Factors Predicting Physical Activity Among Children With Special Needs.

Factors predicting physical activity among children with special needs.

Prev Chronic Dis. 2013; 10: E119
Yazdani S, Yee CT, Chung PJ

Obesity is especially prevalent among children with special needs. Both lack of physical activity and unhealthful eating are major contributing factors. The objective of our study was to investigate barriers to physical activity among these children.We surveyed parents of the 171 children attending Vista Del Mar School in Los Angeles, a nonprofit school serving a socioeconomically diverse group of children with special needs from kindergarten through 12th grade. Parents were asked about their child’s and their own physical activity habits, barriers to their child’s exercise, and demographics. The response rate was 67%. Multivariate logistic regression was used to examine predictors of children being physically active at least 3 hours per week.Parents reported that 45% of the children were diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, 38% with autism, and 34% with learning disabilities; 47% of children and 56% of parents were physically active less than 3 hours per week. The top barriers to physical activity were reported as child’s lack of interest (43%), lack of developmentally appropriate programs (33%), too many behavioral problems (32%), and parents’ lack of time (29%). However, child’s lack of interest was the only parent-reported barrier independently associated with children’s physical activity. Meanwhile, children whose parents were physically active at least 3 hours per week were 4.2 times as likely to be physically active as children whose parents were less physically active (P = .01).In this group of students with special needs, children’s physical activity was strongly associated with parental physical activity; parent-reported barriers may have had less direct effect. Further studies should examine the importance of parental physical activity among children with special needs. HubMed – eating

Should we go nuts about nuts?

BMC Med. 2013; 11: 165
Rohrmann S, Faeh D

Since the beginning of the 1990s, increasing evidence supports beneficial effects of nut consumption on health. A new analysis of the Spanish PREDIMED trial, published in BMC Medicine, has expanded our knowledge. The study showed that individuals eating nuts more than three times per week died less often from cardiovascular disease and cancer than non-consumers. The study also adds an important finding that previous epidemiological studies could not provide: a protective effect on premature mortality was only seen in the intervention group in which nut consumption increased during the 4.8 years of follow-up, not in the intervention group with additional olive oil consumption or in the control group. Nut consumption actually decreased during follow-up in the latter two groups. Questions remain to be answered on the quantity of nuts to be consumed for health benefits, on possible mechanisms of action, and on whether some types of nuts should be favored.Please see related research: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/11/164. HubMed – eating

Dietary pattern analysis and biomarkers of low-grade inflammation: a systematic literature review.

Nutr Rev. 2013 Aug; 71(8): 511-27
Barbaresko J, Koch M, Schulze MB, Nöthlings U

The purpose of the present literature review was to investigate and summarize the current evidence on associations between dietary patterns and biomarkers of inflammation, as derived from epidemiological studies. A systematic literature search was conducted using PubMed, Web of Science, and EMBASE, and a total of 46 studies were included in the review. These studies predominantly applied principal component analysis, factor analysis, reduced rank regression analysis, the Healthy Eating Index, or the Mediterranean Diet Score. No prospective observational study was found. Patterns identified by reduced rank regression as being statistically significantly associated with biomarkers of inflammation were almost all meat-based or “Western” patterns. Studies using principal component analysis or a priori-defined diet scores found that meat-based or “Western-like” patterns tended to be positively associated with biomarkers of inflammation, predominantly C-reactive protein, while vegetable- and fruit-based or “healthy” patterns tended to be inversely associated. While results of the studies were inconsistent, interventions with presumed healthy diets resulted in reductions of almost all investigated inflammatory biomarkers. In conclusion, prospective studies are warranted to confirm the reported findings and further analyze associations, particularly by investigating dietary patterns as risk factors for changes in inflammatory markers over time. HubMed – eating

Eating Disorders and Men: Vic Avon Speaks
You might not know this, but ten percent of those who struggle with eating disorders are men. Vic Avon talks about his life-threatening battle with anorexia …