobin response with a vascular response. We tested this by comparing Amhara and Oromo highlanders at 3,700 and 4,000 m to their lowland counterparts at 1,200 and 1,700 m.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF