This article focuses on 3 different studies that were carried out in China, the US and Australia related to childhood obesity. In the first, children ranging between the ages of 8-14 were studied. The focus was to study the children over a 16 month period and find the correlation between body image and the strategies used to lose weight and gain muscle. In the second, the focus of the study was to find out if there was any correlation between children eating dinner with their parents every night and obesity. Finally, in the third adolescents that were obese were studied with the focus being whether these children were more likely to suffer from blood pressure related health problems.
In this article, I found many concepts that related to our Psychology class. The main concept in this article was obesity, which we happened to study in chapter 11 of our book. A person who is 20% above or more that their ideal average weight is considered obese. The article mentioned two types of research studied in class; longitudinal for the first research being carried out where children were being studied over a 16 month period , which is considered a long period if time. The second type of research mentioned was cross-sectional, which indicated that these children were all of different ages (8-14), but yet they shared one common characteristic, which in this case was obesity.
Some other important things to mention that we have also reviewed in class, is the influence of other family members when it comes these children losing weight and the prevention of obesity in average children. In both cases, children were affected in a positive way by having their parents involved. In the first study we can see how the involvement of family members, especially mothers, was crucial in the process. In the second study, it was proven that children who ate dinner on a regular basis with their parents were less likely to become obese, which made sense since a parent’s regular monitoring of the foods the child is consuming would have an effect on children gaining weight through the consumption of unhealthy foods and massive amounts of calories.
The Essay on Childs Author Obesity Children
Greg Critter in his article "Too much of a good thing" tries to bring a valid point of stigmatising overeating in children. The author strongly advocates parental advice in a childs diet. Obesity according to the author is an epidemic which is engulfing the youth of the nearly all the major countries. It is high time that this problem was taken care of. Researches have shown that majority of ...
I consider this article useful for both types of parents; the ones that are battling against their child’s obesity and those who would want to prevent their child from becoming obese. It is important to be aware that at such a susceptible age, where children are undergoing great changes both physical and mental, one must keep an eye out for the children who are eating more than average and most of all those who are eating the wrong foods. The third study should certainly affect readers more than the first two. It is used as an example of what could happen to your child if the right measures are not taken. After taking this class, I can certainly understand the correlation between family and children with problems such as obesity and how it is easier to overcome such problems with family involvement, which I would have had more trouble understanding if I had not.
CHILDHOOD OBESITY:
Studies add new findings to childhood obesity body of knowledge
New findings from Australia, the United States and the People’s Republic of China describe advances in childhood obesity.
Study 1: Researchers report results of a longitudinal study of body image and strategies to lose weight and increase muscles among children in a recent issue of the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology.
According to the report from Australia, “A longitudinal study was used to examine age differences in the role of body mass index (BMI) and sociocultural pressures in predicting changes in body image and strategies to both lose weight and increase muscles among 443 children aged between 8 and 12 years (207 boys, 236 girls) over a 16-month period. The strongest predictors of body image and these strategies were BMI, the media, and mothers, and to a lesser extent fathers and best friends.”
The Essay on Foster children and family resilience
Foster children refer to minors or young people who have been removed from their custodial adults or birth parents by governmental authority. These children are placed under the care of another family either through voluntary placement by a parent of the child or by the relevant governmental authority if the birth parent has failed to provide for the child. Family resilience on the other hand, is ...
“Girls were focused on losing weight, whereas boys were focused on both increasing muscle and losing weight,” said Marita P. McCabe and colleagues at Deakin University. “Surprisingly, there was a reduction in strategies both to lose weight and increase muscles as children approached adolescence. The implications of these findings for preventative educational programs for boys and girls are discussed.”
McCabe and associates published their study in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology (A longitudinal study of body image and strategies to lose weight and increase muscles among children. J Appl Dev Psychol, 2005;26(5):559-577).
For additional information, contact Marita P. McCabe, School of Psychology, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Melbourne, Burwood, Vic. 3125, Australia.
Study 2: Adolescents who regularly eat dinner with their families are less likely to be overweight.
