Gender plays a role in adolescents' dietary behaviors as they transition to secondary school.

Little research explores how changes in adolescents' peer, family and school environments may influence dietary behaviors during the shift from elementary school to secondary school and whether boys and girls experience these changes in similar ways. Drawing on Bronfenbrenner's socio-ecological model and Ridgeway's gendered framework, thematic analysis of twenty-seven semi-structured interviews with parent-adolescent dyads reveals that changes in adolescents' peer, family and school environments affect dietary behaviors following the transition in gendered ways. Within the peer context, food facilitates friendships among girls. Girls use food to forge intimate relationships with their peers whereas boys do not report relying on their peers to influence their dietary choices. In the family environment, gender-based body ideals (i.e., being strong and fit for boys versus being thin for girls) become more apparent and influential over adolescents' dietary behaviors. In some families, parents oppose gender-based body ideals (i.e., food restriction among girls) whereas in others, parents' expectations around food become supportive of gendered norms (i.e., encouraging food consumption among boys to gain muscle or acquiring food literacy skills among girls). Within the school context, socializing emerges as a key priority above eating at lunchtime, but boys and girls engage in this socialization differently. Girls use their lunch hour to socialize with peers through sedentary activities whereas boys socialize through team sports. In summary, gender plays a role in how changes in the peer, family and school environments influence boys' and girls' dietary behaviors as they transition into secondary school. Future public health interventions should consider using a targeted gender approach to encourage adolescents to make healthier food choices.

Codevelopment of Healthy and Unhealthy Dietary Behaviors: A Dyadic Examination of Parenting Practices and Adolescent Characteristics.

OBJECTIVE: To identify the pathways through which external, parental, and adolescent factors influence adolescents' motivation to adopt healthy dietary behaviors. METHODS: A total of 28 ethnically and socioeconomically diverse (25% White) families were interviewed in which adolescents (mean age = 12.7 years; 50% girls) and parents (mean age = 43.3 years; 68% mothers) were interviewed separately. Data were first analyzed thematically, and family summaries, supplemented with diagrams, were then used to identify the processes through which factors influenced adolescents' dietary behaviors. RESULTS: The analyses identified 3 main motivational pathways (intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation), wherein variability and inconsistencies were observed across and within pathways. The unique combination of external factors, parenting profiles, as well as adolescents' willingness to be socialized by family members, differentiated these pathways from each other. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Health interventions need to target the overall approaches that parents use to socialize their adolescent to make healthy food choices instead of targeting specific parenting practices.

Individual and Environmental Factors Associated with Participation in Physical Activity as Adolescents Transition to Secondary School: A Qualitative Inquiry.

The transition from elementary to secondary school is an emotionally and socially complex time when adverse behaviors appear, such as decreased levels of physical activity (PA). Behavioral and environmental factors that influence PA during this time are poorly understood. Therefore, we aimed to identify factors that influence PA as adolescents transition to secondary school. Qualitative interviews were conducted with a sample of 27 ethnically diverse child-parent dyads within the public-school system in British Columbia, Canada (50% boys, 68% mothers, 25% White). The interviews probed for environmental and behavioral factors in school, family, and social contexts that potentially initiated changes in PA, specifically related to the adolescents' transitions. Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Thematic analyses identified factors at the individual, social, familial, and school levels that may trigger adolescents to change their participation in PA as they transition from elementary to secondary school. Twenty-two factors emerged from the qualitative analysis including school factors (8), household factors (3), social factors (4), and intrapersonal factors (7). These findings contribute to a better understanding of adolescents' PA behaviors and highlight the influence of changing environments as they transition from elementary school to secondary school.

Using item response theory to evaluate the Children's Behavior Questionnaire: Considerations of general functioning and assessment length.

Although the Children's Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ; Rothbart, Ahadi, Hershey, & Fisher, 2001) is the most popular assessment for childhood temperament, its psychometric qualities have yet to be examined using Item Response Theory (IRT) methods. These methods highlight in detail the specific contributions of individual items for measuring different facets of temperament. Importantly, with 16 scales for tapping distinct aspects of child functioning (195 items total), the CBQ's length can be prohibitive in many contexts. The detailed information about item functioning provided by IRT methods is therefore especially useful. The current study used IRT methods to analyze the CBQ's 16 temperament scales and identify potentially redundant items. An abbreviated "IRT form" was generated based on these results and evaluated across four independent validation samples. The IRT form was compared to the original and short CBQ forms (Putnam & Rothbart, 2006). Results provide fine-grained detail on the CBQ's psychometric functioning and suggest it is possible to remove up to 39% of the original form's items while largely preserving the measurement precision and content coverage of each scale. This study provides considerable psychometric information about the CBQ's items and scales and highlights future avenues for creating even more efficient high-quality temperament assessments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Four minutes of in-class high-intensity interval activity improves selective attention in 9- to 11-year olds.

