Background The COVID-19 pandemic has affected people’s engagement in health behaviors, especially those that protect individuals from SARS-CoV-2 transmission, such as handwashing/sanitizing. This study investigated whether adherence to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) handwashing guidelines (the outcome variable) was associated with the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic, as measured by the following 6 indicators: (i) the number of new cases of COVID-19 morbidity/mortality (a country-level mean calculated for the 14 days prior to data collection), (ii) total cases of COVID-19 morbidity/mortality accumulated since the onset of the pandemic, and (iii) changes in recent cases of COVID-19 morbidity/mortality (a difference between country-level COVID-19 morbidity/mortality in the previous 14 days compared to cases recorded 14–28 days earlier). Methods The observational study (#NCT04367337) enrolled 6064 adults residing in Australia, Canada, China, France, Gambia, Germany, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, and Switzerland. Data on handwashing adherence across 8 situations (indicated in the WHO guidelines) were collected via an online survey (March–July 2020). Individual-level handwashing data were matched with the date- and country-specific values of the 6 indices of the trajectory of COVID-19 pandemic, obtained from the WHO daily reports. Results Multilevel regression models indicated a negative association between both accumulation of the total cases of COVID-19 morbidity (B = −.041, SE = .013, p = .013) and mortality (B = −.036, SE = .014 p = .002) and handwashing. Higher levels of total COVID-related morbidity and mortality were related to lower handwashing adherence. However, increases in recent cases of COVID-19 morbidity (B = .014, SE = .007, p = .035) and mortality (B = .022, SE = .009, p = .015) were associated with higher levels of handwashing adherence. Analyses controlled for participants’ COVID-19-related situation (their exposure to information about handwashing, being a healthcare professional), sociodemographic characteristics (gender, age, marital status), and country-level variables (strictness of containment and health policies, human development index). The models explained 14–20% of the variance in handwashing adherence. Conclusions To better explain levels of protective behaviors such as handwashing, future research should account for indicators of the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic. Trial registration Clinical Trials.Gov, #NCT04367337

Even though the results suggest that healthy advertisement exposure and self-control might be beneficial for children's and adolescents' diet, self-control might be insufficient to alleviate the positive relationship between unhealthy food advertising and unhealthy eating.

Research investigating the role of maladaptive emotion regulation (ER) on food intake has exclusively focused on food intake in a forced consumption situation. In contrast, the present study examined the effect of negative emotions (fear, negative affect) and ER strategies (suppression, reappraisal) on food intake in a non-forced, free eating setting where participants (N = 165) could choose whether and how much they ate. This free (ad libitum) eating approach enabled, for the first time, the testing of (1) whether eating (yes/no) is used as a secondary ER strategy and (2) whether the amount of food intake differed, depending on the ER strategy. In order to produce a more ecologically valid design, ER strategy manipulation was realized while exposing participants to emotion induction procedures. To induce an initial negative emotional state, a movie clip was presented without ER instruction. The instructions to regulate emotions (suppression, reappraisal, no ER instruction) then preceded a second clip. The results show that whereas about two-thirds of the control (no ER instruction) and suppression groups began to eat, only one-third of the reappraisal group did. However, when reappraisers began to eat, they ate as much as participants in the suppression and control groups. Accordingly, the results suggest that when people are confronted with a negative event, eating is used as a secondary coping strategy when the enacted ER is ineffective. Conversely, an adaptive ER such as reappraisal decreases the likelihood of eating in the first place, even when ER is employed during rather than before the unfolding of the negative event. Consequently, the way we deal with negative emotions might be more relevant for explaining emotional eating than the distress itself.

Background: Child mental health problems continue to be a major global concern, especially in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). Parenting interventions have been shown to be effective for reducing child behavior problems in high-income countries, with emerging evidence supporting similar effects in LMICs. However, there remain substantial barriers to scaling up evidence-based interventions due to limited human and financial resources in such countries. Methods: This protocol is for a multi-center cluster randomized factorial trial of an evidencebased parenting intervention, Parenting for Lifelong Health for Young Children, for families with children ages two to nine years with subclinical levels of behavior problems in three Southeastern European countries, Republic of Moldova, North Macedonia, and Romania (8 conditions, 48 clusters, 864 families, 108 per condition). The trial will test three intervention components: length (5 vs. 10 sessions), engagement (basic vs. enhanced package), and fidelity (on-demand vs. structured supervision). Primary outcomes are child aggressive behavior, dysfunctional parenting, and positive parenting. Analyses will examine the main effect and cost-effectiveness of each component, as well as potential interaction effects between components, in order to identify the most optimal combination of program components. Discussion: This study is the first factorial experiment of a parenting program in LMICs. Findings will inform the subsequent testing of the optimized program in a multisite randomized controlled trial in 2021. Trial registration: NCT03865485 registered in ClinicalTrials.gov on March 5, 2019.

Background: Research suggests that while capacities for self-regulation gradually improve during adolescence, eating habits become unhealthier. This study investigated whether there are age-related patterns in using self-regulation strategies (SRS) as well as in the self-reported dietary intake of fruit, vegetables, and unhealthy snacks. Moreover, we tested the strength of the relationship between different SRS (aimed at goal versus aimed at temptations) and dietary intake across different ages in adolescents. Methods: In total, 11,392 adolescents (49.5% boys, age range 10-17) from nine European countries took part at this study. Eating SRS, daily intake of fruit, vegetables, and unhealthy snacks were assessed. Results: Older adolescents had lower scores on self-regulation measures compared to younger ones, as well as lower intakes of fruit and vegetables and higher intakes of unhealthy snacks. The strength of the associations between strategies aimed at goal and unhealthy dietary intake, as well as between strategies aimed at temptation and healthy dietary intake, were generally small and/or insignificant. There were small age differences in the direction and strength of these patterns. Conclusion: The trends in SRS and dietary intake of fruit, vegetables and unhealthy snacks suggest that middle (13-15-years-old) but also older adolescents might benefit greatly from interventions focused on boosting eating SRS.