Neighborhood Food Access in Early Life and Trajectories of Child Body Mass Index and Obesity.

Importance: Limited access to healthy foods, resulting from residence in neighborhoods with low food access, is a public health concern. The contribution of this exposure in early life to child obesity remains uncertain.

Objective: To examine associations of neighborhood food access during pregnancy or early childhood with child body mass index (BMI) and obesity risk.

Satisfaction with a meal kit delivery program and feasibility of a phase I trial in the intervening in food insecurity to reduce and mitigate (InFoRM) childhood obesity study.

Background: Food and nutrition security interventions have been demonstrated to optimize health, prevent and treat chronic diseases among adult populations. Despite the increasing prevalence and intersection of food insecurity and childhood obesity in the United States, there are few food and nutrition security interventions targeted to children and families.

Objectives: The primary purpose of this phase I randomized, crossover trial was to assess the safety, acceptability and satisfaction of a meal kit delivery program among children with obesity living in households with food insecurity.

Childhood Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption: an Agent-Based Model of Context-Specific Reduction Efforts.

Introduction: Despite widespread recognition among public health experts that childhood sugar-sweetened beverage consumption should be reduced, doing so has proven to be a challenge. An agent-based model of early childhood sugar-sweetened beverage consumption was applied to data from three high-quality, longitudinal cohort studies to gain insight into potentially effective intervention strategies across contexts.

Methods: From 2021 to 2023, a single agent-based model design was applied to data sets derived from three separate cohorts of children followed from infancy to childhood, with very different populations and environments (participants recruited in 1999-2002; 2003-2010; and 2009-2014).

Developmental Contributions to Obesity: Nutritional Exposures in the First Thousand Days.

Obesity is prevalent and continuing to rise across all age groups, even children. As obesity is challenging to manage and treat, prevention is critical. Here, we highlight nutritional influences during periods of early developmental plasticity, namely the prenatal period and infancy, that have been shown to contribute to the development of obesity into childhood and beyond.

A Case of Red Retching?

This piece features a 14-year-old young man who presented with epigastric pain and bright red emesis. His father brought both a photo and sample of the vomitus, which guided initial management in one direction, and then on closer inspection, diverted his diagnostic trajectory. Through a traditional case report and accompanied image and prose, we explore how we process and reinterpret visual data to help guide our management of hematemesis.

Sociodemographic Differences of Hospitalization and Associations of Resource Utilization for Failure to Thrive.

Objectives: This study examines the sociodemographic differences between elective and nonelective admissions for failure to thrive (FTT). We investigate associations between admission type and hospital resource utilization, including length of stay and feeding tube placement.

Methods: We included children <2 years old with FTT in the nationwide Kids' Inpatient Database.

An agent-based model of child sugar-sweetened beverage consumption: implications for policies and practices.

Background: A strong body of evidence links young children's intake of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) with myriad negative outcomes.

Objectives: Our research provides insight into whether and to what extent potential intervention strategies can reduce young children's consumption of SSBs.

Methods: We built an agent-based model (ABM) of SSB consumption representing participants in the Project Viva longitudinal study between ages 2 and 7 y.

Associations of Healthy Infant Feeding Practices and Early Childhood Adiposity in the Rise & SHINE Cohort.

We studied healthy infant feeding practices among 308 mother-infant pairs, including exclusive breastmilk, satiety cues, complementary food introduction, sugary beverage intake, and bottle use in bed. We examined associations of individual and cumulative infant feeding practices through 12 months of age with body mass index (BMI) z -score at 2 years. Exclusive breastmilk and avoidance of bottle use in bed were associated with lower BMI z -score (β -0.

Association of Computed Tomographic Screening Promotion With Lung Cancer Overdiagnosis Among Asian Women.

Importance: As smoking continues to decline in many developed countries, the proportion of lung cancers in nonsmokers will rise. This shift may create substantial pressure to further expand lung cancer screening to lower-risk groups.

Objective: To determine the association of lung cancer incidence with the promotion of screening in a largely nonsmoking population.

Association of Changes in Obesity Prevalence With the COVID-19 Pandemic in Youth in Massachusetts.

This cohort study assessed obesity prevalence before and during the COVID-19 pandemic (2018-2020) in children and adolescents in Massachusetts.

Association of Mode of Obstetric Delivery With Child and Adolescent Body Composition.

Importance: Although the literature on the association between birth by cesarean delivery and children's anthropometry has continued to increase, only a few studies have examined the association of cesarean delivery with measures of body composition assessed using dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA), which allows the differentiation of fat and lean mass overall and in specific regions of the body.

