Is the prospective link between parental stress and adolescent snack intake or weight outcome mediated by food parenting practices?

Parental stress may influence adolescents' food intake and weight development over time, however, it is largely unknown why this is the case. This study examines whether the link between parental stress and adolescents' snack intake and weight outcome is mediated by food parenting practices (FPPs). Participants included 400 parents and their adolescent children (aged 12-16) who completed questionnaires. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) was used to assess parental general stress levels and the Adolescent Food Parenting Questionnaire (AFPQ) to assess FPPs. Multiple mediation analyses with parallel mediators were performed, with parental general stress as an independent variable and adolescent snack intake and zBMI as dependent variables. FPPs (autonomy support, coercive control, modeling, healthy structure, snack structure) were entered as mediators in the model, adjusted for covariates. Autonomy support mediated the link between parental general stress and adolescent savory snack and sweet snack intake at follow-up. Parents who reported higher stress levels provided less autonomy support, which resulted in more adolescent snacking. None of the other FPPs mediated any link between parental stress and intake or weight outcome, and no significant indirect effects were observed with zBMI as an outcome variable. Further research should replicate this finding and may further examine underlying mechanisms

Impaired parent-reported health-related quality of life of underweight and obese children at elementary school entry

Purpose Examine the health-related quality of life of 5-6-year-old underweight, overweight and obese children. Methods Our cross-sectional study included 3,227 parent- child dyads from the "Be active, eat right" study. Parents completed questionnaires regarding child and parental characteristics. Health-related quality of life of the child was measured using the Child Health Questionnaire Parent Form 28. Children were classified normal weight, overweight, obese, severely obese, and underweight according to the international age and gender BMI cutoff points. Bootstrap analyses were performed for general linear models corrected for potential confounding variables. Results Severely obese children (b, -2.60; 95 % CI, -4.80 to-0.57, p\0.01) and underweight children (b,-1.11; 95 % CI,-1.85 to-0.39, p\0.01) had lower parent-reported scores on the physical summary scale. On the physical functioning profile scale parents of overweight and severely obese children also reported statistically significant lower scores (p\0.05 and p\0.01, respectively).There were no significant differences regarding the psychosocial summary scale scores between the different weight categories. Conclusion Underweight and overweight children experience impaired health-related quality of life on the physical functioning domain. Physicians, teachers and parents should be aware of the possible negative impact on healthrelated quality of life in underweight and overweight 5-6- year-old children. © The Author(s) 2012

Economic Evaluation of Intensive Inpatient Treatments for Severely Obese Children and Adolescents.

BACKGROUND: Considering the large economic consequences of severe childhood obesity for the society, we aimed to conduct an economic evaluation comparing two intensive 1-year lifestyle treatments with varying inpatient periods for severely obese children and adolescents with regard to standard deviation score BMI (SDS-BMI) and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). METHODS: An economic evaluation from a societal perspective accompanying a randomized controlled trial with a 24-month follow-up. 80 participants (8-19 years) with severe obesity were included. Participants received an intensive 1-year lifestyle treatment with an inpatient period of 2 months (short-stay group) or 6 months (long-stay group). Data were collected at baseline, 6, 12 ,and 24 months and included SDS-BMI and QALYs. RESULTS: SDS-BMI decreased in the first 6 months of treatment, stabilized in the second 6 months, and increased during the 2nd year in both groups. After 24 months, SDS-BMI was similar in both groups, but remained lower than baseline values (mean difference -0.24, 95% CI -0.42; -0.06). There was no difference in QALYs between the groups after 24 months. For SDS-BMI, the probability of the short-stay treatment being cost-effective in comparison with the long-stay treatment was 1 at a willingness-to-pay of 0 EUR/unit of effect, which slowly decreased to 0.54 for larger willingness-to-pay values. CONCLUSIONS: Based on the results of this study, the short-stay treatment is considered to be more cost-effective from the societal perspective in comparison with the long-stay treatment. Future research should provide insight in whether the short-stay treatment is cost-effective in comparison with usual care

Fuzzy Dominance Based Multi-objective GA-Simplex Hybrid Algorithms Applied to Gene Network Models

Abstract. Hybrid algorithms that combine genetic algorithms with the Nelder-Mead simplex algorithm have been effective in solving certain optimization problems. In this article, we apply a similar technique to estimate the parameters of a gene regulatory network for flowering time control in rice. The algorithm minimizes the difference between the model behavior and real world data. Because of the nature of the data, a multi-objective approach is necessary. The concept of fuzzy dominance is introduced, and a multi-objective simplex algorithm based on this concept is proposed as a part of the hybrid approach. Results suggest that the proposed method performs well in estimating the model parameters. 1 Gene Regulatory Network Models Molecular geneticists are rapidly deciphering the genomes of an increasing number of organisms. As of November 2003, 166 organisms had completely sequenced genomes with another 775 in progress [1]. The current challenge is to understand how the genes in each organism interact with each other and the environment t