In many nations today, the quality of children's diets is low, with numerous children rejecting healthy foods. Fortunately, young children can learn to like and consume new and previously rejected foods with experience, as evidenced by extensive experimental research. In this article, we propose integrating research on children's food preference…

Families with children on the autism spectrum are often viewed in terms of their deficits rather than their strengths. Family meals are portrayed as sources of stress and struggle for parents and children. In this study, we take a resilience perspective to challenge underlying assumptions and get a more accurate picture of the nature of shared…

Efforts to combat the U.S. obesity epidemic have been ongoing in earnest for nearly two decades, informed by a substantial body of knowledge and guided by numerous programmatic and policy recommendations. Yet, although there are some bright spots, I sense frustration in the public health community with the overall lack of clear progress in…

This article addresses the learner perspective on being overweight by listening to 39 Danish overweight children aged 8-13 years. In accordance with the existing critique of the 'obesity epidemic' and medico-scientific discourses around food and exercise, this article explores how new health imperatives shape overweight children's self-narratives.…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore ways in which children and young people are being positioned as change agents for families through school health promotion initiatives in New Zealand. Design/methodology/approach: The paper maps and describes the kinds of policies and initiatives that directly or indirectly regard children as…

The Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) is the nation's first federal nutrition education program for low-income populations. Without question, accelerating equity in programming has long been a priority of EFNEP. Historically underserved populations with limited financial resources are often people of color and at increased risk…

A body mass index (BMI) report card is a tool to inform parents about their child's weight status. Body mass index notifications could curb childhood obesity by prompting parents to encourage their children to be more physically active and make better dietary choices, but they could also lower children's self-esteem and increase weight-related…

Children and adolescents in the United States and in many countries are projected to have shorter life spans than their parents, partly because of the obesity crisis engulfing the developed world. Exposure to electronic media is often implicated in this crisis because media use, including electronic game play, may promote sedentary behavior and…

It is recommended that each day youth get 60 minutes or more of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity that includes aerobic, muscle, and bone strengthening activities. The majority of youth, however, do not meet these physical activity guidelines. Children and adolescents spend on average seven hours engaging in sedentary "screen-based"…

Childhood obesity is a major public health challenge today, with complex roots interwoven into nearly every facet of American life. This poll addresses one narrow slice of this web: the challenges that families face during the "crunch time" of the work and school week, between 3 pm and the time children go to bed. Compared to the school day, this…

Much public attention and many resources are focused on medical research to identify risk factors and mitigate symptoms of disability for individual children. But this focus will inevitably fail to "prevent" disabilities. Stephen Rauch and Bruce Lanphear argue for a broader focus on environmental influences that put entire populations at risk.…

This year's Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics' (Forum) report provides the Nation with carefully selected key national indicators of children's well-being and monitors changes in these indicators. The purposes of this report are to improve reporting of Federal data on children and families; make the most relevant data on the…

Aim: To examine the evidence of the effectiveness of different feeding interventions for children with cerebral palsy. Methods: A search of 12 electronic databases identified all relevant studies. For each study, the quality of the methods was assessed according to the study design. A total of 33 articles were retrieved, and 21 studies were…

The rise in inadequate and unhealthily diets in children has led investigations to examine the development of food preferences. This review outlines the ways in which children choose between foods made available to them and the subsequent shaping of their own habitual diet. Children are liable to form preferences to certain hedonic foods, and to…

Objective: Compare the macronutrient content of children's meals sold by fast-food restaurants (FFR) and non-fast-food restaurants (NFF). Design: All restaurants within the designated city limits were surveyed. Non-fast-food children's meals were purchased, weighed, and analyzed using nutrition software. All fast-food children's meals were…