Encouraging bigger-picture thinking in an intervention to target multiple obesogenic health behaviours.

Research has shown that use of the third-person perspective to visualise a behaviour results in increased motivation to engage in the behaviour relative to the first-person perspective. This effect is claimed to operate in part because the third-person perspective leads the individual to "see the bigger picture", linking the visualised behaviour to broader goals and identities. Reasoning that this effect could be harnessed to encourage engaging in multiple behaviours that serve the same broader goal, the present study manipulated the visual perspective participants used to imagine themselves exercising, and assessed effects on cognitions and behaviour related to both exercising and healthy eating. Baseline exercise levels were measured and explored as a moderation effect. As predicted, it was found that for participants who engaged in more exercise at baseline, visualising exercise using the third-person perspective resulted in them reporting stronger intentions to exercise and taking more leaflets showing local exercise classes. For those who engaged in less exercise at baseline, there was no effect of perspective. In terms of eating, there was a main effect of perspective, such that participants who imagined themselves exercising using the third-person perspective ate significantly less chocolate than those who used the first-person perspective, irrespective of baseline exercise levels. These results suggest that use of third-person perspective visualisation can be used to encourage engagement in multiple behaviours that serve the same broad goal, which may serve as an intervention technique that will be especially helpful for health outcomes with multiple contributing behaviours, such as obesity and overweight.

Harm Reduction or Harm Introduction? Prevalence and Correlates of E-Cigarette Use Among French Adolescents.

PURPOSE: Electronic cigarettes are marketed as a tool to give up or reduce cigarette smoking, and their use has risen sharply in recent years. There is concern that use is increasing particularly among adolescents and that they are not being used as a cessation tool but as a novel experience in their own right. METHODS: The present research assessed prevalence and sociodemographic correlates of e-cigarette use and standard cigarette use and also explored the extent to which e-cigarettes appear to be used as a cessation tool. This was assessed using a questionnaire administered to 1,486 French adolescents aged 16 years. RESULTS: Prevalence of e-cigarette experimentation was high (54%) and comparable to that for standard cigarettes (55%). Furthermore, 20% of those who had experimented with e-cigarettes had never tried standard cigarettes, and among regular smokers of standard cigarettes, intentions to quit were not associated with e-cigarette usage frequency. Experimentation with both e-cigarettes and standard cigarettes was significantly predicted by higher age, higher socioeconomic status, and parental smoking of standard cigarettes (in particular the father). Being male marginally predicted e-cigarette use, whereas being female significantly predicted standard cigarette use. CONCLUSIONS: These findings give cause for concern: e-cigarette usage experimentation is extremely high, and is not associated with attempts to quit smoking standard cigarettes. Rather, it is exposing adolescents to a highly addictive drug (nicotine) and may pave the way for a future cigarette habit.

CaPSCA: Evaluation of a Brief Cancer Prevention Education Programme to Promote Balanced Diet in French School Children.

This study examined the effectiveness of two cancer prevention interventions in improving balanced diet among French children aged 12-14 years. The educational techniques used were taken from the taxonomy of behaviour change techniques (BCTs; Abraham & Michie, 2008). Allocation to intervention group (intervention versus control) was randomised at the school-level, the intervention group received two interventions, each of 1-h duration, containing BCTs including advocated attitude, anticipated success/regret, behaviour modelling and barrier identification. Self-reported diet was assessed pre- and post-interventions. The resulting data were coded by a nutritionist and transformed into a novel measure representing the extent to which the participant achieved a balanced diet. Multilevel modelling indicated that, having taken into account the clustered nature of the data, gender and the differing socio-economic status of the participants, balanced diet decreased over time, b=-1.23, t(1830)=-2.79, p=0.005, but this was qualified by a significant interaction effect with intervention, b=1.42, t(1830)=1.98, p=0.047. Separate models for each intervention group revealed that balanced diet decreased over time in the control group, b=-1.25, t(1195)=-2.47, p=0.014, but did not in the intervention group, b=0.19, t(635)=0.44, p=0.66, suggesting a buffering effect of the interventions on balanced diet over time. These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of educational interventions using established behaviour change techniques, to change behaviour.