According to a study from the United States, “The purpose of this study was to examine both cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between frequency of family dinner and overweight status in a large sample of 9- to 14-year-old children. We studied a cohort of 7784 girls and 6647 boys, 9 to 14 years of age at baseline in 1996, participating in the Growing Up Today Study. From annual mailed surveys, we calculated BMI from self-reported height and weight and assessed frequency of family dinner over the previous year. We defined, ‘overweight’ as age-and sex-specific BMI >85th percentile.”
“We performed multiple logistic regression analyses; the longitudinal analyses assessed the association of previous year family dinner consumption with 1-year incidence of becoming overweight, using prospective data from 1996 through 1999,” said Elsie M. Taveras and colleagues at Harvard University. “At baseline in 1996, 16% of participants had family dinner ‘never or some days,’ 40% on ‘most days,’ and 44% every day.’ Across these categories, overweight prevalence for girls was 19.4%, 16.6%, and 16.7% and for boys was 24.6%, 23.3% and 22.7%, respectively.”
The Research paper on Jacques Family Case study
Domestic violence has several mitigating approaches, and the health care approach has proved to be fruitful. By gathering feedback from victims of domestic violence in a health care setting, has helped to create awareness as well as demystify the phenomenon eventually helping to create more accurate intervention strategies (Enos et al, 2004.p 4). It has also been noted from studies that children ...
“In cross-sectional analyses, adjusting for potential confounders, the odds of being overweight was 0.85 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.76,496] among children who ate family dinner on ‘most days’ or ‘every day’ compared with those who ate family dinner ‘never or some days,’” reported the researchers. “In longitudinal multivariate models, the odds ratios between previous year frequency of eating family dinner and 1-year incidence of becoming overweight were 0.95 (95% CI: 0.78, 1.16) and 1.04 (95% CI: 0.95, 1.27) for children who ate family dinner on ‘most days’ and ‘every day,’ respectively, compared with those who ate family dinner ‘never or some days.’”
“The frequency of eating family dinner was inversely associated with overweight prevalence at baseline but not with likelihood of becoming overweight in longitudinal analyses,” concluded the investigators.
Taveras and associates published their study in Obesity Research (Family dinner and adolescent overweight. Obes Res, 2005;13(5):900-906).
For more information, contact Matthew W. Gillman, Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention, Harvard University, School of Medicine, 133 Brookline Avenue, 6th Floor, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
Study 3: Overweight influences circadian variations in ambulatory blood pressure in Chinese adolescents.
“Childhood obesity and its consequences have been the subject of intense interest in recent years. In this study we examined the influence of overweight on circadian variations of ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) in Chinese adolescents. First, 24-hour ABP monitoring was performed in 252 adolescents divided into two groups with equivalent sex, age, and body height (49 girls and 77 boys in each group): controls (normal weight) were aged 13.68 21 years, height 165.37 45 cm, body mass index (BMI) 18.82 3; overweights (BMI>24) were aged 13.71 23 years, height 165.75 47 cm, BMI 27.70 1,” scientists in China report.
The Essay on Family Assessment Paper
According to Stanhope & Lascaster (2010), the family nursing assessment is the cornerstone for family nursing interventions and systematic processes that are used to identify the family’s developmental stages and risk factors. The Friedman Family Assessment Model (2003) provides guidelines for nurses to interview the structure and function of families. This paper will implement the ...
“ABP recordings were treated by ABP database system and analyzed by cosinor method and conventional statistics methods,” said A. Q. Li and colleagues at Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences. “The circadian variations of ABP in adolescent patterned as ‘dipper’ and circadian rhythmicity of ABP variations were confirmed by cosinor analysis in most adolescents of both groups. Significant statistical differences were found for rhythm parameters: the MESOR (midline estimate statistic of rhythm), peak and trough (the maximum and minimum values derived from the composed curves, respectively), and amplitude values between control and overweight groups.”
“Significant higher values also were seen in the overweight group for most of ABP parameters (p
Li and associates published their study in Clinical and Experimental Hypertension (Overweight influence on circadian variations of ambulatory blood pressure in Chinese adolescents. Clin Exp Hypertens, 2005;27(2-3 Sp. Is):195-201).
Additional information can be obtained by contacting Z. Y. Zhao, Anti-Senility Research Center of Shandong, Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, 89 Jingshi Road, Jinan 250062, Shandong, People’s Republic of China.
This article was prepared by Life Science Weekly editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2005, Life Science Weekly via NewsRx.com.
