A Cross-Sectional Study on the Relationship between the Family Nutrition Climate and Children's Nutrition Behavior.

Background: Parents influence their children's nutrition behavior. The relationship between parental influences and children's nutrition behavior is often studied with a focus on the dyadic interaction between the parent and the child. However, parents and children are part of a broader system: the family.

Unravelling the Effects of the Healthy Primary School of the Future: For Whom and Where Is It Effective?

The 'Healthy Primary School of the Future' (HPSF) aims to integrate health and well-being within the whole school system. This study examined the two-year effects of HPSF on children's dietary and physical activity (PA) behaviours at school and at home and investigated whether child characteristics or the home context moderated these effects. This study ( = 1676 children) has a quasi-experimental design with four intervention schools, i.

One- and Two-Year Effects of the Healthy Primary School of the Future on Children's Dietary and Physical Activity Behaviours: A Quasi-Experimental Study.

Schools can help to improve children's health. The 'Healthy Primary School of the Future' (HPSF) aims to sustainably integrate health and well-being into the school system. This study examined the effects of HPSF on children's dietary and physical activity (PA) behaviours after 1 and 2 years' follow-up.

The Healthy Primary School of the Future: A Contextual Action-Oriented Research Approach.

Schools can play an important role in promoting children's health behaviours. A Dutch initiative, 'The Healthy Primary School of the Future', aims to integrate health and well-being into the school system. We use a contextual action-oriented research approach (CARA) to study the implementation process.

Healthy Nutrition and Physical Activity in Childcare: Views from Childcare Managers, Childcare Workers and Parents on Influential Factors.

Childhood obesity is an important public health issue influenced by both personal and environmental factors. The childcare setting plays an important role in children's energy balance-related behaviours (EBRB), such as physical activity, sedentary behaviour and healthy nutrition. This study aimed to explore facilitators and barriers of healthy EBRB in childcare in a comprehensive way, from the perspective of three crucial stakeholders: childcare managers, childcare workers and parents.

Conceptualizing Family Influences on Children's Energy Balance-Related Behaviors: Levels of Interacting Family Environmental Subsystems (The LIFES Framework).

Healthy or unhealthy behavioral patterns develop and are maintained in a family context. The importance of the family environment for children's and adolescents' energy balance-related behaviors (EBRBs) has been shown previously. However, the way different family environmental factors are interrelated and interact with personal factors (e.

Investigating Motor Competence in Association with Sedentary Behavior and Physical Activity in 7- to 11-Year-Old Children.

Children's motor competence (MC) has declined in the past decades, while sedentary behavior (SB) has increased. This study examined the association between MC and physical activity (PA) levels among primary schoolchildren. Demographics, body height and weight, MC (Athletic Skills Track), and PA levels (ActiGraph, GT3X+) were assessed among 595 children (291 boys, mean age = 9.

Activating Childcare Environments for All Children: the Importance of Children's Individual Needs.

Characteristics of the physical childcare environment are associated with children’s sedentary behavior (SB) and physical activity (PA) levels. This study examines whether these associations are moderated by child characteristics. A total of 152 1- to 3-year-old children from 22 Dutch childcare centers participated in the study.

Do Physical Activity Friendly Neighborhoods Affect Community Members Equally? A Cross-Sectional Study.

An activity-friendly environment may increase physical activity (PA) levels and decrease sedentary behavior (SB). This study investigated associations between socio-demographic characteristics, health-related quality of life (HRQoL), perceived environment and objectively measured PA outcomes. Socio-demographic characteristics were assessed using a questionnaire and HRQoL was measured using the EQ-5D.

The Comprehensive Snack Parenting Questionnaire (CSPQ): Development and Test-Retest Reliability.

The narrow focus of existing food parenting instruments led us to develop a food parenting practices instrument measuring the full range of food practices constructs with a focus on snacking behavior. We present the development of the questionnaire and our research on the test-retest reliability. The developed Comprehensive Snack Parenting Questionnaire (CSPQ) covers 21 constructs.

The Coaching on Lifestyle (CooL) Intervention for Overweight and Obesity: A Longitudinal Study into Participants' Lifestyle Changes.

Combined lifestyle interventions (CLIs) can be effective in reducing weight and improving lifestyle-related behaviours but it is unclear how CLIs can best be implemented in practice in order to achieve sustained lifestyle changes. The Coaching on Lifestyle programme (CooL) is a CLI in the Netherlands, in which professional lifestyle coaches counsel adults and children (and/or their parents) who are obese or at high risk of obesity to achieve a sustained healthier lifestyle. The CooL intervention consists of group and individual sessions addressing the topics of physical activity, dietary behaviours, sleep and stress.

Psychological and personality factors in type 2 diabetes mellitus, presenting the rationale and exploratory results from The Maastricht Study, a population-based cohort study.

Background: Strong longitudinal evidence exists that psychological distress is associated with a high morbidity and mortality risk in type 2 diabetes. Little is known about the biological and behavioral mechanisms that may explain this association. Moreover, the role of personality traits in these associations is still unclear.

Active Living: development and quasi-experimental evaluation of a school-centered physical activity intervention for primary school children.

Background: The worldwide increase in the rates of childhood overweight and physical inactivity requires successful prevention and intervention programs for children. The aim of the Active Living project is to increase physical activity and decrease sedentary behavior of Dutch primary school children by developing and implementing tailored, multicomponent interventions at and around schools.

