The Nutrition and Enjoyable Activity for Teen Girls (NEAT girls) randomized controlled trial for adolescent girls from disadvantaged secondary schools: rationale, study protocol, and baseline results

Background: Child and adolescent obesity predisposes individuals to an increased risk of morbidity and mortality from a range of lifestyle diseases. Although there is some evidence to suggest that rates of pediatric obesity have leveled off in recent years, this has not been the case among youth from low socioeconomic backgrounds. The purpose of this paper is to report the rationale, study design and baseline findings of a school-based obesity prevention program for low-active adolescent girls from disadvantaged secondary schools. Methods/Design: The Nutrition and Enjoyable Activity for Teen Girls (NEAT Girls) intervention will be evaluated using a group randomized controlled trial. NEAT Girls is a 12-month multi-component school-based intervention developed in reference to Social Cognitive Theory and includes enhanced school sport sessions, interactive seminars, nutrition workshops, lunch-time physical activity (PA) sessions, PA and nutrition handbooks, parent newsletters, pedometers for self-monitoring and text messaging for social support. The following variables were assessed at baseline and will be completed again at 12- and 24-months: adiposity, objectively measured PA, muscular fitness, time spent in sedentary behaviors, dietary intake, PA and nutrition social-cognitive mediators, physical self-perception and global self-esteem. Statistical analyses will follow intention-to-treat principles and hypothesized mediators of PA and nutrition behavior change will be explored. Discussion: NEAT Girls is an innovative intervention targeting low-active girls using evidence-based behavior change strategies and nutrition and PA messages and has the potential to prevent unhealthy weight gain and reduce the decline in physical activity and poor dietary habits associated with low socio-economic status. Few studies have reported the long-term effects of school-based obesity prevention programs and the current study has the potential to make an important contribution to the field

Decreased hippocampal volume, indirectly measured, is associated with depressive symptoms and consolidation deficits in multiple sclerosis

Item does not contain fulltextBackground: The human hippocampus plays a role in episodic memory and depression. Recently, it has been shown, using manual tracings, that the hippocampus is smaller in volume in MS patients compared with healthy controls, and that, at least for depression, hippocampal atrophy correlates with symptom severity. Methods: Because manual tracing of the hippocampus is time consuming, we used a semi-automatic procedure for temporal horn volumetry in 72 multiple sclerosis (MS) patients and 16 control subjects as an indirect measure of hippocampal volume. We analysed memory performance with the California Verbal Learning Test (using separate indices for encoding, consolidation and retrieval) and depressive mood with the Beck’s Depression Inventory (distinguishing between psychic and somatic aspects). Results: MS patients had significantly larger temporal horn volumes and volume correlated with psychic symptoms of depressive mood. Temporal horn volume was also associated with consolidation, in particular in the most impaired group. Conclusions: Temporal horn volume can be measured relatively easily and appears to correlate with two major clinical problems in MS patients: memory performance and depressive mood. The link between temporal horn volume, consolidation and depression may be hippocampal atrophy, as suggested by their adjacent neuroanatomical localization, and by the similarity in functional loss following impairment of these two structures.10 p