Features of the built environment related to physical activity friendliness and children's obesity and other risk factors.

Objectives: We investigated the relationships among environmental features of physical activity friendliness, socioeconomic indicators, and prevalence of obesity (BMI status), central adiposity (waist circumference, waist-height ratio), and hypertension.

Design And Sample: The design was cross-sectional; the study was correlational. The sample was 911 kindergarteners through sixth graders from three schools in an urban school district residing in 13 designated neighborhoods.

Therapeutic interventions to reduce the risk of progression from prediabetes to type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Clinical trials have demonstrated that it is possible to prevent diabetes through lifestyle modification, pharmacological intervention, and surgery. This review aims to summarize the effectiveness of these various therapeutic interventions in reducing the risk of progression of prediabetes to diabetes, and address the challenges to implement a diabetes prevention program at a community level. Strategies focusing on intensive lifestyle changes are not only efficient but cost-effective and/or cost-saving.

A structured, interactive method for youth participation in a school district-university partnership to prevent obesity.

Background: The involvement of school-age children in participatory research is described in the context of a school district-university partnership to prevent obesity in children. The purpose of this study was to elicit, from children in kindergarten (K) through sixth grade, perceptions of foods and activities that would inform the design of developmentally appropriate interventions to prevent and reduce childhood obesity.

Methods: Children (N = 218) were selected through a random sample of K through sixth grade classrooms in 3 schools.