Associations of body mass index and waist circumference with: energy intake and percentage energy from macronutrients, in a cohort of australian children

Background: It is evident from previous research that the role of dietary composition in relation to the development of childhood obesity remains inconclusive. Several studies investigating the relationship between body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC) and/or skin fold measurements with energy intake have suggested that the macronutrient composition of the diet (protein, carbohydrate, fat) may play an important contributing role to obesity in childhood as it does in adults. This study investigated the possible relationship between BMI and WC with energy intake and percentage energy intake from macronutrients in Australian children and adolescents

The Place of Ethics in Science Education: Implications for Practice

Science education, particularly school science education, has long had an uneasy relationship with ethics, being unsure whether to embrace ethics or leave it to others. In this book, the authors argue that while the methods of science and of ethics are very different, ethics plays a key role in how science is undertaken and used. And so, ethics has a central place in science education, whether we are talking of school science education, for students of all ages, or the informal science education that takes place in through internet, books, magazines, TV and radio, or in places such as hospitals and zoos. Written for science educators based in schools and elsewhere, the authors make no assumptions that the reader has any knowledge of ethics beyond the background understandings of morality that virtually all of us have. Empowered with the knowledge shared in this book, readers will feel confident about the place that ethics has in science education. The authors provide a rich array of examples as to how science education, both in school and out of school, and for all ages, can be enhanced through including teaching about ethics

Growing up in Ireland. National longitudinal study of children: the lives of 9-year-olds. .

Key Findings from the report include: • There are just over 56,400 nine-year-olds in Ireland. Just over 82% of them lived in two-parent households with about one-in-five living in lone-parent families. • Two-parent families are almost three times more likely than single-parent families to be in the highest family income groups. • The majority of children lived in families in which the parents adopted what is generally regard to be the optimal parenting style – the authoritative style. This combines high control with high support and is usually associated with the best outcomes for children. • Almost all nine-year-olds (98%) were reported by their mother to be in good health. 73% are described as Very Healthy and a further 25% as Healthy, but a few minor problems. • Children from Professional/Managerial backgrounds were significantly more likely to be rated as healthy (76%) compared with those from Semi-skilled/Unskilled manual backgrounds (69%). • Using international definitions and thresholds 74% of children were described as being of normal weight, 19% were overweight and 7% were obese. • Children’s weight and obesity was strongly linked to that of their parents. Where both parents were overweight or obese, 33% of children were overweight or obese. This compares with 11% of children in households where neither parent was overweight or obese. • Rates of GP visits are highest amongst girls and amongst those with full medical card coverage. • A very large majority of nine-year-olds (93%) said they liked school at least ‘sometimes’. 53% of children said they ‘always’ liked their teacher and 41% said they ‘sometimes’ like them. • The child’s academic performance, as measured by the standard reading and mathematics tests, varied by social class, income and maternal education, with those from the higher classes, higher income, and higher educated groups achieving higher scores on the tests. • 40% of 9-year-olds reported being a victim of bullying in the past year, and boys and girls experienced similar rates of victimisation. • A large proportion of the children’s mothers were unaware of their children’s experiences of bullying. Although 40% of children reported that they were the victim of bullying only 23% of their mothers reported this to be the case. Either parents don’t know about the problem or they define bullying differently to their children

Growing up in Ireland: The lives of 9 year olds

This report presents the first descriptive analysis of the findings from the first wave of data collection with the 8,570 nine-year-old children, their families and teachers who have participated in Growing Up in Ireland ? the National Longitudinal Study of Children. The data were collected between September 2007 and June 2008. This report is one of a series describing the background literature, the design, instrumentation and the findings of the Growing Up in Ireland project. Growing Up in Ireland tracks the development of two cohorts of children, one aged nine years and one aged nine months. This report addresses the first objective of Growing Up in Ireland: `to describe the lives of children in Ireland?. It will provide a comprehensive picture of how the nine-year-old children are faring across the main domains of their development and their daily life experience. The findings will be presented for all children and will also be presented by the sex of the child. Where interesting differences occur in relation to the children?s social class and family type, these data will be reported. This report is straightforwardly descriptive. The next report on the findings of the nine-year-old survey will be analytic, that is, it will examine more closely relationships between the child?s wellbeing and developmental status and a wide range of factors that may impact on the child?s development. Although both scheduled reports will aim to be as comprehensive as possible it should be borne in mind that the amount of data collected in Growing Up in Ireland is considerable and it is amenable to much more analysis. All the data will be lodged in a national archive, the Irish Social Science Data Archive (ISSDA), for other researchers to access, analyse and publish. The data will also be used again from a different perspective when the next wave of the longitudinal study is conducted. At that point, in the case of this cohort, it will be possible to relate the child?s status and development at age 9 to their outcomes at age 13