Tagged / women

Congratulations to Dr. Karim Khaled and colleagues

Congratulations to Dr Karim Khaled on the recent publication of the article ‘The Association between Psychological Stress and Dietary Quality and Patterns among Women of Childbearing Age in Lebanon‘.
The paper focuses on psychological stress linked to poorer dietary quality can lead to serious diseases. The objective of this study was to examine the association between psychological stress and dietary quality/patterns among childbearing-aged women in Lebanon. Female participants (n = 249) participated in an online survey-questionnaire which included the previously adapted European Prospective into Cancer and Nutrition food frequency questionnaire and stress, depression, anxiety, physical activity, adiposity, and socio-demographic questions.
The a-priori dietary quality was assessed through the Mediterranean Diet (MD) index. The a-posteriori latent dietary-patterns (DPs) were derived through factor analysis. Regression analysis was performed to investigate the predictors of the DPs. Participants mainly had a medium MD adherence (61%). No association was found between stress and MD adherence. Factor analysis revealed four DPs: “potatoes, vegetables, legumes, soups and sauces, and non-alcoholic beverages” (DP1), “cereals, fats and oils, milk and dairy products, and sugars and snacks” (DP2), “alcoholic beverages, fish and seafood, eggs, and meats and meat products” (DP3), and “fruits and nuts and seeds” (DP4). Regression analysis indicated that DP1 was positively associated with monthly income (p = 0.02) and negatively with mother’s educational level (p = 0.03). DP2 was negatively associated with father’s employment status (p = 0.01) and marital status (p = 0.008). DP3 was negatively associated with higher father’s educational level (p = 0.018), but positively with BMI (p < 0.001). DP4 was positively linked with BMI (p = 0.01).
Further studies are needed to investigate the association between psychological stress and dietary quality/patterns among Lebanese childbearing aged women.
Congratulations!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Reference:
  1. Khaled, K., Hundley, V., Bassil, M., Bazzi, M., Tsofliou, F. (2024) The Association between Psychological Stress and Dietary Quality and Patterns among Women of Childbearing Age in Lebanon. Acta Scientific Nutritional Health 8(9): 8-20.

 

 

New BU women’s health publication

Congratulations to Karim Khaled on the publication in the international journal Nutrients of his latest women’s health paper  [1].  The paper ‘A Structural Equation Modelling Approach to Examine the Mediating Effect of Stress on Diet in Culturally Diverse Women of Childbearing Age’ is co-authored with his PhD supervisors Dr. Fotini Tsofliou and Prof. Vanora Hundley.

This paper in Nutrients  is Open Access, hence available to read to anybody across the globe with internet access.

 

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

 

Reference:

  1. Khaled, K., Tsofliou, F., Hundley, V.A. A Structural Equation Modelling Approach to Examine the Mediating Effect of Stress on Diet in Culturally Diverse Women of Childbearing Age. Nutrients. 2024; 16(19):3354. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16193354

Writing some blurb

Publisher Routledge announced the forthcoming edited volume Menstruation in Nepal: Dignity Without Danger, which is edited by Sara ParkerMadhusudan Subedi and Kay Standing. This book examines the complexities of menstrual beliefs and practices in Nepal. Taking an interdisciplinary and intersectional approach, it explores and promotes the rights of women, girls and people who menstruate, to a dignified and healthy menstruation.  I had the honour of being asked to write some of the blurb for this exciting book.  Partly, because of our wide-range of health services and health promotion research in the country and partly because of our previous paper on reusable sanitary towels in the aftermath of the 2015 earthquake in Nepal [1].

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

 

Reference:

  1. Budhathoki, S.S., Bhattachan, M., Pokharel, P.K., Bhadra, M., van Teijlingen, E. (2017) Reusable sanitary towels: Promoting menstrual hygiene in post-earthquake Nepal. Journal of Family Planning & Reproductive Health Care 43(2): 157-159.

Conversation article: Like many women, I didn’t know I was autistic until adulthood – how late diagnosis can hurt mental health and self image

Dr Rachel Moseley writes for The Conversation about the gender differences in autism and the impact of late, or no, diagnosis for autistic people…

Like many women, I didn’t know I was autistic until adulthood – how late diagnosis can hurt mental health and self image

Dagerotip/Shutterstock

Rachel Moseley, Bournemouth University

For many women, adult diagnoses of autism are “a light in the darkness”, an epiphany of self-understanding. My “lightbulb moment” came in my late 20s. “They thought you were autistic,” my mum mused when I told her I was embarking on an academic career in autism research.

