Investigates parental perceptions of overweight or obese children who receive services from the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Program in San Bernardino County, California. Study design was based on a qualitative ethnographic interview technique in which a moderator guided between 6-12 individuals through a discussion of a particular topic. Results indicate that the parents interviewed were highly concerned with the health of their children and family, but do not perceive their child to be at an immediate health risk. In addition, most felt their children's weight to be "normal" in spite of any physical findings that suggested otherwise.

The purpose of this cross-sectional population study was to provide an assessment of weight status of a county's preschool population utilizing the new growth charts and expressed as Body Mass Index, or BMI, -for- age percentile. This study was conducted in conjunction with an annual health screen for incoming kindergartners and consisted of two phases. The first phase involved assisting in the collection of, and statistically analyzing preschoolers' data collected during the Tillamook Health Screen on May 23-25th, 2001. Height, weight, blood pressure, hemoglobin, and blood lead levels were measured. Also, the preschoolers' parents completed a 24-hour food intake record and answered questions on mealtime habits. Phase Two consisted of a mailed questionnaire that was sent to parents of preschoolers who were screened in May, 2001, to investigate dairy food consumption, where meals are eaten, and physical activity habits of their preschoolers. Four significant findings were documented in this research. Foremost, Tillamook County preschoolers had a lower prevalence of healthy weight and a higher prevalence of at risk of overweight and overweight levels than children their age nationwide. Also, both systolic and diastolic blood pressure increased with increasing BMI-for-age percentiles for males and females. Third, hours spent viewing television—sedentary behavior—was positively related to BMI-for-age percentiles. The combination of more hours of physical activity with less television viewing time was inversely related to BMI-for-age percentiles. Last, Tillamook County preschoolers who were above the healthy weight range ate more Food Guide Pyramid servings of concentrated fats/sweets than children in the healthy weight range. Data that were not strong enough to reach conclusions about weight status related to dairy product consumption, fat content of dairy products, mealtime habits, meals eaten away from home, blood hemoglobin, and blood lead. Also, no significant associations were found between dairy food intake and blood hemoglobin, blood lead, or blood pressure. Even at preschool ages, physical activity and diet are important to assess when increasing rates of overweight levels and associated increases in blood pressure are being investigated. / Graduation date: 2003

Thesis (M. Tech. Dept. of Hospitality, Tourism and PR Management)--Vaal University of Technology, 2009. / Background: Approximately 45% of South Africans are overweight, including 20% of children under six years of age. Snack foods are now targeted in the food industry, globally, as an obesity prevention initiative, focusing on children to ensure the adoption of a healthy lifestyle from an early age. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to determine the nutritional status and snack consumption patterns of children (n=290) 9 to 13 years old in the Vaal Region at two purposively selected primary schools in order to develop a healthy snack food item that will address obesity in children from a very young age. Methods: A baseline survey included a pre-tested questionnaire, administered by trained fieldworkers to determine snack food consumption patterns. Anthropometric measurements included weight and height. A snack food item was developed to meet certain criteria identified from the literature and baseline survey. The methods included: snack food development and preparation, chemical analyses to determine actual content, microbiological tests to determine shelf life and sensory analyses to determine acceptability. Study design: Cross-sectional analytical study. Data analyses: Data of the questionnnaires were captured and analysed for descriptive statistics (frequencies, means and standard deviations). The anthropometric data were captured and analysed using the World Health Organisation (WHO) standards for 2007. Results: The results showed that the children in the sample knew the meaning of healthy snacks, although the majority (66.8%) consumed unhealthy snacks, especially from school tuck shops. The top ten snack foods most commonly consumed daily were: coffee (48.3%), tea (46.1%), crispy chips (39.1%), fruit juice (38.0%), chicken (35.1%), fried potato chips (33.6%), carbonated drinks (26.9%), biscuits (26.2%), toffees (26.2%) and yoghurt (25.8%). The majority (56.8%) of the respondents indicated that they receive between R2 and R5 per week for tuck shop money, besides their monthly pocket money (64.6%). Most of the respondents (45.4%) spend their pocket money on snack food items and these are mainly consumed while watching television (36.9%) and when bored (29.5%). The anthropometric results indicated that 11.7% of the group were underweight, 12.1% of the group were stunted; in addition 20% were at risk of underweight, and 23.4% at risk of being stunted. A significantly higher percentage of girls (16.81) were stunted compared with the boys (5.0%). Also 7.6% of the group were overweight. More girls were overweight compared with boys. A snack food item was developed to address obesity in this region. The criteria met were that it was affordable, at cost of R0.55 per 30g portion, was low in fat and had high-density nutritional value, with at least 20% of the DRI for protein and iron, had a shelf life of 28 days and was generally acceptable to the majority of the respondents. Conclusion and recommendations: This study showed that obesity is becoming a problem amongst children in the Vaal Region. Although primary school children knew healthy snack foods, their behaviour indicated a large consumption of unhealthy snack foods. A low-fat, low-energy, low-cost and acceptable snack food item was successfully developed to address the obesity problem in the region. Further research is recommended where this snack food item is implemented in an intervention study to measure its impact on the nutritional status of obese primary school children. / National Research Foundation

