Lifestyle Theory Research Articles

Health Behavior Change and Life Course: A Qualitative Study Using Focus-Groups

This study aimed to explore the mechanisms of long-term behavior changes to a healthier lifestyle. We conducted focus group interviews with a sample of 18 adults without further selection criteria and applied a top-down thematic analysis approach to extract the determinants of long-term health behavior change. The results showed that long-term health behavior changes only occurred as a response to life events that force individuals to abandon established habits. These triggers accrued from the interplay of three life course elements: the life phase, a change in external living conditions (e.g. the social environment) over time, and internal motifs (past experience, future goals, and perceived immediate payoff). Our results are discussed in the context of sociological lifestyle theories, suggesting that long-term lifestyle change follows from a disturbed equilibrium between external determinants and identity cues.

Routine Activities and Right-Wing Extremists: An Empirical Comparison of the Victims of Ideologically- and Non-Ideologically-Motivated Homicides Committed by American Far-Rightists

This study examines whether Criminology's Routine Activities Theory (RAT) and related Lifestyle Theory (LST) can account for variation between the attributes of victims of fatal ideologically motivated attacks (akin to terrorism) and the victims of non-ideologically motivated homicide incidents committed by far-Right extremists in the United States. This article makes four contributions. First, we empirically test Criminology theory in the context of terrorism by using routine activities to devise four core hypotheses to explain differences between the two types of victims. Second, our investigation uniquely includes a non-terrorist comparison group (i.e., victims of homicides committed by extremists for personal reasons like greed). Third, our study focuses on ideological victimization. Terrorism researchers have usually ignored victims because of the difficulty in accessing the necessary data. Finally, we also make a methodological contribution by showing that criminology can build upon the terrorism literature by utilizing open-sources. Using data from the Extremist Crime Database (ECDB), the results of a multivariate analysis partially supported the hypotheses, showing that RAT and LST offer empirically supported theoretical constructs that have the ability to differentiate between ideological and non-ideological homicides.

Can You Hear Me Now? Telemarketing Fraud Victimization and Lifestyles

Researchers have used lifestyle theory to delineate patterns surrounding various forms of victimization. Much of this research focuses on conventional crimes and demonstrates a seemingly consistent pattern in terms of victim age: older victim’s lifestyles reduce their risk for conventional victimization, but may increase their risk for other forms of victimization. Using lifestyle/routine activity theory as a guide, this study explores whether the lifestyles and activities of older persons are tied to their risk of being targeted for telemarketing fraud. Our findings suggest that victimization risk for telemarketing fraud does not vary across the life-course, and that lifestyles of older persons are not tied to telemarketing fraud victimization. Factors tied to victimization include neighborhood disorder and being employed part-time. Implications are provided.

Self-Control and Lifestyles: Associations to Juvenile Offending, Violent Victimization, and Witnessing Violence

The extent to which well-established theories of offending apply to violent victimization is increasingly studied. Measures of indirect victimization are rarely included in this literature. This study examined the concurrent relation of self-control components and lifestyle measures to juvenile offending, direct victimization, and witnessing violence among 233 Hispanic and African American 11th-grade students. Findings revealed strong support for the role of a deviant lifestyle; support for prosocial lifestyle effects was weaker. Support for the applicability of the general theory of crime was more mixed compared to lifestyle theory because findings revealed high specificity in variable associations for individual components of self-control.

Depression in Racial and Ethnic Minorities: the Impact of Nativity and Discrimination.

This research examines factors associated with lifetime major depressive disorder in racial and ethnic minorities residing in the USA, with an emphasis on the impact of nativity, discrimination, and health lifestyle behaviors. The Healthy Migrant Effect and Health Lifestyle Theory were used to inform the design of this project. The use of these frameworks not only provides insightful results but also expands their application in mental health disparities research. Logistic regression models were implemented to examine risk factors associated with lifetime major depressive disorder, comparing immigrants to their American-born counterparts as well as to American-born Whites. Data were derived from the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (n = 17,249). Support was found for the hypothesis that certain immigrants, specifically Asian and Afro-Caribbean, have lower odds of depression as compared their non-immigrant counterparts. Although, Hispanic immigrants directionally had lower odds of depression, this finding was not statistically significant. Furthermore, engaging in excessive alcohol consumption was associated with higher rates of depression (odds ratio (OR) = 2.09, p < 0.001), and the effect of discrimination on depression was found to be significant, even when controlling for demographics. Of all racial and ethnic groups, foreign-born Afro-Caribbeans had the lowest rate of depression at 7 % followed by foreign-born Asians at 8 %.