As a child, I was painfully aware of being different. The adults and the children around me had noticed my strangeness, my inability to fit in. It turned out that autism had been suggested to my mother – but then dismissed by a child psychiatrist. I didn’t fit what was known about autism. Although socially gauche, I’d mastered eye contact and was fairly eloquent.

A few years after my mum had made that off-the-cuff comment, I was re-evaluating my life in the context of a shiny new diagnosis.

Researchers are learning more and more about the way autism differs in people of different sexes and genders. As they do so, the lights are coming on for more of us who’ve felt lost in the world.

The female face of autism

There is no one type of autistic person. The key features of autism – differences in the way we think, communicate and interact with others – show up in more diverse and subtle ways than the limited examples suggested by the diagnostic criteria. This is often true in autistic girls.


This article is part of Women’s Health Matters, a series about the health and wellbeing of women and girls around the world. From menopause to miscarriage, pleasure to pain the articles in this series will delve into the full spectrum of women’s health issues to provide valuable information, insights and resources for women of all ages.

You may be interested in:

Women still feel like they aren’t listened to when they give birth – here’s what could help change things

Birth trauma is a growing problem — experiencing it myself revealed how few people understand it

Science experiments traditionally only used male mice – here’s why that’s a problem for women’s health


While they struggle with social understanding, many autistic girls are adept mimics of the social behaviour of other people. In the way they speak and the things they talk about, they are more similar to neurotypical children than autistic boys are. This may explain why, on first impression, people tend to underestimate autistic girls’ difficulties.

In comparison to autistic boys, the conversation of autistic girls tends to be more social in nature, focusing more on the people and friendship groups around them. Their interests tend to be more social, involving fictional characters, animals or celebrities rather than non-living objects. Tellingly, they express greater longing for the friendships and relationships which often elude them.

As they grow, some girls learn scripts to use in social situations, and develop a passive way of behaving with others that focuses on making the other person feel comfortable. Many autistic girls and women engage in this kind of “social camouflaging” constantly in order to seem acceptable to others.

The subtleties of autism in girls mean that they’re diagnosed significantly later than boys. In part, this reflects lack of awareness in the professionals who typically signpost children to autism services. However, others will be passed over because diagnostic assessment tools are less sensitive to autism in girls with cognitive abilities in the normal range.

The price of being overlooked

Undiagnosed autistic people are often painfully aware of their inability to fit in and to do the things that others do easily. If no one gives you an explanation, you’re left to find one yourself.

I knew as a teenager that I must be fundamentally bad, since I was bullied and had no friends at school. Autistic people I’ve worked with in my research have similarly blamed themselves for a lifetime of struggling and being abused, pinning these things on personal failings.

Woman looking sadly out of window.
Undiagnosed autism can lead to mental health struggles.
Rocketclips, Inc./Shutterstock

Across research studies, we late-diagnosed autistics are that societal subgroup with a history of academic struggles, employment problems, mental illness and relationship breakdowns. Our self-narratives are ones of inadequacy and failure.

Research has found that autistic girls and women have poorer mental health than autistic men. So are people who are diagnosed later in life compared to those diagnosed when young. These two facts are almost certainly interrelated. Autistic children who grow up without a diagnosis are unlikely to receive appropriate support. What’s more, they’re less likely to be viewed with compassion when they struggle.

Recognition of autism in girls and women may come at a crisis point. For some, this occurs in the pubertal chaos and complex social world of adolescence, where rates of anxiety and depression climb steeply in autistic girls. For some, it happens in the world-rocking turmoil of menopause, which appears to derail the coping skills and social camouflage that undiagnosed people rely on.

For some, it never happens. Undiagnosed autistic people are believed to constitute a high number of suicide deaths.

Further challenges

Beyond diagnosis, there are other ways that autistic girls and women face greater challenges than boys and men. While women generally suffer higher rates of sexual abuse, this risk is even higher for autistic women.

