OBJECTIVE The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between area-level socio-economic status and healthy and less healthy eating behaviours among adolescents and to determine whether the relationship between area-level socio-economic status and dietary behaviours was related to the relevant attitudes and environments. DESIGN Data were collected as part of Youth'07, a na...

Childhood obesity has become a new challenge for healthcare providers. The issue is not limited to certain parts of the world; its prevalence is increasing worldwide. The causes of obesity are poorly understood and continue to be debated and studied. It is a multifactorial disorder which involves dietary, behavioral, environmental as well as genetic factors. The increased consumption of more en...

Objective: To examine the effectiveness of pricing strategies and promotion signs to stimulate healthier food purchases. Methods: A randomized controlled factorial design with three levels of price reduction (10%; 25%; and 50%) and three types of signs ('special offer', 'healthy choice' and 'special offer & healthy choice') on healthy foods was used. N=109 participants completed the experiment ...

Information on familial resemblance is important for the design of effective family-based interventions. We aimed to quantify familial correlations and estimate the proportion of variation attributable to genetic and shared environmental effects (i.e., familiality) for dietary intake variables and determine whether they vary by generation, sex, dietary quality, or by the age of the children. Th...

Dietary guidelines for the general public aim to lower the incidence of nutrition-related diseases by influencing habitual food choices. Yet little is known about how well the guidelines are matched by the actual practices that people regard as healthy or unhealthy. In the present study, British residents were asked in a cognitive interview to write a description of an occasion when either they...

Exploring changes in children's diet over time and the relationship between these changes and socio-economic status (SES) may help to understand the impact of social inequalities on dietary patterns. The aim of the present study was to describe dietary patterns by applying a cluster analysis to 9301 children participating in the baseline (2-9 years old) and follow-up (4-11 years old) surveys of...

Food prices are expected to affect dietary intakes, however, previous findings are mixed and few are based on nationally representative data. We examined the associations of price indices of fast foods (FF-PI) and fruits and vegetables (FV-PI) with dietary intakes and BMI among U.S. children and adolescents using data from the Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals (CSFII; 1994-1998) ...

Fast foods are frequently linked to the epidemic of obesity, but there has been very little scientific appraisal of a possible causal role. Here we review a series of studies demonstrating that the energy density of foods is a key determinant of energy intake. These studies show that humans have a weak innate ability to recognise foods with a high energy density and to appropriately down-regula...

OBJECTIVE To analyze associations between two physical activity domains during leisure time and different food habits in adolescents. METHODS The sample comprised 1,630 adolescents (46% male and 54% female). Physical activity level, television (TV) viewing, and eating behaviors were assessed through an interview. According to the results of the assessment, adolescents were classified as physi...

OBJECTIVE To estimate the prevalence of obesity among elementary school female students and to identify some obesity-associated risk factors. METHODS This cross-sectional study surveyed healthy female school students (grades 4-6) during 2006-2007. Four private schools in North West Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were selected where the majority of high income families enrolled their daughter...