Area and individual differences in personal crime victimization incidence

This article examines how personal crime differences between areas and between individuals are predicted by area and population heterogeneity and their synergies. It draws on lifestyle/routine activities and social disorganization theories to model the number of personal victimization incidents over individuals including routine activities and area characteristics, respectively, as well as their (cross-cluster) interactions. The methodology employs multilevel or hierarchical negative binomial regression with extra binomial variation using data from the British Crime Survey and the UK Census. Personal crime rates differ substantially across areas, reflecting to a large degree the clustering of individuals with measured vulnerability factors in the same areas. Most factors suggested by theory and previous research are conducive to frequent personal victimization except the following new results. Pensioners living alone in densely populated areas face disproportionally high numbers of personal crimes. Frequent club and pub visits are associated with more personal crimes only for males and adults living with young children, respectively. Ethnic minority individuals experience fewer personal crimes than whites. The findings suggest integrating social disorganization and lifestyle theories and prioritizing resources to the most vulnerable, rather than all, residents of poor and densely populated areas to prevent personal crimes.

The Emerging Crisis in American Female Longevity

For the first time in modern history, the life expectancy of a particular segment of the American population—namely non-Hispanic white women with low levels of education and income living in certain rural counties—is declining. The exact causes are currently unknown, although smoking and obesity are likely important. In this article, I highlight this pattern and also compare it with the decline of male longevity in Russia. More broadly, I call on health and epidemiological researchers to undertake more in-depth research on this relatively new and emerging health crisis in the United States and suggest that Health Lifestyles Theory offers a valuable springboard for doing so.

Pathways on the sexual violence continuum: A lifestyles theory of victimization in urban nightlife

While scholars have identified a consistent link between deviant lifestyles and victimization, little research to date has examined how life-course trajectories and lifestyle factors can shape exposure to varied forms of victimization and, in particular, different types of sexual assault. Drawing on interviews with 20 women with active night lives and direct observation of 33 nightlife events, this study employs a feminist pathways conceptual framework to examine how dispositional and lifestyle factors shaped the types of sexual assault reported. Findings indicate that while a number of factors associated with general sexual victimization were shared among those in the sample, the specific types of assault experienced were further conditioned by their individual trajectories in nightlife scenes, substance use histories, cultural taste preferences, as well as distinct aspects of the social contexts where victimization occurred. More broadly, this study suggests that well-established risk factors associated with victimization impact women in different ways and exert their effects uniquely, through the intervention of culture.

Social class differences in BMI among Danish women: Applying Cockerham's health lifestyles approach and Bourdieu's theory of lifestyle

Research on social class differences in obesity and weight-related outcomes has highlighted the need to consider how such class differences reflect the unequally distributed constellations of economic, cultural, and social resources that enable and constrain health-related habits and practices or health lifestyles. Motivated by this need, the present study applies a theoretical perspective that integrates Cockerham's (2005) health lifestyles theory with Bourdieu's (1984) theoretical scholarship on social class, lifestyles, and the body to analyzing class-based differences in body mass index (BMI) among adult female respondents of a 2007 Danish national survey (n = 1376). We test hypotheses concerning how respective levels of economic, cultural, and social capital that constitute women's social class membership are associated with BMI directly and via their influence on respondent's dietary-related values, preferences, behaviors, and exercise activities. Our analyses indicate that cultural and economic capital were both directly associated with BMI. Mediation analyses revealed that greater cultural and social capital were linked to higher BMI via interest in cooking; while all three forms of capital were associated with lower BMI via greater frequency of exercise. These findings provide evidence for the many—and sometimes contradictory—ways that social class can influence body weight. Identifying such patterns can inform the design of more effective population health interventions.

The sociology of health in the United States: recent theoretical contributions.

This paper examines recent trends in theory in health sociology in the United States and finds that the use of theory is flourishing. The central thesis is that the field has reached a mature state and is in the early stage of a paradigm shift away from a past focus on methodological individualism (in which the individual is the primary unit of analysis) toward a growing utilization of theories with a structural orientation This outcome is materially aided by research methods (e.g. hierarchal linear modeling, biomarkers) providing measures of structural effects on the health of the individual that were often absent or underdeveloped in the past. Structure needs to be accounted for in any social endeavor and contemporary medical sociology appears to be doing precisely that as part of the next stage of its evolution. The recent contributions to theory in the sociology of health discussed in this paper are fundamental cause, medicalization, social capital, neighborhood disadvantage, and health lifestyle theories.

Victim Lifestyle as a Correlate of Homicide Clearance

The current inquiry adds to the literature by using Hindelang’s lifestyle theory to examine the relevance of victim involvement in a deviant lifestyle to the likelihood of and time to homicide clearance. Bivariate analyses suggest that victim lifestyle is an important factor in the distribution of clearance enhancing characteristics across homicide incidents. Cox proportional hazard models indicated that higher levels of victim participation in deviant lifestyle significantly increased the time until a homicide was cleared by arrest. Theoretical and practical issues are discussed in light of these findings.

