Background During the first postpartum year 20% of women retain excessive weight from pregnancy (postpartum weight retention; PPWR), which predicts long-term overweight/obesity. Objective The aim of this study was to explore the associations between psychological factors (depression, anxiety and stress symptoms and body attitudes) in late gestation and at 12-months postpartum with PPWR one-year post-birth. Methods Pregnant women (N = 176) completed questionnaires in early-mid pregnancy (Time 1; mean (SD) = 16.97 (1.35) weeks), late pregnancy (Time 2; mean (SD) = 33.33 (2.05) weeks), and one year postpartum (Time 3; mean (SD) = 53.12 (3.34) weeks). Women provided demographic characteristics, height and pre-pregnancy weight at Time 1. At Times 2 and 3, weight, depressive, anxiety and stress symptoms and body attitudes (salience of weight and shape, attractiveness, feeling fat, and strength and fitness) were assessed in addition to physiological, socio-contextual and lifestyle factors. Gestational weight gain and PPWR were calculated. Hierarchical linear regression models were conducted to explore variance in 12-month PPWR. Results Overall, models explained 26-39% variance in PPWR. Gestational weight gain in late pregnancy and low attractiveness at 12 months postpartum were the only variables associated significantly with 12-month PPWR. Conclusion While psychological factors did not appear to be important direct contributors to PPWR at 12 months, the overall contribution of all variables suggests that such factors may be implicated in a small and incremental way. Exploration of the interactions between variables will help unpack potential mechanisms of the development of PPWR at 12 months post-birth.
In the words of Zygmunt Bauman, 'Europe is not something you discover; Europe is a mission' (Bauman, 2013). The writing of the Italian Holocaust survivor, Primo Levi, plays an important role in this 'mission', by promoting a European sense of belonging that goes beyond national and linguistic borders. This is particularly apparent in his autobiographical novel published in 1962, La tregua, in which Levi gives an optimistic portrayal of his contact with different linguistic communities during his journey home from Auschwitz. His stance on the importance of respecting and glorifying linguistic and cultural diversity is reflected in current European language policy in A Rewarding Challenge, a treaty written by Amin Maalouf in 2008. Consequently, this paper aims to bring together Levi and Maalouf along with several other contemporary thinkers of Europe, such as Derrida, Bauman and Habermas, to highlight similarities in their perception of the bonds that exist between Europeans. After first discussing Levi's positive account of his contact with various European languages and cultures during his repatriation to Italy, I will then examine how in A Rewarding Challenge Maalouf deals with many of the issues already raised by Levi. Whilst showing that protecting the linguistic and cultural diversity of Europe is certainly a challenge, my paper will clarify why Maalouf states that it is 'a rewarding challenge'. The benefits of accepting this challenge will be shown to represent essential stepping-stones towards creating a collective European identity that defies national and linguistic boundaries.
In Europe: An Unfinished Adventure, Zygmunt Bauman demonstrates that ‘Europe is not something you discover; Europe is a mission – something to be made, created, built’ (Bauman 2004b). Spanning the twentieth century, the narratives of travel of Paul Morand, Stefan Zweig, Primo Levi and Paul Theroux play a key role in this process of European identity construction. These four authors promote a forward-thinking and inclusive conceptualization of Europe and the relationship between nation and identity, through largely autobiographical narratives that detail travel within Europe, enforced or otherwise. Drawing on the work of European thinkers such as Zygmunt Bauman, Jürgen Habermas, Jacques Derrida, Roberto Dainotto, Amin Maalouf and E. J. Hobsbawm, my article will demonstrate to what extent all four authors show their readers that the importance given to national borders can be subverted through the motion of travel, in which these arbitrary lines on the map are crossed by the travellers in question. In accordance with the renowned pacifist Romain Rolland – who believed that national and European identity were not ‘mutually exclusive’ affinities – these four authors use their narratives to promote a sense of European or supranational identity, by urging their readership to rethink their relationship with their nation as part of a collective European whole, and to perceive diversity as being not Europe’s weakness, but rather its greatest strength. I will demonstrate how it is through valuable cultural productions such as these narratives of travel that Europeans are exposed to an alternative and more inclusive mode for identity construction, which triumphantly forwards what Ulrich Beck describes as ‘a Europe that helps diversity to flourish’.
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