Objective: To investigate whether differences exist in DXA-measured body composition between children and adolescents born by cesarean delivery and those born by vaginal delivery.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This prospective cohort study included singleton children of mothers enrolled between April 1999 and July 2002 in Project Viva, a longitudinal prebirth cohort of mother-child pairs in Massachusetts.

Associations of midchildhood to early adolescence central adiposity gain with cardiometabolic health in early adolescence.

Objective: This study examined the associations of central adiposity gain from midchildhood to early adolescence with cardiometabolic health markers in early adolescence.

Methods: A total of 620 participants were studied in Project Viva. In midchildhood (mean age = 7.

The Role of Environmental Risk Factors on the Development of Childhood Allergic Rhinitis.

Environmental factors play an important role in the development and exacerbation of allergic rhinitis (AR) in childhood. Indoor air pollution, such as house dust mites and secondhand smoke, can significantly increase the onset of AR, while pet dander may affect the exacerbation of AR symptoms in children. Furthermore, traffic related air pollution and pollen are outdoor air pollutants that can affect immune competency and airway responsiveness, increasing the risk of AR in children.

Longitudinal associations of fruit juice intake in infancy with DXA-measured abdominal adiposity in mid-childhood and early adolescence.

Background: Excessive abdominal adiposity is associated with health risks in children and adults. Higher consumption of fruit juice and other sources of fructose has been shown to promote weight gain and specifically visceral adiposity in adulthood.

Objectives: We aimed to examine the longitudinal associations of fruit juice intake in infancy with visceral adiposity in mid-childhood and early adolescence.

Imaging of Acute Shoulder Trauma.

Acute injuries to the shoulder girdle are common and frequently encountered by the practicing radiologist. The type of injury is highly dependent on the age of the patient and mechanism of trauma with injuries occurring at the site of greatest mechanical weakness. In this review, we discuss the main clinical features and key imaging findings for the most common shoulder injuries.

Associations of DXA-measured abdominal adiposity with cardio-metabolic risk and related markers in early adolescence in Project Viva.

Background: Increased visceral adipose tissue (VAT) precedes development of insulin resistance and dyslipidemia in adults. The associations of abdominal adiposity derived from dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), including VAT, subcutaneous abdominal adipose tissue (SAAT) and total abdominal adipose tissue (TAAT) with cardio-metabolic risk in adolescents are understudied.

Objectives: We examined the cross-sectional associations of DXA-measured abdominal adiposity with cardio-metabolic risk and related markers in early adolescence (mean [SD] age 13.

Impact of Clinical Factors on the Intestinal Microbiome in Infants With Gastroschisis.

Background: Infants with gastroschisis require operations and lengthy hospitalizations due to intestinal dysmotility. Dysbiosis may contribute to these problems. Little is known on the microbiome of gastroschisis infants.

Exploiting a low tax system: non-tax-induced cigarette price increases in Taiwan 2011-2016.

Introduction: This study aims to analyse the non-tax-induced price increasing strategies adopted by tobacco industry in Taiwan, a high-income country with comprehensive tobacco control policies but low tobacco taxes and a declining cigarette market.

Methods: Using governmental tax, price and inflation data, we analysed cigarette sales volume, affordability, affordability elasticity of demand, market share, pricing and net revenue of the top five tobacco companies in Taiwan from 2011 to 2016 when no tax increases occurred.

Results: Total revenue after tax grew significantly for all the major transnational tobacco companies between 2011 and 2016 at the expense of the state-owned Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corporation.

MED GATA factors promote robust development of the C. elegans endoderm.

The MED-1,2 GATA factors contribute to specification of E, the progenitor of the Caenorhabditis elegans endoderm, through the genes end-1 and end-3, and in parallel with the maternal factors SKN-1, POP-1 and PAL-1. END-1,3 activate elt-2 and elt-7 to initiate a program of intestinal development, which is maintained by positive autoregulation. Here, we advance the understanding of MED-1,2 in E specification.

Aro: a machine learning approach to identifying single molecules and estimating classification error in fluorescence microscopy images.

Background: Recent techniques for tagging and visualizing single molecules in fixed or living organisms and cell lines have been revolutionizing our understanding of the spatial and temporal dynamics of fundamental biological processes. However, fluorescence microscopy images are often noisy, and it can be difficult to distinguish a fluorescently labeled single molecule from background speckle.

Results: We present a computational pipeline to distinguish the true signal of fluorescently labeled molecules from background fluorescence and noise.