The roles of child temperament, parent stress, and parenting style in family mealtimes.

Family mealtimes are associated with benefits for children, including healthy eating, fewer behavior problems, and healthy psychological well-being. However, the interactions during family mealtimes, and the parent and child characteristics, which may affect both the family mealtime environment and the associated benefits in children are not fully understood. The goal of this study was to examine the role of child and parent characteristics on the family mealtime environment.

BMI and disordered eating in urban, African American, adolescent girls: The mediating role of body dissatisfaction.

Objective: This study examined the mediating role of body dissatisfaction between Body Mass Index (BMI) and subsequent disordered eating (e.g. dieting and restricting/purging) among early adolescent African American girls.

The perceived and built environment surrounding urban schools and physical activity among adolescent girls.

Background: Neighborhood perceived/built environment and physical activity (PA) associations have been examined for adolescents around homes, but not surrounding schools.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine if positive perceptions/built environment in neighborhoods surrounding schools predict PA among low-income, urban adolescent girls.

Methods: Measures include: minutes in moderate-vigorous PA (MVPA, ankle accelerometry), perceptions of the school environment (questionnaire), built environment (neighborhood audit).