Introduction: Video game is an emerging technology with potential to overcome many of the current barriers to behavior change. Video game playing is now woven into the fabric of children’s life and has been developed to educate individuals in health-related areas. Story immersion refers to the experience of being fully absorbed within a story in the game and is a key factor that contributes to the mechanism of behavior change. “Escape from Diab (Diab)is a health videogame designed to lower the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes through behavior change components that were integrated into activities within the game storyline. This thesis was designed to investigate the effect of Diab for childhood obesity prevention among Hong Kong Chinese children. Methods: A literature review was conducted. Subsequently, study one conducted the validation of the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Older Children (PAQ-C) with 469 Hong Kong Chinese children. Study two was a cross-sectional study to explore the associations of self-efficacy, motivation, preference with both self-reported and objective physical activity (PA) in 301 children. Study three consisted of two phases. Phase one conducted individual interviews with 34 Hong Kong Chinese children to gather their perceptions of Diab and to assess Diab’s acceptability and applicability. Phase two examined the effect of playing nine episodes of Diab on children’s health outcomes (i.e., motivation, self-efficacy, preference for diet and PA, and PA behavior) through a non-randomized intervention. Results: The review demonstrated the effects of interventions by using health videogames on the psychological correlates. However, limited evidence is available to draw conclusions on the games’ behavioral modification efficacy. In study one, good internal consistency and test-retest reliability suggest that the PAQ-C is an adequately reliable instrument for use among Chinese children. The significant moderate correlation between the PAQ-C score and accelerometer measured moderate-to-vigorous PA support the PAQ-C’s acceptable validity. Study two revealed the important effects of self-efficacy and autonomous motivation in predicting PA. Differences were found between the prediction of self-reported PA and objective PA, which is likely due to self-reported error variance common to the PAQ-C and psychological correlates but not common to acclerometry. Study three indicated that Diab was perceived to be an immersive game by most of participating Hong Kong Chinese children. Four themes emerged from the interviews indicated that story immersion was a perceptible component and that Diab, developed for American children, was acceptable to the Hong Kong Chinese children. The pilot intervention study found short-term benefits after completing the game. However, the effects were not sustained at follow-up testing 8-10 weeks later. Conclusion: The current thesis demonstrated the validity of PAQ-C and the important effects of self-efficacy and autonomous motivation in predicting PA, which could inform the development of efficacious interventions. Diab, a Health videogames with appealing characters and immersive stories, partially motivated children to improve their motivation, self-efficacy, and preference for diet and PA behaviors immediately after completing nine episodes of the game, however, the lasting effectiveness and mechanisms of change require more thorough investigation.

This project developed a model to account for an obesity outcome in children who have posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and whose parents have posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) or PTSD. A literature review provided the basis for the model and covered the areas of childhood obesity, parental PTSS, childhood PTSD, adverse childhood experiences, relational PTSD, ineffective parent support, and the stress response. A model to explain the outcome of obesity in children with PTSD as mediated by parental support provided after a traumatic event was developed: The Parental PTSSChildhood Obesity Model. The literature review supports a relational perspective for viewing child outcomes from trauma. When the relational perspective is applied to parents who themselves are experiencing PTSS, several parent response patterns were supported. These response patterns are considered to detrimentally impact the parent’s ability to provide an environment that is safe, predictable and responsive. Therefore the parent experiencing PTSS will evidence less effective parenting. Thus the child’s environment will be more stressful, increase the child’s symptomology and promote ineffective coping skills resulting in obesity. The strengths, limitations, and contributions of the model are discussed, as well as recommendations made for further research.

M. Tech. Biomedical Sciences. / Examines the physical fitness levels of school children in Limpopo Province, South Africa. It is envisaged that the present study will help in identifying the physical fitness levels of South African children at risk of being overweight and obese. Such findings might inform public policy as a guide to the formation of possible intervention strategies that could help to promote physical fitness among children as well as prevent and manage the surging prevalence of excessive weight and obesity in South African children. Additionally, the results of this study will provide useful comparisons with results in developed and developing countries and thereby providing baseline data for future epidemiological studies of lifestyle on physical fitness and body composition of adolescent children in Limpopo, South Africa.