The amount of time allocated to physical activity in schools is declining. Time-efficient physical activity solutions that demonstrate their impact on academic achievement-related outcomes are needed to prioritize physical activity within the school curricula. "FUNtervals" are 4-min, high-intensity interval activities that use whole-body actions to complement a storyline. The purpose of this study was to (i) explore whether FUNtervals can improve selective attention, an executive function posited to be essential for learning and academic success; and (ii) examine whether this relationship is predicted by students' classroom off-task behaviour. Seven grade 3-5 classes (n = 88) were exposed to a single-group, repeated cross-over design where each student's selective attention was compared between no-activity and FUNtervals days. In week 1, students were familiarized with the d2 test of attention and FUNterval activities, and baseline off-task behaviour was observed. In both weeks 2 and 3 students completed the d2 test of attention following either a FUNterval break or a no-activity break. The order of these breaks was randomized and counterbalanced between weeks. Neither motor nor passive off-task behaviour predicted changes in selective attention following FUNtervals; however, a weak relationship was observed for verbal off-task behaviour and improvements in d2 test performance. More importantly, students made fewer errors during the d2 test following FUNtervals. In supporting the priority of physical activity inclusion within schools, FUNtervals, a time efficient and easily implemented physical activity break, can improve selective attention in 9- to 11-year olds.

Classroom-based high-intensity interval activity improves off-task behaviour in primary school students.

This study examined the effects of an acute bout of brief, high-intensity interval exercise on off-task classroom behaviour in primary school students. A grade 4 class (n = 24) and a grade 2 class (n = 20) were exposed to either a no-activity break or an active break that consisted of "FUNtervals", a high-intensity interval protocol, on alternating days for 3 weeks. No-activity days consisted of a 10-min inactive break while FUNterval days consisted of a 4-min FUNterval completed within a 10-min break from regular class activities. Off-task behaviour was observed for 50 min after each no-activity/FUNterval break, with the amount of time students spent off-task (motor, passive, and verbal behaviour) being recorded. When comparing no-activity breaks with FUNtervals the grade 4 class demonstrated reductions in both passive (no activity = 29% ± 13% vs. FUNterval = 25% ± 13%, p < 0.05, effect size (ES) = 0.31) and motor (no activity = 31% ± 16% vs. FUNterval = 24% ± 13%, p < 0.01, ES = 0.48) off-task behaviour following FUNtervals. Similarly, in the grade 2 class, passive (no activity = 23% ± 14% vs. FUNterval = 14% ± 10%, p < 0.01, ES = 0.74), verbal (no activity = 8% ± 8% vs. FUNterval = 5% ± 5%, p < 0.05, ES = 0.45), and motor (no activity = 29% ± 17% vs. FUNterval = 14% ± 10%, p < 0.01, ES = 1.076) off-task behaviours were reduced following FUNtervals. In both classrooms the effects of physical activity were greatest in those students demonstrating the highest rates of off-task behaviour on no-activity days. These data demonstrate that very brief high-intensity bouts of exercise can improve off-task behaviour in grade 2 and 4 students, particularly in students with high rates of such behaviour.

A longitudinal study of the physical growth and health of postinstitutionalized Romanian adoptees.

In the present longitudinal study, the physical growth and health of 36 early-deprived postinstitutionalized Romanian orphans (ROs; 17 boys) adopted by Canadian families are documented. Data were collected for each child at three time points: at 11 months postadoption, at 4.5 years of age and at 10.5 years of age. Data from the RO children were compared with those from children in two matched comparison groups (Canadian-born [CB] nonadopted children and early-adopted [EA] Romanian children without institutional experience).Results indicated that there was considerable growth retardation in the RO children at times 1 and 2. Nonsignificant differences in height and weight among the RO, CB and EA groups were obtained at time 3, indicating significant growth catch-up. Precocious puberty, a documented feature of some postinstitutionalized children, was not observed in the present study population. At time 3, the RO children did not differ from the CB or EA children on indicators of puberty. The poor physical health of the RO children at time 1 was no longer apparent at time 3. According to parent reports, the RO children were equally as healthy as the CB and EA children.