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The purpose of this study is to understand the association between health behaviours of diet, physical activity, smoking cigarettes, alcohol consumption, safe sex and sleep quality with demographic (e.g. age, gender) and psychological (i.e. stress, self-esteem and sense of coherence) factors in Indian residential college students.

Students studying for Bachelor of Technology at residential colleges in India were invited to complete an online questionnaire regarding their health behaviours, demographics and psychological variables. Each health behaviour was regressed onto demographic and psychological factors to determine which of them were associated with performing each behaviour.

There was no clear pattern of predictors for the health behaviours overall. Self-esteem was related to healthy diet, being single was related to adequate sleep, higher parental income was related to safer sex and being older was related to more alcohol use and safer sex.

This study revealed that health education efforts may need to be designed for specific behaviours and correlates among Indian college students. Interventions regarding (1) healthy eating should target students with lower self-esteem, (2) sleep should target students in a relationship and (3) safer sex should target younger students and those from less affluent backgrounds.

This research is one of the first attempts to study the predictors of health behaviours among Indian college students. The study highlighted that psychological factors (e.g. self-esteem) and demographic factors (e.g. relationship status, parental income, age) affect different health behaviours. These findings can help health educators to design tailored interventions and aid in health education and promotion among Indian college students.

This study aims to investigate how comparing physical aspects of the self to fashion models in mass-mediated images result in body dissatisfaction and what mechanisms could be used to interrupt the potentially harmful emotional and motivational outcomes of such evaluations.

Two experimental design studies are conducted in which objective self-awareness (OSA; self-focus) is manipulated. In the first study, participants are assigned to control vs relevant vs irrelevant standards of appearance, and in the second study, all participants receive relevant standards of appearance and are randomly primed to experience pride or shame.

Focusing on the physical aspect of the self (i.e. state of OSA) and having access to relevant standards of appearance such as viewing images of beautiful fashion models (vs irrelevant standards of appearance such as images of plants) initiate the process of self-standard evaluation that may lead to body image state dissatisfaction (BISDS). Negative emotions mediate the relationship between BISDS and motivations to pursue cosmetic procedures. Pride and shame are two important self-conscious emotions that differently influence these relationships.

The present research identifies how pride could act as a self-affirming factor to intervene the undesirable outcomes of body image dissatisfaction and discourage unnecessary cosmetic procedures. Pride diminishes the motivation to undergo cosmetic procedures by shifting the focus from pursuing unachievable standards of appearance to pride-inducing achievements and self-affirming positive qualities. Shame, however, keeps individuals focused on discrepancies and lowers their ability to think of substitute goals, resulting in enhanced motivations for cosmetic procedures.