A Longitudinal Study on the Effects of Parasocial Relationships and Breakups With Characters of a Health-Related TV Show on Self-Efficacy and Exercise Behavior: The Case of The Biggest Loser

Overweight is one of the major health-related challenges in industrialized countries and mostly preventable through a healthy diet and regular engagement in physical activity. Health communication practitioners and researchers, therefore, started using the media’s persuasive potential by creating entertainment-education (E-E) programs that promote healthy nutrition and exercise. By observing the characters in E-E programs, audience members can learn vicariously and eventually develop personal bonds with them. The current study investigates the effects of parasocial relationships (PSRs) with characters of a health-related E-E show, as well as the impact of parasocial breakups (PSBUs) on health-relevant outcomes. Using the setting of the show The Biggest Loser (TBL), we conducted a quasi-experimental longitudinal field study. Participants ( N = 149) watched shortened episodes of the show once a week for 5 weeks. Results showed that PSRs with the reality TV characters did not increase over time and after repeated exposure. Findings furthermore suggest that PSR did not influence self-efficacy perceptions or exercise behavior over time. Parasocial breakup distress intensity was neither related to self-efficacy nor to exercise behavior. Interpretations of these findings and implications for better understanding the effects of PSRs and PSBUs are discussed.

Stigmatization of Fat Characters, a power play of Discourse and Hegemony: an Investigation in to the Truth

Though the fat person in the eighteenth and nineteenth century culture usually represented wealth and prosperity, or by extension, either literally or metaphorically, greed and avarice, there was one situation in which fat people themselves were mocked and shamed. Extremely fat people were seen as a form of human grotesquery. They serve as a spectacle of oddity in fairs, circuses, vaudeville and most recently on television programs such as ‘The Biggest Loser’. In all this the fat man suffers the greatest humiliation. His body is at once exposed and undignified. The negative effect that these freaks shows had on viewers who themselves were fat, or those who feared becoming fat, or certainly on those who were themselves the object of ridicule. The stigma in this case, however, is one of oddity and uniqueness. What is clear from the historical documents, however, is that the connotations of fatness and of the fat person- lazy, gluttonous, greedy, immoral, uncontrolled, stupid, ugly, lacking in will power, primitive- preceded and then intertwined with explicit concern about health issues. Fat bodies as Foucault would say, is considered as hegemonic knowledge or stereotypes which are enforced by the authorities. Thus body size and weight can be seen and explored as a set of social meanings. The desire to raise one’s social status is a key motivational force for dieting. Creation of hegemonic understanding of fatness as a problem and discursive and other practices that aim at determining normalcy can be justifiably seen along the lines Foucault’s notion of power and specifically those of Biopower and Biopolitics. According to Foucault these power works through discourses and hegemonic knowledge.

The Economic War Between USA and China and Future Scenarios

With the expansion of foreign trade and the burning of competition between countries, the value of currencies began to play an effective and effective role in the global economy, as some countries resorted to reducing the exchange rates of their currencies against the currencies of other countries in order to make their exports more competitive, and the manifestations of the conflict between America and China over the prices of Exchange their currencies, as America accuses China of interfering in exchange and evaluating the yuan under its real value. While the Chinese view the expansionary and extremist monetary policies of the Federal Reserve as an act of currency manipulation, some fear that this conflict will develop into a competitive reduction race that could cause global trade shrinkage and stagnation, and undermine confidence internationally in the international monetary system, which It causes a global financial and economic crisis with a profound negative impact on the entire global economy and the developing economies in particular, which some believe will be the biggest loser of that conflict. The relationship between Washington and Beijing is currently witnessing a wave of political and strategic escalation, especially from the American side, and despite this this the escalation is not new from its predecessors during the past period. But in terms of form, it may be the most severe, but it will not reach the war. Both countries need each other, whereas as much as there are tensions and fundamental differences, it is matched by the existence of common interests.