Autistic women often find their difficulties are poorly understood by employers, and must also contend with gendered pressures to perform emotional labour at work – taking on the unpaid and implicit responsibility to look after the emotions of others – or face damage to their reputation.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, autistic gender disparities in stress-related illnesses and risk of suicide are stark. Despite this, autistic women still face greater barriers to accessing help.

It’s uncertain to what extent these disparities can be traced back to the fundamental fact that autism is poorly understood and under-catered for in women and people of minority sexes and genders.

What we do know is that early diagnosis seems crucial for girls to grow up with positive self-image and lower risk of mental illness.

For we lucky women who got there in the end, a discovered autistic identity can be a life-changing gift. Finding ourselves means finding each other, release from self-blame and a new sense of belonging.The Conversation

Rachel Moseley, Principle Academic in Psychology, Bournemouth University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

BU PhD student publishes in The Conversation

Congratulations the Abier Hamidi, PhD student in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences (FHSS) whose PhD work was published in The Conversation this week (24 April) under the title Social media now trumps traditional family networks in Libya – my Facebook survey reached 446,000 women.  Her piece in The Conversation on the recruitment of female participants for a PhD study in a rather patriarchal society brings together issues of anonymity, gender, and wider social culture.

This is Abier’s PhD research is supervised by Dr. Pramod Regmi, Senior Lecturer in International Health and the Global Engagement Lead in the Department of Nursing Sciences, and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH).

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

 

New CMMPH nutrition paper published

Congratulations to FHSS authors on the publication of their paper “A Priori and a Posteriori Dietary Patterns in Women of Childbearing Age in the UK” which has been published in the scientific journal Nutrients [1].  The authors highlight that a poor diet quality is a major cause of maternal obesity. They investigated investigate a priori and a-posteriori derived dietary patterns in childbearing-aged women in the United Kingdom. An online survey assessed food intake, physical activity (PA), anthropometry and socio-demographics.  A poor diet quality was found among childbearing-aged women; notably in the younger age category, those of white ethnicity, that were more physically inactive and with a lower socioeconomic background.

The article is Open Access and freely available (click here!).

 

 

Reference:

  1. Khaled, K.; Hundley, V.; Almilaji, O.; Koeppen, M.; Tsofliou, F. (2020) A Priori and a Posteriori Dietary Patterns in Women of Childbearing Age in the UK. Nutrients 202012, 2921.

Latest CMMPH publication by Dr. Alison Taylor

Congratulations to Dr. Alison Taylor in the Centre for Midwifery,Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) whose third PhD paper  has just been accepted by the International Breastfeeding Journal.  Alison’s paper ‘Commercialisation and commodification of breastfeeding: video diaries by first-time mothers’ reminds us that many of aspects of our lives are increasingly commercialised in post-modern society.  Although breastfeeding is perhaps a late comer to this process in recent years, it too has seen significant commercialisation facilitated by social media and our obsession with celebrity culture.

This paper explores how the commercialisation and commodification of breastfeeding impacts mothers’ experiences of breastfeeding.  The paper highlights that women preparing for breastfeeding are exposed to increasing commercialisation.  When things do not go to plan, women are even more exposed to commercial solutions. The impact of online marketing strategies fuelled their need for paraphernalia so that their dependence on such items became important aspects of their parenting and breastfeeding experiences.   Dr. Taylor and her co-authors  offer new insights into how advertising influenced mothers’ need for specialist equipment and services. Observing mothers in their video diaries, provided valuable insights into their parenting styles and how this affected their breastfeeding experience.

The International Breastfeeding Journal is an Open Access journal owned by Springer.

 

References:

  1. Taylor, A.M., van Teijlingen, E., Alexander, J., Ryan, K. (2020) Commercialisation and commodification of breastfeeding: video diaries by first-time mothers, International Breastfeeding Journal (accepted).
  2. Taylor A, van Teijlingen, E.,Ryan K, Alexander J (2019) ‘Scrutinised, judged & sabotaged’: A qualitative video diary study of first-time breastfeeding mothers, Midwifery 75: 16-23.
  3. Taylor, A.M., van Teijlingen, E., Alexander, J., Ryan, K. (2019) The therapeutic role of video diaries: A qualitative study involving breastfeeding mothers, Women & Birth 32(3):276-83. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871519218300064