Darbe tirti 1990 metais gimusių Vilniaus miesto ir rajono vaikų augimo ypatumai nuo gimimo iki brendimo pabaigos, individualių raidos takų įvairovė, etniniai, socialiniai ir ekonominiai augimo veiksniai, „nepriklausomybės kartos“ vaikų fizinės būklės epochiniai pokyčiai ir augimo tendencijos. Šis darbas – vienas pirmųjų mūsų šalies auksologinių tyrimų, kuriame buvo nustatyta vaikų augimo takų individuali įvairovė nuo gimimo iki aštuoniolikos metų amžiaus. Šiame longitudiniame 1990 m. (atgavus Lietuvos nepriklausomybę) gimusių vaikų tyrime buvo naudojamas ambulatorinių kortelių metodas, ištirti jo privalumai ir trūkumai. Nustatyta, kad profilaktinių vaikų apsilankymų poliklinikoje dažnis susijęs su vaiko amžiumi, gyvenamąja vieta (miestas arba kaimas), atstumu iki poliklinikos ir vaiko gimimo eiliškumu. Vaikų augimo rodiklių įrašai ambulatorinėse kortelėse palyginti tikslūs ir tinkami auksologinei analizei. Darbo rezultatai patvirtino, kad ūgio ir kūno masės indekso raidos takų kaita augimo laikotarpiu yra normalus reiškinys, priklauso nuo amžiaus ir lyties. Po 1990 m., t.y. didelių politinių, socialinių ir ekonominių pertvarkų laikotarpiu vaikų fizinių rodiklių augimas atsiliko palyginus su stabiliais šalies raidos laikotarpiais. Neigiami šio laikotarpio vaikų augimo pokyčiai buvo grįžtami. Nustatyti etniniai ir socialiniai abiejų lyčių vaikų fizinės būklės skirtumai. Pagrindiniai vaikų fiziniai rodikliai (ūgis, svoris, kūno masės indeksas) per pastaruosius dešimtmečius... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Physical status of children born in 1990 in Vilnius city and region from birth up to the end of puberty, the variety of individual growth tracks, ethnic and socio-economic growth factors, the epochal changes in growth and growth patterns of the “generation of independence” were investigated. This study was one of the first to establish the variety of individual growth tracks from birth to the age of eighteen years. In this longitudinal study of children born in 1990 (the year Lithuania restored its independence) the personal health records’ analysis was used and its benefits and drawbacks were investigated. The age of children, the place of residence (urban or rural), the distance to the outpatient clinic and the ordinal number of a child in a family were associated with the regularity of visiting the outpatient clinic. Children's growth indices in personal health records were rather accurate and suitable for auxological analysis. The results of this study confirmed that children normally changed their growth tracks for height and body mass index during the growth process. These changes were associated with their age and sex. Retardation in growth of children was related to the political and socioeconomic changes in Lithuania after 1990. Nevertheless, this retardation was reversible. Ethnic and socioeconomic differences in physical status of both boys and girls were established. The main body size indices (height, weight and body mass index) of children remained almost... [to full text]

Self-report recall questions are commonly used to measure physical activity, energy expenditure (EE) and time use in children and adolescents. However, self-report questionnaires show low to moderate validity, mainly due to inaccuracies in recalling activity in terms of duration and intensity. Aside from recall errors, inaccuracies in estimating energy expenditure from self-report questionnaires are compounded by a lack of data on the energy cost of everyday activities in children and adolescents. This thesis describes the development of the Multimedia Activity Recall for Children and Adolescents (MARCA), a use-of-time instrument designed to address both the limitations of self-report recall questionnaires in children, and the lack of energy cost data in children. / The thesis begins by investigating the energy cost of everyday activities in children and adolescents. An extensive literature search was undertaken to identify as many studies as possible where the energy cost of child and adolescent everyday activities were measured. Data were available from 52 studies totalling 5982 measures made on 43 activities. The data collated in the literature search was used to identify significant gaps in the literature and evaluate existing techniques of assigning energy cost values to child and adolescent activities when measured values are not available. The results suggest that using adult METs is the most accurate technique to assign energy cost values when child-specific measures are not available. / After identifying areas of missing energy cost data, the energy cost of three types of child and adolescent activities were measured: playing video centre games; performing household chores; and “new locomotions”, i.e. riding non-motorised scooters and rollerblading. A total of 131 measures were undertaken on 11-13 year old children using indirect calorimetry. Energy costs ranged from 1.3 to 6.4 METs for video centre games; 1.9 to 3.6 METs for household chores; and 6.5 to 6.6 for the new locomotions. / Next, the development, validity and reliability of the MARCA are discussed. The MARCA is described in terms of its three components: the 1-d recall; the compendium of child-specific energy costs and the analytical module. In particular, the advantages of the multimedia features of the MARCA over traditional pen and paper questionnaires are highlighted. The MARCA was then validated by comparing accelerometer counts with MARC recall data collected on a sample of sixty six 10-13 year olds. The MARCA showed validity comparable to other self-report instruments with Spearman coeffiecients ranging from 0.88 to 0.94. Finally, the thesis demonstrates the unique analytical capabilities of the MARCA via a variety of analyses conducted on the MARCA self-report recall profiles of 1429 children and adolescents aged 9 to 15 years. / Thesis (PhDHumanMovement)--University of South Australia, 2005.

Thesis (M.P.H.)--University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, School of Public Health, 2008. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 46-05, page: 2658. Adviser: Deanna M. Hoelscher. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Miami University, Dept. of Psychology, 2005. / Title from second page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains [2], v, 98 p. : ill. Includes bibliographical references (p. 57-64).