Immigrant families' perceptions on walking to school and school breakfast: a focus group study.

Background: Immigrant children face an increased risk of being overweight. Little is known about how immigrant families perceive school programs that may help prevent obesity, such as walking to school and school breakfast.

Methods: Six focus groups (n = 53) were conducted with immigrant parents of school-aged children, two each in three languages: Vietnamese, Spanish, and Somali.

Report card on school snack food policies among the United States' largest school districts in 2004-2005: room for improvement.

Background: Federal nutritional guidelines apply to school foods provided through the national school lunch and breakfast programs, but few federal regulations apply to other foods and drinks sold in schools (labeled "competitive foods"), which are often high in calories, fat and sugar. Competitive food policies among school districts are increasingly viewed as an important modifiable factor in the school nutrition environment, particularly to address rising rates of childhood overweight. Congress passed legislation in 2004 requiring all school districts to develop a Wellness Policy that includes nutrition guidelines for competitive foods starting in 2006-2007.

Boys with high body masses have an increased risk of developing asthma: findings from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY).

Objective: To determine the relation between body mass index and the development of asthma in children.

Design: Prospective study of 4393 asthma-free children followed for up to 14 years.

Setting: Children of participants in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.

Risk factors for mortality in children with candidemia.

We performed a retrospective cohort study of hospitalized children with positive blood cultures for Candida species. Independent risk factors for mortality by multivariable analysis were location in the pediatric intensive care unit at the time of infection (hazard ratio, 6.3; 95% confidence interval, 1.

Risk factors for disseminated candidiasis in children with candidemia.

Objective: To determine the risk factors for disseminated infection in hospitalized children with candidemia.

Methods: We performed a nested case-control study within a cohort of hospitalized children with candidemia. The cohort was defined by all patients with positive blood cultures for Candida species in a large, urban, academic, tertiary care children's hospital from 1998 to 2001.