Back Onside protocol: A physical activity intervention to improve health outcomes in people who are unemployed or at risk of unemployment.

Given the effects of physical activity on people's mental and physical health, a better understanding is needed of how physical activity interventions may impact the health of people who are unemployed or at risk of unemployment. This has added urgency in the context of rising rates of poverty-related unemployment in the UK in 2022. The current paper details the protocol used in the evaluation of the Back Onside Programme; a community-based programme delivered by the Bradford Bulls Foundation in the Bradford District. The Programme supports people from low socio-economic backgrounds who are unemployed or at risk of unemployment to maintain regular physical activity through a ten-week physical activity intervention. This pilot study evaluates how a physical activity intervention may impact the mental and physical health of people who are unemployed or at risk of unemployment in an uncontrolled pragmatic pilot study. Four cohorts run back-to-back between May 2021 and May 2022, with separate groups for men (N = 100) and women (N = 60). Physical and wellbeing assessment at baseline and post-intervention is conducted. If the intervention works in this context for these individuals, it will be a promising low-cost community-based intervention for people who are unemployed or at risk of unemployment.

Associations of observer's gender, Body Mass Index and internalization of societal beauty ideals to visual body processing.

We examined whether visual processing mechanisms of the body of conspecifics are different in women and men and whether these rely on westernised socio-cultural ideals and body image concerns. Twenty-four women and 24 men performed a visual discrimination task of upright or inverted images of female or male bodies and faces (Experiment 1) and objects (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, both groups of women and men showed comparable abilities in the discrimination of upright and inverted bodies and faces. However, the gender of the human stimuli yielded different effects on participants' performance, so that female faces, and male bodies appeared to be processed less configurally than female bodies and male faces, respectively. Interestingly, the reduction of configural processing for male bodies was significantly predicted by participants' Body Mass Index (BMI) and their level of internalization of muscularity. Our findings suggest that configural visual processing of bodies and faces in women and men may be linked to a selective attention to detail needed for discriminating salient physical (perhaps sexual) cues of conspecifics. Importantly, BMI and muscularity internalization of beauty ideals may also play a crucial role in this mechanism.

Obesity and Eating Disturbance: the Role of TFEQ Restraint and Disinhibition.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Literature from the past five years exploring roles of Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ) Restraint and Disinhibition in relation to adult obesity and eating disturbance (ED) was reviewed. RECENT FINDINGS: Restraint has a mixed impact on weight regulation, diet quality, and vulnerability to ED, where it is related detrimentally to weight regulation, diet, and psychopathology, yet can serve as a protective factor. The impact of Disinhibition is potently related to increased obesity, poorer diet, hedonically driven food choices, and a higher susceptibility to ED. Restraint and Disinhibition have distinct influences on obesity and ED and should be targeted differently in interventions. Further work is required to elucidate the mechanisms underlying TFEQ eating behavior traits.

The Effect of Prior Caffeine Consumption on Neuropsychological Test Performance: A Placebo-Controlled Study.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to investigate whether the prior consumption of 200 mg of pure caffeine affected neuropsychological test scores in a group of elderly participants aged over 60 years. METHOD: Using a double-blind placebo versus caffeine design, participants were randomly assigned to receive 200 mg of caffeine or placebo. A neuropsychological assessment testing the domains of general cognitive function, processing speed, semantic memory, episodic memory, executive function, working memory and short-term memory was carried out. RESULTS: Significant interaction effects between age, caffeine and scores of executive function and processing speed were found; participants who had received caffeine showed a decline in performance with increasing age. This effect was not seen for participants who received placebo. CONCLUSION: The results highlight the need to consider and control prior caffeine consumption when scoring neuropsychological assessments in the elderly, which is important for accuracy of diagnosis and corresponding normative data.

Time of day and caffeine influence some neuropsychological tests in the elderly.

We report that performance on neuropsychological tests used in the diagnosis of dementia can be influenced by external factors such as time of day (TOD) and caffeine. This study investigates TOD effects on cognitive performance in the elderly. The optimal TOD at which an individual is at his or her maximal arousal alters with age, and in the elderly, typically occurs in the morning. Neuropsychological test scores from healthy elderly participants were analyzed to determine whether TOD affected performance. Interactions between caffeine and TOD were also investigated. Across 2 data sets that were analyzed, significant TOD effects were noted for Pattern-Comparison Speed (PCS), Letter-Comparison Speed (LCS; Salthouse & Babcock, 1991), Trail Making Test Part A (Reitan, 1958), Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE; Folstein, Folstein, & McHugh, 1975) and the Graded Naming Test (GNT; McKenna & Warrington, 1980), revealing a decline in test scores as TOD increases. Significant interactions between TOD, age, and the PCS, LCS, and Trail Making Part A were noted in Data Set 1. In Data Set 2, caffeine intake had been controlled for, and significant interactions between caffeine, TOD, and scores on the MMSE and GNT were found. The TOD and caffeine effects highlight the need to control for these external factors when scoring the assessments. This conclusion has implications for the clinical procedure of diagnosis and treatment of dementia and Alzheimer's.