Beyond Bullying: Transforming the Culture of Peer Abuse

Bullying needs to be understood and positioned as a form of child abuse – peer abuse. For too many people, bullying is a benign term. This article will include information collected from a wide-range of researchers and discussions with over 50,000 students that I have facilitated during the past twenty years. The content will focus on new morbidities related to bullying such as depression and suicide, obesity, eating disorders, food allergies, juvenile diabetes, truancy, and substance and alcohol abuse. Making a cultural change in our society will require identified Change Agents, along with recommendations for collaboration, policies, projects and legislation.

Collaborative Conversations for Change: A SolutionFocused Approach to Family Centered Practice

The renewed interest in Family Centered Practice, prompted by the funding of Family Preservation and Support Programs, has created a need for training practitioners at a number of different levels and for a variety of roles. This paper will describe a training program for Family Centered Practice. Building on an empowerment model, the author presents an approach for working with families and children that views the tragedies of the past as resources, rather than the major cause of present problems. Collaborative Conversations for Change adapts the solution-focused therapy model to nontherapy roles that are required for a program to be family centered. Although these roles are not therapy, they are nevertheless therapeutic and reinforce clients' strengths. These collaborative conversations, however brief they may be, recognize that the client is the expert on his/her pain and struggles and the practitioner is the expert on assisting her/him plan change. Additionally, illustrations from a cross-cultural perspective demonstrate the utility of collaborative conversation in enhancing cultural competence.

Cross-cultural equivalence and associations among food insecurity and parental influences of children's fruit and vegetable consumption

Over the past several decades, the prevalence of obesity has dramatically increased. Cause for concern has increased because overweight and obesity are major contributors to morbidity and mortality. Intervention research aimed at reducing the prevalence of obesity has identified the family, specifically the parent, as a key component of the home environment. However, findings from dietary behavior change interventions have been disheartening because few studies have reported meaningful change, suggesting methodological and/or measurement issues within the intervention process. A lack of appropriate mediators and cross-cultural equivalence may partially explain the reason for little change.^ The study aims were to (1) evaluate the psychometric properties and assess the cross cultural equivalence of the Food Insecurity Scale (paper 1) and the modified Parent Feeding Practices Questionnaire (paper 2) and to assess the overall relationships among food insecurity, parent mediators, and parent behaviors towards children's dietary behavior (paper 3) through structural equation modeling and tests of invariance. The study aims were accomplished through conducting secondary analyses using baseline data from English- and Spanish-speaking Hispanic women who participated in the Healthy Families: Step by Step (BHF) study.^ Results indicated that although the FIS and the mPFPQ exhibited sound psychometric properties, the instruments exhibited a lack of invariance across language spoken groups. The lack of invariance was more pronounced in the FIS. Results also supported the theoretical framework identifying parent's perceived barriers and self-efficacy as mediators of parent's behaviors toward improving children's health eating. Results did not suggest that the relationships were moderated by food insecurity.^ In conclusion, the identification of differential item functioning in food insecurity and parent feeding practices may be beneficial in enhancing tailored interventions through the incorporation of cultural differences into the change mechanisms. However, future research needs to be conducted to determine if the lack of invariance demonstrates the existence of item bias or if it is a reflection of true difference among the language spoken groups. Additionally, obesity intervention studies targeting parent/family barriers and parent self-efficacy to provide/encourage healthy diets may result in an increase in parent behaviors which promote healthy eating behaviors among children. Future research should also examine a more complete causal pathway to determine whether parental changes in the mediators ultimately lead to an increase in healthy dietary behavior among children.^

Stages of change and carotene intake in the Paso del Norte region: Que Sabrosa Vida

Understanding a population's dietary behavior is important to promote behaviors which have the most beneficial impact on health. The most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans (2005) identifies carotenoids as a key nutrient to be consumed through increased intake of fruits and vegetables (FV). While some studies have included or focused on the Hispanic population, few have focused only on Mexican-American populations and staged its intake of FV. Stage of change behavior theory has been used to understand the adoption and promotion of healthy behaviors such as increased intake of FV. It has been shown to effectively aid interventionists' understanding of dietary behavior. Intake patterns of FV of older women, rural residents, and adolescents of Mexican American descent have been conducted but not by stages of change. This study aimed to determine the relationship between stages of change for fruits and vegetables (SOC-FV) and total carotene intake to assess the quality of SOC-FV as a surrogate measure of total carotene. ^ Data from the 2000 Qué Sabrosa Vida Community Nutrition Survey (QSV-CNS) were analyzed to identify the SOC-FV and sources of carotenes in a Mexican American population 18-60 yrs. of the Paso del Norte region. A 107 item interviewer administered food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) specifically calibrated for a Mexican American population was used to collect usual intake of total carotene. The QSV survey study population included 963 participants, 590 (61.3%) women and 373 (38.7%) men. A statistically significant mean difference in caloric intake between men and women was found (p-value = <0.01). When total carotene intake was adjusted for energy, there were significant differences between men and women (p-value = <0.0001) with women consuming a higher amount of total carotene (406 RE/kcal 1,000) than men (332 RE/kcal 1000). The food sources of total carotene for both genders included many items found in a traditional Mexican American diet. Chile, after carrots, was the highest contributor of dietary carotene. Total carotene intake was not associated with stages of change among women or men and their distributions were not linear. Mean differences of total carotene by stages of change were significant for women for pre-contemplation/contemplation (p-value = 0.04) and preparation (p-value = 0.0004) but not for men. ^ SOC-FV may serve as a surrogate measure for dietary carotene intake. This study's Mexican American population had a high carotene quality diet derived from traditional food items irrespective of their stage of change for fruits and vegetables. To better understand this population's dietary intake a measure for acculturation should be included. Interventions aimed at Mexican American populations should aim to promote traditional diets consistent with cultural practices.^ ^