This study compared the efficacy of multisystemic therapy (MST) and individual therapy (IT) in the outpatient treatment of adolescent sexual offenders. Sixteen adolescent sexual offenders were randomly assigned to either MST or IT conditions. Youths in the MST and IT conditions received an average of 37 hours and 4S hours of treatment, respectively. Recidivism data were collected on all subjects at an approximately 3-year follow-up. Betweengroups comparisons showed that significantly fewer subjects in the MST condition had been rearrested for sexual crimes and that the frequency of sexual rearrests was significantly lower in the MST condition than in the IT condition. The relative efficacy of MST was attributed to its emphasis on changing behavior and interpersonal relations within the offender's natural environment.

This investigation evaluated the impact of parental influences on children's food selections and the impact of childhood obesity on these food choices. Subjects were 53 young children of various weight status. Foods ranging widely in nutritional values were offered to each child for lunch. The children were again offered foods but were told that their mothers would be monitoring their selections. Finally, mothers were allowed to modify their children's last food choices. Results indicated that parental influences have a marked effect on food selection; both the threat of parental monitoring and actual parental monitoring lowered the number of nonnutritious foods chosen and total caloric content of the meal. The obesity status of the mothers and children had no impact on these results. The implication of these results for future intervention efforts are discussed.

ABSTRACT. Objective. Pediatricians have a unique and important role to play in the prevention and treatment of childhood and adolescent tobacco use, the protection of patients from the harmful effects of environmental tobacco smoke, and the encouragement of smoking cessation among parents. However, because recent research indicates that physician training in tobacco dependence is woefully weak and lacks a model for training, this article constructs a useful approach to this problem.Methodology. A comprehensive review of the literature served as the basis for the development of a new model for pediatrician training in tobacco dependence.Results. A comprehensive model is presented for training pediatricians in the areas of reducing infant and child exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, preventing youth smoking initiation, and providing smoking cessation assistance for adolescents and parents.Conclusions. Pediatricians have been called on to play an active role in the antitobacco arena. Because of their unique opportunity to interact with children, adolescents, and parents, pediatricians can and should be antitobacco interventionists. For this to occur, however, additional guidance should be provided to pediatricians during their training to better prepare them to carry out effective assessment and intervention practices. Pediatrics 2000;106(5). URL: http://www.pediatrics.org/ cgi/content/full/106/5/e66; smoking initiation, smoking prevention, smoking cessation, environmental tobacco smoke, pediatricians.

Results-Approximately 32% of the trainees smoked regularly before basic training and a small percentage of the trainees (7.6%) described themselves as exsmokers. Men, Euro-Americans, and those from lower educational backgrounds were more likely to smoke than other trainees. On average, smokers had smoked for approximately four years and had low nicotine dependence scores. Individuals who had smoked before BMT were more likely to use other drugs (such as alcohol, binge drinking, smokeless tobacco), and were less physically active than never-smokers. These findings were particularly strong for those who smoked up to basic training but were also evident for ex-smokers. Conclusions-Smoking is a prevalent risk factor among individuals entering the USAF. Furthermore, smoking was related to other risk factors believed to lower military readiness, including alcohol use and decreased physical activity. Comprehensive tobacco control policies aimed at reducing smoking among military trainees are needed. (Tobacco Control 1998;7:232-235)

In addition to common stressors, members of the U.S. Armed Forces experience a high level of stress unique to their status as service members. In an effort to combat stress, many military personnel report high levels of nicotine use. This study investigated the relationship between tobacco use and perceived stress among military members in all four armed services. Results indicate that those who use tobacco products specifically to reduce stress report significantly higher stress levels than those who do not use tobacco. Moreover, current users and those who both smoked and used smokeless tobacco were far more likely to report experiencing "a lot" of stress from a variety of sources than former or never users. Tobacco users also engaged more frequently in negative coping behaviors and relied less on the positive coping strategies used more often by former or never smokers. These findings are consistent with the larger body of literature suggesting that tobacco is not only an ineffective stress-reducing strategy, it also likely perpetuates a stress response in users. It is, therefore, critical that the military improve effective means of coping among nicotine-using troops.

This study demonstrates that many scales used to measure body weight are imprecise and that scales in health care settings are no more precise than those in other facilities. Clinical decisions based on scales that are imprecise have the potential to cause iatrogenic complications in patient care.

The military should consider adding smoking status to assessments of military fitness. Also, given that underweight and not overweight status predicted negative outcomes among military members, the services should consider revising their weight status fitness standards.

Preuious research has indicated that U S . Air Force P S N ) personnel, particularly those who do not meet military weight standards, are at increased risk to engage in bulimic weight loss behaviors. 84Haddock et al.ThU study was designed to &tennine the prevalence and predictors of 2 signifcant ritk facton f i r &orderred eating-jkquent weight concerna and dieringin a large cohort (iy = 32,144) of USAF recruik. Resuh indicated that Caucuian and HitpanicAmerican women noted the mod w + c o w . h m e i g h t participants, particularly women, reported greater weight concerns and more frequent dieting than normal-wei#ht or un-participants. It was alarming that nearly 11% of underweight women reported regularly dieting to lore weight. Common rirk fdctora for frequent dieting and high weight concerru included female gender, higher intake offiitr and vegetable;, and lower intake of fad and milk. Although phpical activity level did not dirhnguuh patticipants who were high versua low on dietingfiquency, indwkhab with high weight concerns reported aignijkantly lower levels of activity than other partickan&.