Obesity Risk Assessment for Spanish-Speaking Immigrant Families with Young Children in the United States: Reliability and Validity with Nutrient Values.

The purpose is to examine validity and reliability for an obesity risk assessment tool developed in Spanish for immigrant families with children, 3-5 years old using an 8-week cross-sectional design with data collected over 1 year at Head Start and Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children [WIC]. Parent/child dyads (206) provided a child obesity risk assessment, three child modified 24 h dietary recalls, three child 36+ h activity logs and one parent food behavior checklist. Main outcome measures were convergent validity with nutrients, cup equivalents, and diet quality and three assessments of reliability that included item difficulty index, item discrimination index, and coefficient of variation.

and Initial Validation of Mi Niño: A Tool to Measure Food-Related Parenting Practices of Spanish-Speaking Parents with Young Children.

Background: Accurate measurement of food-related parenting practices is necessary to inform related interventions and program evaluation. Valid tools reflect cultural attributes that affect household food environments and feeding practices. Simple, unidirectional language adaptation approaches are insufficient to capture these attributes in assessment tools.

Feasibility of Colocating a Nutrition Education Program into a Medical Clinic Setting to Facilitate Pediatric Obesity Prevention.

Purpose: Within a medical clinic environment, pediatric obesity prevention education for families faces challenges. Existing long-term government-funded nutrition education programs have the expertise and staff to deliver. The purpose is to determine feasibility of colocating the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) into a medical clinic setting to support pediatric obesity prevention.

Obesity Risk Assessment Tool for Low-Income Spanish Speaking Immigrant Parents with Young Children: Validity with BMI and Biomarkers of Obesity.

Children of Hispanic origin bear a high risk of obesity. Child weight gain trajectories are influenced by the family environment, including parent feeding practices. Excessive body fat can result in unhealthful metabolic and lipid profiles and increased risk of metabolic diseases.

Obesity Risk Assessment Tool among 3-5 Year Olds: Validation with Biomarkers of Low-Grade Chronic Inflammation.

Many families with young children practice nutrition, parenting, and lifestyle behaviors that set their children on trajectories for unhealthful weight gain. Potential adverse health effects of excessive body fat can result in the secretion of proinflammatory molecules and increased risk of inflammation and metabolic diseases. A pediatric obesity risk assessment tool named Healthy Kids (HK), demonstrated validity in a longitudinal study with child's measured BMI and 36-hour diet, screen, sleep, and activity logs.

Parent Food-Related Behaviors and Family-Based Dietary and Activity Environments: Associations with BMI z-Scores in Low-Income Preschoolers.

In early childhood, the family dietary and activity environment and parent food-related practices have been found to be important predictors of children's weight. However, few studies account for both of these factors, or the interaction between the 2, when assessing BMI in early childhood. This study aims to examine the association between the family-based dietary and activity environment (including intake, physical activity, and structure) and children's BMI z-scores in the context of parent food-related behaviors in low-income families during the preschool years.

Comparisons of school and home-packed lunches for fruit and vegetable dietary behaviours among school-aged youths.

Objective: School-based interventions and policies encourage youths to include and consume fruits and vegetables at lunchtime via school lunches, but limited research has examined how these behaviours compare when youths have home-packed lunches. The objective of the present study was to compare fruit and vegetable contents and consumption among students having school or home-packed lunches over the school week.

Design: Participants were observed over five consecutive days at school lunchtime.

My Child at mealtime parent self-assessment of food related behaviors: Validation with mealtime behaviors.

My Child at Mealtime (MCMT) is a visually enhanced, self-assessment tool designed to measure parent food related behaviors of low-income caregivers of preschool-aged children. The current study examined the factor structure of MCMT and the correspondence between MCMT parent- and child-centered food related behaviors with observed behaviors during a mealtime with their preschool aged child. Caregivers (N = 175) completed MCMT, and a subsample (n = 60) had a mealtime videotaped in their home.

Parental and family predictors of fruits and vegetables in elementary school children's home-packed lunches across a school week.

Home-packed lunches have been found to be of lower nutritional quality than school-bought lunches, yet little is known about family-based factors associated with lunch packing. The current exploratory study examines parental and family predictors of fruits and vegetables packed in lunches, hypothesizing parents' nutrition knowledge and authoritative parenting as well as children's involvement in lunch decisions would relate to packing more fruits and vegetables, while financial difficulties would relate to packing fewer. Ninety parent-child dyads from 4th-6th grade participated for 5 consecutive school days.

An Obesity Risk Assessment Tool for Young Children: Validity With BMI and Nutrient Values.

Objective: Demonstrate validity and reliability for an obesity risk assessment tool for young children targeting families' modifiable home environments.

Design: Longitudinal design with data collected over 100 weeks.

Setting: Head Start and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children.

Feasibility and reliability of digital imaging for estimating food selection and consumption from students' packed lunches.

Although increasing attention is placed on the quality of foods in children's packed lunches, few studies have examined the capacity of observational methods to reliably determine both what is selected and consumed from these lunches. The objective of this project was to assess the feasibility and inter-rater reliability of digital imaging for determining selection and consumption from students' packed lunches, by adapting approaches previously applied to school lunches. Study 1 assessed feasibility and reliability of data collection among a sample of packed lunches (n = 155), while Study 2 further examined reliability in a larger sample of packed (n = 386) as well as school (n = 583) lunches.

