Temperament in childhood predicts body mass in adulthood: the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study.

This study examined associations of temperament at ages 6 to 12 with body-mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) at ages 24 to 30 years. The participants were 619 men and women derived from the population-based Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study. Temperament was operationalized as (negative) emotionality, sociability, and activity. High emotionality predicted increased BMI, independently of WC, and independently of childhood and adulthood risk factors for adult obesity. None of the temperament dimensions had any associations with WC after controlling for BMI. The findings suggest that temperamental difficulty in childhood may be a useful risk indicator for general body mass in adulthood, and the mechanisms relating temperament with body mass should be further explored.     

Sleeping problems and health behaviors as mediators between organizational justice and health.

The aim of this longitudinal cohort study was to investigate whether sleeping problems and health behaviors (smoking, alcohol consumption, and sedentary lifestyle) mediate the association between organizational justice and employee health. Health indicators were minor psychiatric morbidity, as assessed by the General Health Questionnaire (U. Werneke, D. P. Goldberg, I. Yalcin, & B. T. Ustun, 2000), and poor self-rated health status. The results of logistic regression analysis of data for 416 male and 3,357 female hospital employees working during the 1998-2000 period in 10 Finnish hospitals suggest that sleeping problems are one of the underlying factors causing the adverse health effects of low organizational justice at work. No support for a mediating role of health behaviors between low organizational justice and health problems was obtained.