Didelis priešlaikinis Lietuvos vyrų mirtingumas. Kaita ir priežastys

SummaryThe mortality pattern of the post-soviet population shows a notable life expectancy differentiation by sex, marital status, education, place of residence, and other socio-demographic variables. This publication presents results of a study of mortality patterns among working-age men in Lithuania. The study is based on the Cockerham health lifestyle theory. The main purpose of the study is to evaluate men’s mortality fluctuation since the year 1959. The Lithuanian mortality rates were compared with the mortality rates in other European countries. This study is based on data from the Human Mortality Database and the European Mortality Database. The results of the study confirm that for men the probability to die in the working age in Lithuania is more than twice as high as in France. The Lithuanian working-age men’s population has a very high rate of mortality from external causes and alcohol-related deaths. This research is funded by the European Social Fund under the Global Grant measure (project No. VP1-3.1-ŠMM-07-K-02-067).Key words: causes of death, mortality differentials, men’s premature mortality&#x0D; &#x0D;

The Bodysmart Detective Agency—Engaging young children in lifestyle education and behaviour change theory

of different fatty acid containing meals on appetite parameters. Methods: Nine normoglycaemic overweight or obese individuals (BMI 32± 1.2 kg/m2) randomly completed 4 weekly, single-blinded, fasting breakfast challenges. Meals consisted of toasted bread, jam and varying oils, resulting in control, and high lauric, oleic and linoleic acid meals. All meals provided 30% of EER. Appetite parameters were assessed immediately before consumption and 2 h postprandially with visual analogue scale questionnaires. Results: All meals resulted in decreased hunger and increased fullness, though appetite responses did not differ between meals. The lauric and linoleic acid meals decreased postprandial desire to eat. The linoleic and oleic acid meals did not decrease postprandial prospective food intake, whereas the control and lauric acid meals did. Discussion: Each lauric acid meal contained on average 14 g of lauric acid, which has been found to dose-dependently decrease gastric emptying, a likely cause of the postprandial increase in perception of fullness, and decrease in perception of hunger, desire to eat, and prospective food intake. This effect on appetite has been found to be greater than that of oleic acid at the same loading, in line with the findings of this study. Oleic acid may not have affected postprandial desire to eat and prospective food intake possibly due to its decreased ability to modulate appetite in the obese state. Current Australian diets are rich in highlinoleic acid plant-derived fats. Intriguingly, the high linoleic acid meal did not decrease postprandial prospective food intake, which may increase energy consumption at the subsequent meal, influencing obesity risk. The effect of different fatty acids on appetite in obese individuals requires further investigation.

Socially Interactive Technology and Contemporary Dating

This cross-cultural research study explores socially interactive technology (SIT) and contemporary dating among young adults in Poland as well as in the United States. Specifically, the study investigates characteristics of and cultural differences in the nature of modern dating relationships with a focus on deviant dating behaviors. It was hypothesized that students in the United States would have higher rates of nontraditional dating relationships and engage in more sexualized behaviors via social media. Alternative hypotheses were provided regarding cultural differences in the reporting of socially interactive (SI) relational aggression. Online surveys asking about relationship characteristics and behaviors that occurred through short messaging services, also referred to as text messaging, and social networking were administered to students in both countries. Findings revealed statistically significant differences between countries in regard to dating composition and sexual behavior. The predictions that American students would have more nontraditional relationships and engage in more sexualized behaviors were supported. Findings also revealed that rates of SI relational aggression were higher among American students than their Polish counterparts, and subsequent analyses revealed that those who engaged in sexualized acts were more likely to report SI relational aggression victimization and perpetration, which offered evidence in support of lifestyle theory. Gender differences also emerged. A discussion follows summarizing the findings, limitations, and directions for future research.

Demographic Characteristics and Victimization Risk

Routine activity theory and lifestyle-exposure theory propose that victimization rates differ across demographic groups because individuals in these groups engage in different activities. This implies that routine activities mediate the relationships between demographic characteristics and victimization. Although this core assumption underlies both theories, few researchers have attempted to test its validity, and the tests that do exist have relied primarily on cross-sectional, nongeneralizable data. The current study examines how routine activities mediate the associations between four demographic characteristics (gender, age, marital status, and household income) and violent victimization and theft using a longitudinal data set created from the National Crime Victimization Survey. We combine a multivariate ordered logistic model with a general structural equation model to examine direct and indirect paths. Results indicate that the effects of gender, income, and marital status on victimization are each at least partially mediated by routine activities, suggesting the applicability of lifestyle theories to the study of victimization.