A Multicomponent, School-Based Intervention, the Shaping Healthy Choices Program, Improves Nutrition-Related Outcomes.

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of the Shaping Healthy Choices Program (SHCP).

Design: A clustered, randomized, controlled intervention lasting 1 school year.

Setting: Schools in northern and central California.

My child at mealtime: A visually enhanced self-assessment of feeding styles for low-income parents of preschoolers.

The importance of caregiver feeding styles on children's dietary outcomes is well documented. However, the instruments used to assess feeding style are limited by high literacy demands, making selfassessment with low-income audiences challenging. The purpose of the current study is to report on the development of My Child at Mealtime (MCMT), a self-assessment tool with reduced literacy demands, designed to measure feeding styles with parents of preschool-aged children.

Correlates of food patterns in young Latino children at high risk of obesity.

Objective: The present paper examines the influence of age and gender on food patterns of Latino children.

Design: Data are from baseline of a 5-year, quasi-experimental obesity prevention study: Niños Sanos, Familia Sana (NSFS; Healthy Children, Healthy Families). In 2012, the researchers interviewed Latino parents, using a thirty-item questionnaire to ask about their children's food consumption and feeding practices.

The Shaping Healthy Choices Program: design and implementation methodologies for a multicomponent, school-based nutrition education intervention.

Objective: To provide a framework for implementation of multicomponent, school-based nutrition interventions. This article describes the research methods for the Shaping Healthy Choices Program, a model to improve nutrition and health-related knowledge and behaviors among school-aged children.

Design: Longitudinal, pretest/posttest, randomized, controlled intervention.

Parental socioeconomic status, communication, and children's vocabulary development: a third-generation test of the family investment model.

This third-generation, longitudinal study evaluated a family investment perspective on family socioeconomic status (SES), parental investments in children, and child development. The theoretical framework was tested for first-generation parents (G1), their children (G2), and the children of the second generation (G3). G1 SES was expected to predict clear and responsive parental communication.

Grandmother involvement as a protective factor for early childhood social adjustment.

Despite high rates of grandmother involvement with young grandchildren, very little research has examined the associations between nonresidential grandmother involvement and grandchild social adjustment. The present study involved 127 families enrolled in the Family Transitions Project to consider the degree to which mother-reported maternal grandmother involvement buffered 3- and 4-year-old grandchildren from economic, parenting, and child temperamental risks for reduced social competence and elevated externalizing behaviors. Findings indicate that higher levels of mother-reported grandmother involvement reduced the negative association between observed grandchild negative emotional reactivity and social competence.

Differential stability of temperament and personality from toddlerhood to middle childhood.

This prospective, longitudinal investigation examined differential consistency of three core dimensions of individuality from toddlerhood through middle childhood. Data came from 273 families who participated with their child at least once during three developmental periods: toddlerhood (2 years), early childhood (3 to 5 years), and middle childhood (6 to 10 years). Both mothers and fathers reported on attributes of their child using subscales from the Toddler Behavior Assessment Questionnaire, the Child Behavior Questionnaire, and the Iowa Personality Questionnaire.

Intergenerational Relationship Quality, Gender and Grandparent Involvement.

This prospective, intergenerational study (N = 181) considered how parent (G1, generation 1)-child (G2, generation 2) relationship quality during adolescence and adulthood is associated with G1's level of involvement with their 3-4 year-old grandchildren (G3, generation 3). Path model analyses indicated different patterns of results for the involvement of grandmothers and grandfathers with the children of their G2 sons and daughters. Current parent-reported G1-G2 relationship quality was positively associated with G2 report of G1 involvement with G3, especially for G2 daughters.

Supervision and training in child care: Does reflective supervision foster caregiver insightfulness?

The goal of this study was to explore the effects of reflective and traditional supervision and training on caregiver insightfulness. Caregiver insightfulness, or caregiver ability to understand "motives underlying the child's behavior in a complete, open, and accepting way" (D. Oppenheim, D.

Intergenerational continuity in parenting behavior: mediating pathways and child effects.

This prospective, longitudinal investigation examined mechanisms proposed to explain continuities in parenting behavior across 2 generations (G1, G2). Data came from 187 G2 adults, their mothers (G1), and their children (G3). Prospective information regarding G2 was collected both during adolescence and early adulthood.

Consequences of socioeconomic disadvantage across three generations: parenting behavior and child externalizing problems.

This study considers the intergenerational consequences of experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage within the family of origin. Specifically, the influence of socioeconomic disadvantage experienced during adolescence on the timing of parenthood and the association between early parenthood and risk for harsh parenting and emerging child problem behavior was evaluated. Participants included 154 3-generation families, followed prospectively over a 12-year period.

Reformulating infant and toddler social competence with peers.

Efforts to identify children at risk for social and academic difficulties at an early age have begun to apply conceptualizations of social competence with peers from childhood to infancy and toddlerhood. These attempts have had limited success, in part because social behaviors studied in later childhood such as negative or aggressive acts may not capture relevant dimensions of social competence with peers during the infant and toddler years. The present study conducted an exploratory factor analysis to begin developing a conceptualization of social competence with peers that is appropriate for use with infants and toddlers, and that captures individual differences capable of predicting later social functioning.