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U.S. government leaders have long considered Latin America their proverbial backyard and have recurrently intervened in the region. In earlier periods of U.S. imperialism, U.S. government leaders justified such intervention with reference to allegedly scientific racial hierarchies, which placed White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) at the top of this artificial hierarchy. In more recent episodes of U.S. imperialism leading into the twenty-first century, however, U.S. leaders have publicly used the language of democracy and human rights to justify intervention. In the instance of contemporary Venezuela, while U.S leaders indeed use the language of human rights and democracy, they also draw on racist tropes of Latin Americans to justify their intervention. Through interviews with U.S. foreign policymakers and analysis of U.S. government documents, I find that U.S. leaders depict former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez as an irrational, uncivilized, and beastly leader, who manipulates ideas of racial inequality to maintain power. In addition, U.S. leaders understand him as manipulating an uncritical mass of Venezuelans who cannot think for themselves. U.S. leaders believe it thus their duty to intervene in order to promote democracy and show Venezuelans their true political-economic interests. I connect these dynamics with a history of U.S. intervention into the region and a history of racist and imperial thinking that continues to shape the logic of U.S. foreign policymaking into the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Background Aims Methods Results Conclusions The Mediterranean diet has been shown to be effective in improving health outcomes and for weight loss. Adherence and retention in dietary interventions are critical to ensure the benefits of the exposure. No studies to date have assessed the role of gender in understanding participants who remain engaged and adhere to Mediterranean diet interventions.This study aimed to explore gender differences in recruitment, adherence, and retention for Mediterranean diet interventions and whether these were associated with differences in weight‐loss outcomes.A systematic search was completed in EMBASE, Medline, Cochrane, and clinicaltrials.gov from inception to March 2023. A meta‐analysis of studies reporting retention by gender was completed using odds ratios comparing female to male dropout numbers. A second meta‐analysis was completed for adherence comparing standardized mean difference of Mediterranean diet scores stratified by gender. Newcastle Ottawa score was used to assess risk of bias.A total of 70 articles were included in the systematic review with six articles included in the adherence meta‐analysis and nine in the dropout meta‐analysis. No statistically significant difference was shown for adherence or retention by gender. Weight‐loss outcomes were inconsistent.The results of the study suggest a higher adherence and lower dropout for women although these results were not statistically significant. Future studies of Mediterranean diet interventions should include adherence, retention, and weight‐loss data stratified by gender to allow further investigation of this relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]