This paper describes how eight London nurseries examined whether better use of bicycles would strengthen children's physical activity as a step to reducing child obesity. The nurseries are part of a social enterprise which offers one-third of the 4200 nursery places to children from poor and disadvantaged families/communities where rates of child…

SuperFIT aims to improve the dietary and physical activity behaviour of children (2-4 years) in the Dutch childcare and home setting. Healthy parenting practices, policies, and availability of materials, fruits, and vegetables were promoted over the course of a year. This pilot study, with a quasi-experimental design, examined the effectiveness of…

Realist evaluation (RE) is increasingly adopted to assess the effectiveness of social programs. RE goes beyond measurement of outcomes, providing insight into how and why programs work by focusing on how participants experience and respond to programs within certain contexts. A RE was conducted on Healthy Start-Départ Santé (HSDS), an early…

BACKGROUND: Low-functional health literacy (HL) of parents influences poor child health outcomes. This study aimed to assess the relationship between comprehensive HL of parents and body mass index (BMI) of their children. METHODS: We enrolled 3- to 6-year-old preschool-aged children and their parents in this multicenter cross-sectional cohort…

Background: Walking and bicycling (active commuting) to school may be a useful strategy to increase the daily amount of physical activity, and, potentially, improve children's health. However, it is unclear whether active commuting to school (ACS) has the potential to improve physical health and cognitive performance in children. Our aim was to…

Overweight and obesity have been reported to be more prevalent in populations with autism spectrum disorder than in children with typical development. The aim of this study was to compare the anthropometric status of children with autism spectrum disorder (diagnosed and subclinical) and children with typical development and analyse which variables…

Background: Overweight and obesity is a growing concern among individuals with intellectual disabilities; however, little is known about the prevalence among children and youth with Down syndrome (CYDS). The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of overweight/obesity among CYDS in South West Ireland. Methods: This cross-sectional…

"Weight-related attitudes" refer to negative attitudes toward individuals because they are overweight or obese. These attitudes are widespread among children and adults and have been proven to be recalcitrant to intervention. To develop more effective interventions, it is necessary to understand the origin and development of explicit and…

Early childhood educators currently provide content focused learning opportunities for children in the areas of well-being and environmental education. However, these are usually seen as discrete content areas and educators are challenged with responding to children's interests in popular-culture inspired food products given these influence their…

Objective: This article aims to review the previously published literature on the social and environmental factors which influence children (aged 3-5 years) to be obese/overweight and the accuracy of parental perceptions. Obesity levels are on the increase in today's society and habits are being passed from parents to children, with family…

Objective: Young children living in socioeconomically deprived areas of Scotland have an increased risk of becoming overweight or obese. To enhance understanding of the wider contexts within which family food practices are developed, this study examined the experiences of low-income mothers with young children. Design: Qualitative longitudinal…

The aim of this study was to investigate the development of overweight compared with healthy-weight children attending kindergartens in Munich, Germany. Mean age of the children at the beginning of the study was 53.2 months (SD = 7.5); the duration of the study was 20 months. At the beginning of the study children were classified as overweight (n…

In today's fast food, fast-paced consumer society, too few questions are asked about the influence of digital media on young children's health and sustainability choices, and indeed how such choices are expressed in children's play (and early childhood classrooms). By interviewing children and parents, and using such data to prompt teacher…

This study is designed to assess the perception of Kindergarten teachers in Kuwait regarding the role of health education in Promoting healthy nutrition for children in KG Level. For this purpose, a questionnaire was administered to 250 Kindergarten female teachers. Percentage, mean and standard deviation scores were obtained. The results of the…

Television viewing has been linked to the increasing problem of obesity in young children, as well as to the development of inappropriate eating behaviours, yet the mechanism behind this link remains unclear. This study investigated the messages about food and eating that appear in a sample of preschool children's television shows and found that…