Publications by authors named "Arthur Sobol"
Background: Increasing school-day physical activity through policy and programs is commonly suggested to prevent obesity and improve overall child health. However, strategies that focus on school-day physical activity may not increase total physical activity if youth compensate by reducing physical activity outside of school.
Purpose: Objectively measured, nationally representative physical activity data were used to test the hypothesis that higher school-day physical activity is associated with higher overall daily physical activity in youth.
Purpose: This study aimed to examine changes in physical activity among children and adolescents, by race/ethnicity, in the United States from 2003-2004 to 2005-2006.
Methods: Secondary analysis of the objectively measured accelerometer data among children and adolescents 6-19 yr: 2003-2004 (n = 1665) and 2005-2006 (n = 1716) from the nationally representative National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2003-2004 and 2005-2006. We estimated regression coefficients for change between the two periods by age group, accounting for sampling design and adjusting for age, sex, race/ethnicity, and number of hours monitored.
Purpose: Evaluate the effect of an after-school intervention on physical activity program changes and individual behaviors among children.
Methods: A quasi-experimental evaluation of a YMCA-driven environmental change intervention with 16 intervention and 16 control sites in four metropolitan areas in the United States. Intervention sites participated in learning collaboratives designed to promote physical activity and nutrition through environmental change, educational activities, and parent engagement.
Objective: to address the question of whether a mortality risk associated with depression in a 1952 representative sample of Stirling County adults changed in a new sample in 1970, and whether there was a change in associations with cigarette smoking and alcoholism.
Method: sample members were interviewed about depression and cigarette smoking. General physicians were interviewed by psychiatrists regarding alcoholism.
Mortality associated with depression: a forty-year perspective from the Stirling County Study.
Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol
August 2008
Background: This report concerns long-term mortality risks associated with depression, and the potentially confounding factors of alcoholism and cigarette smoking, as experienced by a general population assessed at a baseline in 1952, followed for re-assessment of survivors in 1968, and for death by 1992.
Methods: Self-report and physician-report information was gathered in 1952 and again in 1968 about a sample of 1,079 adults. At the end of follow-up in 1992, the vital status of all subjects was known.
Objective: We examined youths' report of receiving specific overweight-related preventive counseling and perceived readiness to adopt nutrition and physical activity behaviors recommended by their clinicians.
Research Methods And Procedures: We surveyed 324 youth 10 to 18 years old who had a physical exam within the past year. The survey included questions on height, weight, race/ethnicity, mother's education, and topics they discussed with their clinician during their visit.
Objective: Our goal was to quantify the magnitude of energy imbalance responsible for the increase in body weight among US children during the periods 1988-1994 and 1999-2002.
Methods: We adopted a counterfactual approach to estimate weight gains in excess of normal growth and the implicit "energy gap"--the daily imbalance between energy intake and expenditure. On the basis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention growth charts, we constructed weight, height, and BMI percentile distributions for cohorts 2 to 4 and 5 to 7 years of age in the 1988-1994 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (N = 5000).
When children eat what they watch: impact of television viewing on dietary intake in youth.
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med
April 2006
Objectives: To test whether increased television viewing is associated with increased total energy intake and with increased consumption of foods commonly advertised on television, and to test whether increased consumption of these foods mediates the relationship between television viewing and total energy intake.
Design: Prospective observational study with baseline (fall 1995) and follow-up (spring 1997) measures of youth diet, physical activity, and television viewing. We used food advertising data to identify 6 food groups for study (sweet baked snacks, candy, fried potatoes, main courses commonly served as fast food, salty snacks, and sugar-sweetened beverages).
Objective: Early menarche is a risk factor for breast cancer. Since body composition influences age at menarche we decided to estimate the effects of a school-based intervention for the prevention of obesity on the initiation of menses in young girls.
Methods: Ten schools were randomized to a modified curriculum or no curricular changes for 2 school-years.
Purpose: To examine significance of missing data and describe physical activity patterns using recall and accelerometer measures among youth in a nonlaboratory setting.
Methods: Fifty-four middle-school students wore TriTrac-R3D monitors (TTM) and completed an interviewer-prompted 24-h recall during two, 5-d monitoring sessions. We coded 2860 30-min recall intervals to a standard MET compendium.
Background: National data indicate that children and youth do not meet Healthy People 2010 objectives for fruit and vegetable intake. Television viewing is hypothesized as a contributing factor because of its documented role in encouraging consumption of highly advertised foods that may lead to the replacement of fruits and vegetables.
Methods: A sample of 548 ethnically diverse students (average age: 11.
Objective: Building on findings about the prevalence and incidence of depression over a 40-year period, the authors provide data on trends in cigarette smoking and associations with depression.
Method: Data come from interviews with adult population samples (1952, 1970, and 1992) and followed cohorts (1952-1970 and 1970-1992). Logistic regression models and survival regressions were used to analyze the data.
Background: Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, and the risk of disease increases the earlier in life smoking begins. The prevalence of smoking among US adolescents has increased since 1991. Despite bans on television tobacco advertising, smoking on television remains widespread.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Validity of the newly-proposed categories of Minor Depression (MinD) and Subsyndromal Depression (SSD) would be strengthened if they were found to be related to the incidence of Major Depressive Episode (MDE). In this report, the subsequent incidence of MDE was assessed in terms of baseline evidence about the two subthreshold categories and Dysthymic Disorder (DysD).
Methods: The Diagnostic Interview Schedule was used to interview 489 subjects twice between 1991 and 1995 as part of the Stirling County Study.
Sleep disturbance has attracted considerable attention as an early indicator of depression. However, three epidemiologic investigations have shown psychological symptoms, such as self-disparagement, to be stronger predictors. This report examines the depressive symptoms commonly assessed in modern epidemiologic surveys and estimates the generalizability of this information using data from the Stirling County Study, a long-term epidemiologic investigation of psychiatric disorders.
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