Promoting toddlers' vegetable consumption through interactive reading and puppetry.

Picture books with characters that promote healthy eating are increasingly being used to make this behavior more attractive. The first aim of this study was to investigate whether the effect of vegetable-promoting picture books on toddlers' vegetable consumption differed according to the reading style and the use of a hand puppet during reading. The second aim was to investigate whether these effects were mediated by toddlers' narrative involvement and character imitation. In a 2 (reading style: interactive vs. passive) x 2 (puppet use: with vs. without puppet) between-subjects design, 163 toddlers (2-3 years) were randomly assigned to one of the four reading conditions. The story was about a rabbit that loves to eat carrots. After the fourth reading day, the eating task was conducted in which children could eat freely from four different snacks, including carrots. The main finding was that interactive reading produced the greatest carrot consumption. The explanation for this effect was that interactive reading stimulated toddlers to imitate poses of the book characters, even more when interactive reading was supported by the use of a hand puppet. The findings underline that young children should be actively involved with health interventions in order for them to be effective.

Enhancing children's vegetable consumption using vegetable-promoting picture books. The impact of interactive shared reading and character-product congruence.

The present study investigated whether and how a picture book promoting carrots can increase young children's carrot consumption. One hundred and four children (aged 4-6years) participated in shared reading sessions using the book on five consecutive days in school. These children were assigned randomly to one of four experimental conditions. In a 2×2 between-subjects design, the reading style and character in the book were manipulated. The reading style was either passive (listening to the story) or interactive (also answering questions about the story). The character in the book fitted either conceptually well with carrots (a rabbit) or not (a turtle). Compared to a baseline group of 56 children who were not exposed to the book, the children in the experimental groups consumed almost twice as much carrots (in proportion to other foods consumed), F(1,159)=7.08, p<.01. Results suggest that picture books are particularly effective when children are actively involved, answering questions about the story. Young children seem to enjoy this interactive shared reading style, triggering positive feelings that increase children's liking and consumption of the healthy food promoted in the book.

Use a rabbit or a rhino to sell a carrot? The effect of character-product congruence on children's liking of healthy foods.

This study investigated whether unfamiliar characters are as effective as familiar characters in stimulating children's affective responses toward healthy foods. In particular, the authors investigated whether an unfamiliar character which is congruent with a product can be as effective as a familiar character. The authors tested 2 types of character-product congruence: conceptual congruence (on the basis of a familiar link), and perceptual congruence (on the basis of color similarity). In a repeated measures design, 166 children (4-6 years old) were exposed to a picture of a carrot combined randomly with 5 different types of character: an (incongruent) familiar character and four unfamiliar characters varying in character-product congruence (i.e., both conceptually and perceptually congruent, conceptual only, perceptual only, and incongruent). The authors measured children's automatic affective responses toward these character-product combinations using a time-constrained task, and elaborate affective responses using a nonconstrained task. Results revealed that the conceptually congruent unfamiliar characters were just as effective as the familiar character in increasing children's automatic affective responses. However, the familiar character triggered the most positive elaborate affective responses. Results are explained in light of processing fluency and parasocial relationship theories.

Using brand characters to promote young children's liking of and purchase requests for fruit.

The aim of this experiment was to investigate whether brand characters can enhance children's liking of and purchase request intent for fruit compared to candy. The authors assigned 216 preschool students between the ages of 4 and 6 years to 9 experimental conditions in which they were presented with a healthy snack (chopped bananas) and an unhealthy snack (banana candy). The packages of these snacks portrayed a familiar character (i.e., Dora from Dora the Explorer or SpongeBob from SpongeBob SquarePants), an unfamiliar character, or no character (control group). The authors' results showed that brand characters can increase children's liking of and purchase request intent for fruit up to a level similar to candy. However, the effects on liking and purchase request intent did not differ between familiar and unfamiliar characters. These results may be helpful for future marketing campaigns to promote children's consumption of healthy foods.

Prolonged high-fat diet induces gradual and fat depot-specific DNA methylation changes in adult mice.

High-fat diets (HFD) are thought to contribute to the development of metabolism-related diseases. The long-term impact of HFD may be mediated by epigenetic mechanisms, and indeed, HFD has been reported to induce DNA methylation changes in white adipose tissue (WAT) near metabolism related genes. However, previous studies were limited to a single WAT depot, a single time-point and primarily examined the pre-pubertal period. To define dynamic DNA methylation patterns specific for WAT depots, we investigated DNA methylation of Pparg2 and Leptin in gonadal adipose tissue (GAT) and subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT), at baseline and after 6, 12 and 24 weeks of HFD exposure in adult mice. HFD induced hypermethylation of both the Leptin promoter (max. 19.6% at week 24, P = 2.6·10-3) and the Pparg2 promoter in GAT (max. 10.5% at week 12, P = 0.001). The differential methylation was independent of immune cell infiltration upon HFD exposure. In contrast, no differential methylation in the Pparg2 and Leptin promoter was observed in SAT. Leptin and Pparg2 DNA methylation were correlated with gene expression in GAT. Our study shows that prolonged exposure to HFD in adulthood is associated with a gradually increasing DNA methylation level at the Leptin and Pparg2 promoters in a depot-specific manner.

Association of APOE epsilon2/epsilon3/epsilon4 and promoter gene variants with dementia but not cardiovascular mortality in old age.

The common apolipoprotein E (APOE) alleles epsilon2, epsilon3, and epsilon4 are associated with the risk of dementia and cardiovascular disease. Recently, two functional variants (- 219G/T and -491A/T) were identified in the promoter of the APOE gene that enable a further characterization of the role of the APOE locus in disease. We investigated the contribution of these APOE gene variants to dementia and cardiovascular mortality in old age using a population-based cohort of 648 subjects aged 85 years and over (Leiden 85-Plus Study). Genotypes containing an APOE epsilon4 allele were associated with a 4.1-fold (95% CI, 2.2-7.7) increased risk of dementia as compared to the epsilon3/epsilon3 genotype in old subjects. Moreover, homozygosity for the -219T allele was found to be associated with a 2.4-fold (95% CI, 1.0-5.8) increased risk independently of epsilon2 and epsilon4; the -491A/T variant was not associated with dementia. Over a 10-year follow-up period, the risk of cardiovascular mortality was not increased among epsilon4 carriers (RR, 0.6; 95% CI, 0.4-1.0) or -219T homozygous subjects (RR, 1.1; 95% CI, 0.7-1.7), nor did it decrease among -491T homozygous subjects (RR, 1.4; 95% CI, 0.6-3.1). In conclusion, both the APOE epsilon2/epsilon3/epsilon4 and the -219G/T variant were identified as risk factors for dementia but not cardiovascular mortality in old age. Our results support the hypothesis that both the isoform and the amount of APOE may influence the risk of dementia. Furthermore, they emphasize that variation at the APOE locus has a higher impact on the risk of dementia than on the risk of cardiovascular disease in old age.