How resilient are REITs to a pandemic? The COVID-19 effect

PurposeReal estate investment trusts (REITs) are historically considered as attractive assets to investors particularly as the underlying assets are properties which are income-producing. REITs also distribute substantial amount of profits as dividends to shareholders. Stephen and Simon (2005) find that REITs in a mixed asset portfolio of stocks and bonds enhance returns and reduce risk. This paper examines the role a pandemic (COVID-19) plays in the performance of global REITs index and REIT sectors.Design/methodology/approachTo examine the effects of COVID-19 on REITs, the year-to-date (YTD) returns of global returns index and REITs sectors in the United States are observed and a comparative analysis is employed from January 2020 to May 2020.FindingsBased on a three-month return ending 22 May 2020, FTSE EPRA NAREIT index is the biggest loser at −31.83% whilst the FTSE EPRA Asia–Pacific index has the lowest loss at −23.20%. The author examines YTD returns which show disparities on the effect of COVID-19 on REIT sectors. The US market is examined; most REIT sectors suffered big losses as at April 2020; the analysis reveals YTD returns for the top three REIT sector losers are lodging/resort REITs (−45.81%), retail REITs (−41.16%) and office REITs (−22.63%). Data centre REITs are the only sector REITs with positive returns at 17.66%.Practical implicationsMost sector REITs during the pandemic have lost considerable value based on YTD returns as at May 2020. Flight to quality is expected during this uncertain period to REITs such as data REITs, grocery-anchored REITs and storage REITs. These REITs are not as adversely affected by COVID-19 in comparison to other REITs.Originality/valueThis paper identified the impact of COVID-19 on the performance of global REITs and US sector REITs during the periods from January 2020 to May 2020.

Russia–China Economic Relations in the 21st Century: Unrealized Potential or Predetermined Outcome?

In the first decade of the 21st century, Moscow and Beijing made two strategic decisions to expand and deepen bilateral economic relations. The first one was to endorse diversified energy partnership. The second was centered on cross-border area and has been offered in the program of regional cooperation between Russian and Chinese border regions. However, basic methodological illogicality between estimations and expectations in Russia–China economic relations has smashed the good intentions of both sides. Recommendations for the governments to develop economic relations were theoretically correct, but mostly generalized and abstract in nature. Subsequently, these relations had not found a stable ground and were undermined by numerous internal and outside factors, positive and negative. A narrow range of trade articles made Russian–Chinese exchange dependent on the demand and prices for these goods, and small mutual investments slightly influenced an economic exchange between two countries. In spite of a number of decisions related to cross-border and inter-regional relations accepted at the top level, these relations are still the weakest link in bilateral ties. Mutual investments and modern forms of economic cooperation did not flourish along the border also. Moreover, economic troubles in Russia of 2014–2016 have hampered the cross-border relations seriously, while Heilongjiang Province being the intermediary between many Chinese territories and Russia has become the biggest loser on the Chinese side. In spite of all problems in economic cooperation between Russia and China, today, China is the no. 1 trade partner of Russia and Russia is the no. 1 supplier of oil to China. Their energy alliance has strengthened both countries’ statuses in their economic interaction: the position of raw material supplier for Russia and the exporter of manufactured goods to Russia for the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Western sanctions amplified the Chinese high-tech goods export to Russia; China’s share in Pacific Russia’s foreign trade increased from 29.2% in 2014 to 33.4% in 2017 and the peoples’ mood in this region moved in favor of China. However, by the end of second decade of the 21st century, Russia’s and China’s favorable “economic complementarities” and geographic proximity happened to remain a virtual product of academic’s intellectual exercises and have not transformed into the genuine economic cooperation. This is because, on the one hand, the philosophy, political and cultural infrastructures of Russia–China economic relations did not change much since 1990s, and, on the other hand, of some domestic and international factors that prevented this transformation.

Inspiration from the “Biggest Loser”: Social Interactions in a Weight Loss Program

We investigate the role of heterogeneous peer effects in encouraging healthy lifestyles. Our analysis revolves around one of the largest and most extensive databases about weight loss that track individual participants’ meeting attendance and progress in a large national weight loss program. The main finding is that, although weight loss among average-performing peers has a negative effect on an individual’s weight loss, the corresponding effect for the top performer among peers is positive. Furthermore, we show that our results are robust to potential issues related to selection into meetings, endogenous peer outcomes, individual unobserved heterogeneity, lagged dependent variables, and contextual effects. Ultimately, these results provide guidance about how the weight loss program should identify role models.

Relations between Hungary and countries of the Central and Eastern European region: collapse and reorganisation, 1918–1925

The First World War caused very deep and fundamental changes in Central and Eastern Europe. The biggest loser of the war was the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Kingdom of Hungary as one of its parts was dissolved in the framework of Trianon Peace Treaty. The new Hungary could retain only 28,6% of the former territory and 36,5% of its former population. After 1920 the League of Nations was planned a new collective European security system.