Associations between maternal employment and time spent in nutrition-related behaviours among German children and mothers.

OBJECTIVE: To examine associations between maternal employment and time spent engaging in nutrition-related behaviours among mothers and children using a nationally representative sample of households in West and East Germany. DESIGN: A cross-sectional analysis was performed using time-use data for a sample of mother-child dyads. Associations between maternal employment and time spent in nutrition-related activities such as eating at home, eating away from home and food preparation were estimated using a double-hurdle model. SETTING: German Time Budget Survey 2001/02. SUBJECTS: The overall sample included 1071 households with a child between 10 and 17 years of age. The time-use data were collected for a 3 d period of observation (two weekdays and one weekend day). RESULTS: Maternal employment was associated with the time children spent on nutrition-related behaviours. In households with employed mothers, children spent more time eating alone at home and less time eating meals with their mothers. Moreover, employed mothers spent less time on meal preparation compared with non-employed mothers. There were regional differences in time spent on nutrition-related behaviours, such that East German children were more likely to eat at home alone than West German children. CONCLUSIONS: Maternal employment was associated with less time spent eating with children and preparing food, which may be related to the increasing childhood obesity rates in Germany. Future national surveys that collect both time-use data and health outcomes could yield further insight into mechanisms by which maternal time use might be associated with health outcomes among children.

Effects and determinants of mild underweight among preschool children across countries and over time.

Research on malnutrition typically focuses on extreme cases which pose the greatest individual health risks, but researchers comparing populations might find that variation in mild malnutrition conveys valuable information about public health. This paper constructs and compares new measures of the prevalence, depth and severity of both mild and extreme underweight in children from three months to three years of age, as measured by 130 DHS surveys for 53 countries over a period from 1986 to 2006. We find that variance in mild underweight has a larger and more robust correlation with child mortality than variance in severe underweight, and is itself more closely correlated with local agricultural output, over a wide range of regression specifications. We conclude that the prevalence of mild underweight deserves greater attention as a useful signal of changing public health conditions among preschool children in developing countries.

Zoning for health: the obesity epidemic and opportunities for local policy intervention.

Several states and local communities have started to experiment with policy initiatives that affect the built-up environment in an attempt to decrease the prevalence of obesity. The focus of these policy measures has generally been to eliminate geographical disparities in access to food. Recent policy proposals include the use of zoning laws to create a healthier food environment by providing incentives for chain grocers to open stores in disadvantaged, underserved areas and providing incentives for existing food retailers to offer healthier products. The economic feasibility of implementing these types of interventions depends on the policymaker's ability to identify communities most at need. We use computer simulations, based on introducing new chain grocers in targeted areas, to map the effects on BMI of this modification in the food environment. In this study, we show that targeting economically disadvantaged communities with high prevalence of obesity-related diseases can provide an effective means of identifying areas where policy implementation will be most beneficial for improvements in health outcomes such as BMI.