[Associations between puberty timing and cardiovascular metabolic risk factors among primary and secondary students].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the relationship between puberty timing and cardiovascular metabolic risk factors among primary and secondary students with different genders in Beijing. METHODS: Using the method of stratified cluster sampling by urban and rural areas and school sections, 3 067 students from 16 primary and secondary schools in Fangshan District of Beijing were selected in October 2012, with questionnaire survey, physical examination and serum laboratory testing. In this study, we controlled for confounding factors such as school segments, current residence of the family, birth weight, feeding method, only child, highest educational level of parents, and monthly family income, and then the associations between cardiovascular metabolic risk factors and puberty timing among the primary and secondary students was analyzed by multivariate Logistic analysis. To ensure the reliability of the data, this study adopted strict quality control. RESULTS: A total of 3 067 primary and middle school students aged 7 to 16 years were included in this study, including 1 575 boys and 1 492 girls. The prevalence of premature puberty was 14.73% among the boys and 12.89% among the girls, respectively. The prevalence of delayed puberty was 9.49% among the boys and 10.99% among the girls, respectively. The detection rates of central obesity, hypertension, hyperglycemia, and dyslipidemia among the primary and secondary students were 35.87%, 19.95%, 2.54% and 26.31%, respectively. The detection rates of 1 risk factor clustering, 2 risk factors clustering and more than 3 risk factors clustering were 29.21%, 16.17% and 9.36%, respectively. The difference in the detection rate of cardiovascular and metabolic risk factors in different youth stages was insignificant (P>0.05), the detection rate of risk factor aggregation of 0 was lower than that of the timely group and delayed group, and the detection rate of risk factors aggregation of 2 was higher than that of the timely group (P < 0.05).After adjusting the effects of learning stage, region, birth weight, feeding patterns, one-child, family income and the parents' educational levels, multivariate Logistic regression analysis showed that, compared with the on-time puberty group, the risk of 1 risk factor clustering, 2 risk factors clustering and more than 3 risk factors clustering increased by 1.94 times (95% CI=1.29-2.91), 2.97 times (95% CI=1.89-4.67) and 2.02 times (95% CI= 1.13-3.63) among the girls; It had not been found that the relationship between puberty timing and cardiovascular risk factor clustering among the boys (P>0.05). CONCLUSION: Premature puberty is an independent risk factor for the clustering of cardiometabolic risk factors in girls, and primary prevention strategies should be implemented to reduce the burden of cardiovascular metabolic diseases in the population.

Questionnaire development on measuring parents' anxiety about their children's education: Empirical evidence of parental perceived anxiety data for primary and secondary school students in China.

Background: With the implementation of the "double reduction" policy in China, parents of primary and secondary school students are experiencing a growing trend of educational anxiety that needs to be alleviated. Objective: To manage the education anxiety risk of parents of primary and secondary school students, a measurement questionnaire of parents' anxiety about their children's education (MQPAE) was developed and its reliability and validity were evaluated. Methods: A self-administered MQPAE was developed. An online crowdsourcing questionnaire platform was used to collect data on parents' anxiety about their children's education (PAE), and parents of primary and secondary school students in Hefei, China, were selected as the study population. The randomly extracted 5,747 questionnaires were gradually screened by discrete trend method, t-test, and Pearson's correlation coefficient method for the initial screening of PAE items, based on which exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted for the final screening of questionnaire items and the reliability of the questionnaire. The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed by internal consistency and Pearson's correlation coefficient analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted using 639 pre-selected data to investigate the validity of the questionnaire. Structural equation modeling was used to investigate the structural validity of the questionnaire, and average variance extracted (AVE), combined reliability (CR), and maximum of shared squared variance (MSV) were used to test for convergent and discriminant validity. Results: Exploratory factor analysis extracted five factors with a cumulative variance contribution of 65.66%. The CFA showed that χ2/df = 4.306, CFI = 0.920, NFI = 0.898, RMSEA = 0.072<0.08, AGFI = 0.839>0.80, PNFI = 0.793 and PGFI = 0.708. The overall Cronbach's α coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.956, and the factors' Cronbach's α coefficients were 0.926, 0.857, 0.913, 0.901, and 0.768, respectively. Repeated measurements of Pearson's correlation coefficients were 0.908, 0.911, 0.873, 0.891, 0.907 and 0.885 (all p < 0.001). The AVE was greater than 0.5 and the CR was greater than 0.7, and the value of the MSV was less than the corresponding AVE. Conclusion: The MQPAE has good reliability and validity and can be used in studies related to PAE of primary and secondary school students.

Family Food Environments and Their Association with Primary and Secondary Students' Food Consumption in Beijing, China: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Family is the most fundamental and proximal context for children, and children's eating behavior occurs mostly in the home or together with family members. With this study, we aimed to evaluate the distribution of family food environment dimensions and their relationship with healthy and unhealthy food consumption in primary and secondary students in order to provide evidence in the Chinese context and explore environmental solutions for improved child nutrition. Multi-stage stratified cluster sampling was used to conduct a cross-sectional survey among students in Beijing, China, from September 2020 to June 2021. Family food environment (FFE) was measured by the validated Family Food Environment Questionnaire for Chinese School-age Children, which was self-administered by the children's caregivers. The students were asked to answer questions about food consumption frequencies in the past 7 days. Binary logistic regression models were used to investigate the relationships between food consumption frequency and FFE, and odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were computed for independent variables. Among the study population, 9686 students in grades 3−12 and their caregivers completed the survey. The mean score of FFE was 65.7 (±8.4) out of a total possible score of 100, with 76.6% of students categorized as relatively healthier according to their FFE score (≥ 60). Compared with the reference group, students in primary schools and those cared for principally by parents were more likely to be in a healthy FFE category (p < 0.05). Daily consumption of fruits and vegetables was reported by 62.6% and 71.6% of students, respectively, and weekly sugared soft drink consumption was reported by 70.9% of the students. Students with a healthier FFE score (≥60) were more likely to consume fruits (OR = 1.578, 95% CI: 1.428~1.744) and vegetables (OR = 1.402, 95% CI: 1.263~1.556) but less likely to consume sugared soft drinks (OR = 0.592, 95% CI: 0.526~0.667). Family food availability (ß = 0.137), caregivers' nutritional literacy (ß = 0.093), meal practices (ß = 0.079) and food rules (ß = 0.050) were positively correlated with food consumption behavior (p < 0.05). The students with healthier FFE scores (OR = 1.130, 95% CI: 1.014~1.258) and whose caregiver was obese (OR = 2.278, 95% CI: 1.973~2.631) were more likely to be overweight. The family food environment plays an important role in shaping food consumption in children. Provision of healthy foods instead of unhealthy foods, positive meal practices and food rules, and nutrition education for parents can promote healthy eating in children.

[Scheme of the "Nutrition Campus" pilot program].

The "Nutrition Campus "pilot program is based on findings from"Nutritional status and intervention strategy study for urban primary and secondary students". The "Campus nutrition education strategy study in urban primary and secondary students"in Shunyi, Beijing was launched in the first place as a leading part of the pilot program. A total of 12 primary and secondary schools from 8 pilot districts/counties of 8 provinces/cities are involved in the program to prevent and control child malnutrition in all kinds. The students, parents, teachers, kitchen staff, and school administrators are intervened in the forms of a series of activities of nutrition and health education, physical activity promotion, and healthy school meal support. The supportive school nutrition environment is created in the mean time. The first phase of the program is Year 2017. The ultimate purpose of the program is to explore an effective, generalizable, referenceable model adopting comprehensive intervention methods to promote nutrition and health of children in the school setting for different regions.