Men's Perceptions of Pregnancy-Related Weight Gain: A Psychosocial Firestorm (Upheaval) Intertwined With Supportive Intentions.

In-depth interviews were conducted with 16 men who had a significant other who had given birth within the last 5 years. Men were asked about their perceptions of pregnancy-related weight gain, and content analysis was used to identify themes from the interviews. Men described nine themes related to perinatal weight gain: (a) negative perceptions, (b) eating behaviors, (c) exercise habits, (d) health impact, (e) body changes, (f) weight-loss success, (g) "it bothered her more than me," (h) "the weight gain wasn't a problem," and (i) intimacy. Together, these themes offer a glimpse into men's experiences and highlight the discord and balance between experiencing negative feelings/perceptions and being a supportive partner. This information on how men perceive pregnancy-related weight gain can be used to develop interventions to assist men to support their significant others in meeting weight loss goals following pregnancy.

Does gender identity influence children's psychological well-being?

This study examined influences of gender identity on change in preadolescents' adjustment over time. In each of two successive years, three measures of gender identity (felt gender typicality, contentment with gender assignment, and felt pressure for gender conformity) and four measures of adjustment (self-esteem, internalizing symptoms, externalizing symptoms, and acceptance by peers) were collected. Low gender typicality, low gender contentedness, and high felt pressure all foreshadowed deterioration on one or more indexes of adjustment. The combination of low gender typicality with high felt pressure was especially conducive to internalizing problems, underscoring the importance of the cognitive organization of the gender identity variables. The advantages of a multidimensional perspective on gender identity are discussed.

Children who question their heterosexuality.

Many gay, lesbian, and bisexual adults report a period of childhood sexual questioning--an uneasy questioning of their heterosexuality brought on by same-sex attractions and motivating same-sex sexual exploration. This article evaluates hypotheses about the correlates, causes, and consequences of childhood sexual questioning. Participants were 182 children in the 4th through 8th grades. Compared with children more confident in their heterosexuality, sexual-questioning children reported more impaired self-concepts, fewer same-sex-typed attributes (but not more cross-sex-typed attributes), a greater sense of feeling different from same-sex others, and lesser satisfaction with their gender assignment. Short-term longitudinal analyses indicated that sexual questioning is more likely a determinant than a consequence of these correlated variables. However, influences of sexual questioning on these outcomes were small.