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.

Overweight and central adiposity in school-age children and links with hypertension.

The purpose of this study of school-age children was to estimate prevalence and interrelationships of overweight, central adiposity, and hypertension. It included 1,070 children in kindergarten through sixth grade (67% Hispanic, 26% African American, mean age = 8.9 years).