Lifestyle practices and pro-environmental technology

We explore sociological concepts of lifestyle practices as they relate to sustainable consumption. Specifically, we investigate how and why consumers may transition toward adopting and using new pro-environmental technologies (PETs), namely electric vehicles, solar panels, and a green electricity program. We build a conceptual framework from lifestyle theory, where lifestyle is defined as a grouping of related practices that can reflect and inform the consumer's self-concept (or identity). We apply this framework using a novel quantitative survey method, implemented with a representative sample of 711 San Diego households. Through factor analysis, we identify engagement in pro-environmental practices as independent of engagement in other lifestyle types. We then group respondents into five clusters based on lifestyle engagement, attitudes and openness to lifestyle change (liminality). The three clusters with green attitudes (“greens”) vary substantially by interest in PETs. “Engaged” and “aspiring” greens are attracted to all three PETs, while “low-tech” greens report mild interest in green electricity only. Non-green “techies” only report interest in solar panels, while “traditionalists” report uniformly low PET interest. Results demonstrate the relevance of lifestyle theory, and provide a unique, empirical application that can improve understandings of opportunities and barriers to sustainable consumption.

Trans-Disciplinary Knowledge for Affordable Housing

The aim of this paper is to present an approach for comprehending affordable housing. The approach is based on a new paradigm of research: trans-disciplinarity; a form of inquiry that crosses the boundaries of different disciplines. An argument on the impact of trans-disciplinary thinking on understanding affordable housing is developed, then is placed within the perspective of how lifestyle theories and their underlying concepts can be integrated into a comprehensive investigatory process. In turn, a framework of inquiry is developed while reflected on affordable housing knowledge types. An interpretation of the framework into a survey tool is conceptualized. The tool is introduced in the form of a questionnaire to be implemented in different contexts. The testing of the questionnaire as a tool of inquiry reveals its validity, corroborates the value of integrating trans-disciplinary knowledge into affordable housing research, and accentuates the value of introducing lifestyle theories as a new form of knowledge necessary for future inquiry on affordable housing.

Editorial: Changing Paradigms in Affordable Housing, Quality, and Lifestyle Theories

Affordable housing has long been an important planning and design concern in large urban areas and around the peripheries of major cities where population growth has led to an increasing demand for descent housing environments. The issue of affordability has attracted researchers and scholars to explore planning and design determinants, financing mechanisms, cultural and social issues, and construction and building techniques. This interest has been the case for several decades since affordable housing themes have offered a rich research area that involves many paradoxes that keep presenting challenges for planners, architects, and decision makers. Housing costs are increasing in most cities and incomes are not increasing at the same rate. Governments, on the other hand, are unable to provide sufficient housing stock to bridge the gap between demand and supply due to decreasing housing budgets and the lack of investment.

Calling the doctor: a qualitative study of patient-initiated physician consultation among rural older adults.

Guided by Leventhal's self-regulatory model and Cockerham's theory of health lifestyles, we explore two questions regarding physician consultation among elderly rural adults: What symptom characteristics prompt patient-initiated physician consultation? Do participants' accounts of responses to symptoms, including the decision to consult a physician, incorporate descriptions of change over time? We analyze data from semistructured in-depth interviews with 62 older rural adults. Accounts of decisions to initiate contact with physicians support prior research. Some symptoms encouraged immediate consultation; others prompted periods of monitoring and lay management. Physicians were most often contacted if changes were new, unusually severe, persisted or worsened, or failed to respond to lay treatment. We characterize participants' responses to symptoms as bricolages to highlight their construction from available materials. Incorporating the integrating concept of bricolage and Cockerham's emphasis on both general dispositions and symptom-specific responses represents an important extension of Leventhal's conceptualization of illness behavior, including patient-initiated physician consultation.

Routine Inequality: Violent Victimization at the Intersection of Race and Ethnicity Among Females

Criminological research has clearly demonstrated that the risk of violent victimization varies across gender. More complex are the differences across race and ethnicity within gender groups. Past studies have established that victimization rates among Black females exceed those of White and Latina females. Although this pattern has been established, the reason for these differences between females must continue to be explored. We draw on situational and contextual features of routine activities and lifestyle theories to examine their use in accounting for these variations across race and ethnicity among females. The results indicate that the divergent impact of routine activities and lifestyle measures on females' risks for violent victimization. For example, some situational (e.g., riding public transportation) and contextual (e.g., residential stability) measures increased the risks of violent victimization among females of color but decreased among White females. The implications of these findings and areas of consideration for further research are discussed.