Health promotion from an early age is key to preventing unhealthy weight development in childhood, and parental involvement is essential. The school-based Healthy School Start intervention aims to promote healthy dietary and activity habits in the home environment and prevent child obesity through parental support. This study evaluated the…

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…

Obesity describes an abnormally high fat accumulation that impairs health. It is crudely measured by a body mass index (BMI) of greater than 30 kg/sq meters. Obesity now ranks among the highest of concerns by the World Health Organization (WHO) and not only in countries of affluence; the figures of obesity worldwide have doubled since 1980 and the…

Objective: Iron deficiency is associated with impaired dopaminergic signaling and externalizing behavior. The authors examine, whether iron stores in toddlerhood influence later response to psychostimulants. Method: Youth participating in a study monitoring the long-term safety of risperidone were included in this analysis if they had received…

Baseline findings from the Healthy Home Child Care Project include data from Family Child Care Providers (FCCPs) in Oregon (n=53) who completed assessments of nutrition and physical activity policies and practices and BMI data for children in the care of FCCPs (n=205). Results show that a significant percentage of FCCPs failed to meet child care…

This article reports the first estimates of overweight prevalence in Chicago children entering school (aged 3-5 years). Chicago data are compared with those from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS). Data were from 2 separate convenience samples of children aged 3-5 years…

In developed countries, obesity tends to be associated with worse labor market outcomes. One possible reason is that obesity leads to less human capital formation early in life. This paper investigates the association between obesity and the developmental functioning of children at younger ages (2-4 years) than ever previously examined. Data from…

The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES), sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), was first launched in 1997 as a periodic longitudinal study of program performance. This report is the fourth in a series that uses data from the FACES 2006 cohort to describe…