Comparison of Food Selection with the National School Lunch Program Meal Pattern Guidelines and Assessment of Children's Food Intake and Waste Using Digital Photography in a School Cafeteria.

School lunch is an important nutritious food source for children. The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) meal patterns guidelines have been established to promote healthier school lunches. This pilot study compared food selection during lunch in a school cafeteria with the NSLP meal pattern guidelines.

Digital Tools to Support Family-Based Weight Management for Children: Mixed Methods Pilot and Feasibility Study.

Background: Family-based behavioral therapy is an efficacious approach to deliver weight management counseling to children and their parents. However, most families do not have access to in-person, evidence-based treatment. We previously developed and tested DRIVE (Developing Relationships that Include Values of Eating and Exercise), a home-based parent training program to maintain body weight among children at risk for obesity, with the intent to eventually disseminate it nationally alongside SafeCare, a parent support program that focuses on parent-child interactions.

Social Skills and School Readiness in Young Children Exposed to Violence.

Witnessing violence is associated with negative outcomes for preschool-aged children, including lowered school readiness; however, not all children evidence negative outcome, indicating the presence of protective factors. This study examined social skills as a moderator of the relation between violence exposure and school readiness in preschoolaged children. Seventy-eight children completed a measure of school readiness, and their caregiver completed measures of social skills, witnessed violence exposure, and direct victimization.

The impact of parental trauma exposure on community violence exposed adolescents.

Previous research has documented an association between adolescent community violence (CV) exposure and poor psychological functioning. The purpose of this study was to delineate the relations of adolescent CV, parent trauma exposure (PTE), and adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptomatology while controlling for adolescent-reported home violence and parental self-reported posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Participants consisted of 101 pairs of junior high school and high school students and their parents or caretakers.

Associations among school characteristics and foodservice practices in a nationally representative sample of United States schools.

Objective: Determine school characteristics associated with healthy/unhealthy food service offerings or healthy food preparation practices.

Design: Secondary analysis of cross-sectional data.

Setting: Nationally representative sample of public and private elementary, middle, and high schools.

Adiposity and physical activity are not related to academic achievement in school-aged children.

Objective: To investigate the hypotheses that in elementary school students: (1) adiposity and academic achievement are negatively correlated and (2) physical activity and academic achievement are positively correlated.

Methods: Participants were 1963 children in fourth to sixth grades. Adiposity was assessed by calculating body mass index (BMI) percentile and percent body fat and academic achievement with statewide standardized tests in 4 content areas.

Children in school cafeterias select foods containing more saturated fat and energy than the Institute of Medicine recommendations.

In this study, we examined if children's food selection met the School Meals Initiative (SMI) standards and the recently released Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommendations. Mean food selection, plate waste, and food intake were also examined. Food intake of 2049 4th-6th grade students was measured objectively at lunch over 3 d with digital photography in 33 schools.