Methods/design: In this project, school-centered interventions have been developed at 10 schools in the south of the Netherlands, using a combined top-down and bottom-up approach in which a research unit and a practice unit continuously interact.

How Can We Better Prevent Obesity in Children?

The aim of this review is to discuss the state of the art regarding the field of health promotion in the context of childhood obesity prevention in order to learn how we can better prevent childhood obesity. Challenges have been identified that exist within the different steps of health promotion programme development and implementation. Important steps forward include studying behaviours and determinants of behaviours as clusters, upgrading the importance of distal environmental factors in modelling determinants and understanding determinants as a dynamic system: a complex of interacting elements.

Aerobic and strength exercises for youngsters aged 12 to 15: what do parents think?

Background: Although strength exercises evidently have both physiological and psychological health benefits across all ages, they are erroneously considered to adversely affect health status in youngsters. The aim of this study was to examine parental attitudes towards their child's physical activity in general, as well as aerobic and strength exercises in particular.

Methods: In total, 314 parents from an online panel representative of the Dutch population completed an online survey about their own physical activity and that of their child (12-15 years old).

The implementation of national action program diabetes in the Netherlands: lessons learned.

Background: Over the past decade, the National Action program Diabetes (NAD) was implemented in the Netherlands. Its aim was to introduce the Care Standard (CS) for diabetes by means of a specific implementation plan and piloting in several regions. This study aimed to provide insight into the implementation of the NAD as, coupled with the introduction of the CS, it may function as an example for similar approaches in other countries.

Patterns of Food Parenting Practices and Children's Intake of Energy-Dense Snack Foods.

Most previous studies of parental influences on children's diets included just a single or a few types of food parenting practices, while parents actually employ multiple types of practices. Our objective was to investigate the clustering of parents regarding food parenting practices and to characterize the clusters in terms of background characteristics and children's intake of energy-dense snack foods. A sample of Dutch parents of children aged 4-12 was recruited by a research agency to fill out an online questionnaire.

The assessment of ongoing community-based interventions to prevent obesity: lessons learned.

Background: The assessment of real-life, community-based interventions to tackle obesity is an important step in the development of effective policies. Especially multi-level interventions have a high likely effectiveness and potential reach in counteracting the obesity epidemic. Although much can be learned from these initiatives, performing an evaluation of such interventions is challenging.

The implementation and sustainability of a combined lifestyle intervention in primary care: mixed method process evaluation.

Background: The impact of physical inactivity and unhealthy diet on health is increasingly profound. Lifestyle interventions targeting both behaviors simultaneously might decrease the prevalence of overweight and comorbidities. The Dutch 'BeweegKuur' is a combined lifestyle intervention (CLI) in primary care, to improve physical activity and dietary behavior in overweight people.

Use of food practices by childcare staff and the association with dietary intake of children at childcare.

The study explored the associations between various childcare staff food practices and children's dietary intake at childcare. A total of 398 one- to four-year-old children and 24 childcare staff members from 24 Dutch childcare centers participated in the study. Children's dietary intake (fruit, vegetable, sweet snack, savory snack, water, and sweet drink intake) at childcare was registered on two weekdays, using observations by dieticians and childcare staff.

Determinants of dietary behavior among youth: an umbrella review.

Background: The literature on determinants of dietary behavior among youth is extensive and unwieldy. We conducted an umbrella review or review-of-reviews to present a comprehensive overview of the current knowledge.

Methods: Therefore, we included systematic reviews identified in four databases (i.

Moderators of the longitudinal relationship between the perceived physical environment and outside play in children: the KOALA birth cohort study.

Objectives: Promoting unstructured outside play is a promising vehicle to increase children's physical activity (PA). This study investigates if factors of the social environment moderate the relationship between the perceived physical environment and outside play.

Study Design: 1875 parents from the KOALA Birth Cohort Study reported on their child's outside play around age five years, and 1516 parents around age seven years.

The next step in health behavior research: the need for ecological moderation analyses - an application to diet and physical activity at childcare.

Background: The ecological perspective holds that human behavior depends on the interaction of different environmental factors and personal characteristics, but it lacks validation and operationalization. In the current paper, an ecological view was adopted to examine the interactive impact of several ecological systems on children's dietary intake and physical activity at childcare or similar facilities. The ecological view was operationalized into three types of interaction: 1) interaction between types of childcare environment (physical, social, political, economic); 2) interaction between micro-systems (the childcare and home environment) in meso-systems; and 3) interaction between childcare environment and child characteristics.

Dietary intake by Dutch 1- to 3-year-old children at childcare and at home.

The goal of the current study was to assess dietary intake in a large sample (N=1016) of Dutch toddlers (1-3 years old), both at childcare and at home. Dietary intake during two weekdays was recorded using an observation format applied by childcare staff for intake at childcare, and partially pre-coded dietary journals filled out by parents for intake at home. Children's intake of energy, macronutrients and energy balance-related food groups (fruit, vegetables, sweet snacks, savoury snacks) were compared with Dutch dietary guidelines.

General and food-specific parenting: measures and interplay.

Background: Parental influence on child food intake is typically conceptualized at three levels-parenting practices, feeding style, and parenting style. General parenting style is modeled at the most distal level of influence and food parenting practices are conceptualized as the most proximal level of influence. The goal of this article is to provide insights into contents and explanatory value of instruments that have been applied to assess food parenting practices, feeding style, and parenting style.