Twelve-month effectiveness of a parent-led, family-focused weight-management program for prepubertal children : a randomized, controlled trial

BACKGROUND Parenting-skills training may be an effective age-appropriate child behavior-modification strategy to assist parents in addressing childhood overweight. OBJECTIVE Our goal was to evaluate the relative effectiveness of parenting-skills training as a key strategy for the treatment of overweight children. DESIGN The design consisted of an assessor-blinded, randomized, controlled trial involving 111 (64% female) overweight, prepubertal children 6 to 9 years of age randomly assigned to parenting-skills training plus intensive lifestyle education, parenting-skills training alone, or a 12-month wait-listed control. Height, BMI, and waist-circumference z score and metabolic profile were assessed at baseline, 6 months, and 12 months (intention to treat). RESULTS After 12 months, the BMI z score was reduced by ∼10% with parenting-skills training plus intensive lifestyle education versus ∼5% with parenting-skills training alone or wait-listing for intervention. Waist-circumference z score fell over 12 months in both intervention groups but not in the control group. There was a significant gender effect, with greater reduction in BMI and waist-circumference z scores in boys compared with girls. CONCLUSION Parenting-skills training combined with promoting a healthy family lifestyle may be an effective approach to weight management in prepubertal children, particularly boys. Future studies should be powered to allow gender subanalysis.

Family-focused weight management program for five- to nine-year-olds incorporating parenting skills training with healthy lifestyle information to support behaviour modification

his case study aims to describe how general parenting principles can be used as part of parent-led, family-focused child weight management that is in line with current Australian Clinical Practice Guidelines. A parent-led, family-focused child weight management program was designed for use by dietitians with parents of young children (five- to nine-year-olds). The program utilises the cornerstones of overweight treatment: diet, activity, behaviour modification and family support delivered in an age-appropriate, family-focused manner. Parents participate in 16 sessions (4 parenting-focused, 8 lifestyle-focused and 4 individual telephone support calls) conducted weekly, fortnightly then monthly over six months. This case study illustrates how a family used the program, resulting in reduced degree of overweight and stabilised waist circumference in the child over 12 months. In conclusion, linking parenting skills to healthy family lifestyle education provides an innovative approach to family-focused child weight management. It addresses key Australian Clinical Practice Guidelines, works at the family level, and provides a means for dietitians to easily adopt age-appropriate behaviour modification as part of their practice.

An assessment of the potential of family day care as a nutrition promotion setting in South Australia

Articles > Journals > Health journals > Nutrition & Dietetics: The Journal of the Dieticians Association of Australia articles > March 2003 Article: An assessment of the potential of Family Day Care as a nutrition promotion setting in South Australia. (Original Research). Article from:Nutrition & Dietetics: The Journal of the Dieticians Association of Australia Article date:March 1, 2003 Author:Daniels, Lynne A.; Franco, Bunny; McWhinnie, Julie-Anne CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Dietitians Association of Australia. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights or concerns about this content should be directed to customer service. (Hide copyright information) Related articles Ads by Google TAFE Child Care Courses Government accredited courses. Study anytime, anywhere. www.seeklearning.com.au Get Work in Child Care Certificate III Children's Services 4 Day Course + Take Home Assessment HBAconsult.com.au Abstract Objective: To assess the potential role of Family Day Care in nutrition promotion for preschool children. Design and setting: A questionnaire to examine nutrition-related issues and practices was mailed to care providers registered in the southern region of Adelaide, South Australia. Care providers also supplied a descriptive, qualitative recall of the food provided by parents or themselves to each child less than five years of age in their care on the day closest to completion of the questionnaire. Subjects: 255 care providers. The response rate was 63% and covered 643 preschool children, mean 4.6 (SD 2.8) children per carer. Results: There was clear agreement that nutrition promotion was a relevant issue for Family Day Care providers. Nutrition and food hygiene knowledge was good but only 54% of respondents felt confident to address food quality issues with parents. Sixty-five percent of respondents reported non-neutral approaches to food refusal and dawdling (reward, punishment, cajoling) that overrode the child's control of the amount eaten. The food recalls indicated that most children (> 75%) were offered fruit at least once. Depending on the hours in care, (0 to 4, 5 to 8, greater than 8 hours), 20%, 32% and 55%, respectively, of children were offered milk and 65%, 82% and 87%, respectively, of children were offered high fat and sugar foods. Conclusions: Questionnaire responses suggest that many care providers are committed to and proactive in a range of nutrition promotion activities. There is scope for strengthening skills in the management of common problems, such as food refusal and dawdling, consistent with the current evidence for approaches to early feeding management that promote the development of healthy food preferences and eating patterns. Legitimising and empowering care providers in their nutrition promotion role requires clear policies, guide lines, adequate pre- and in-service training, suitable parent materials, and monitoring.

A new family of Marx generator based on resonant converter

This paper presents a novel topology to generate high voltage with utilization of slow and fast power switches. New concepts used in this topology include numbers of diode-capacitor units in parallel with resonant circuits which are connected to a positive buck-boost converter. The resonant circuit reverses the voltage polarity of the capacitors. This configuration has capability of generating a flexible high voltage with certain number of capacitors. The advantage of this topology is to use slow switches, less number of diodes and capacitors compare to Marx generator. Simulations have been performed to verify the proposed topology.

Vulnerability factors for disaster-induced child post-traumatic stress disorder : the case for low family resilience and previous mental illness

Objective: The aim of the present study was to investigate whether parent report of family resilience predicted children’s disaster-induced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and general emotional symptoms, independent of a broad range of variables including event-related factors, previous child mental illness and social connectedness. ---------- Methods: A total of 568 children (mean age = 10.2 years, SD = 1.3) who attended public primary schools, were screened 3 months after Cyclone Larry devastated the Innisfail region of North Queensland. Measures included parent report on the Family Resilience Measure and Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)–emotional subscale and child report on the PTSD Reaction Index, measures of event exposure and social connectedness. ---------- Results: Sixty-four students (11.3%) were in the severe–very severe PTSD category and 53 families (28.6%) scored in the poor family resilience range. A lower family resilience score was associated with child emotional problems on the SDQ and longer duration of previous child mental health difficulties, but not disaster-induced child PTSD or child threat perception on either bivariate analysis, or as a main or moderator variable on multivariate analysis (main effect: adjusted odds ratio (ORadj) = 0.57, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.13–2.44). Similarly, previous mental illness was not a significant predictor of child PTSD in the multivariate model (ORadj = 0.75, 95%CI = 0.16–3.61). ---------- Conclusion: In this post-disaster sample children with existing mental health problems and those of low-resilience families were not at elevated risk of PTSD. The possibility that the aetiological model of disaster-induced child PTSD may differ from usual child and adolescent conceptualizations is discussed.

Pockets of creativity in business processes

Creative processes, for instance, the development of visual effects or computer games, increasingly become part of the agenda of information systems researchers and practitioners. Such processes get their managerial challenges from the fact that they comprise both well-structured, transactional parts and creative parts. The latter can often not be precisely specified in terms of control flow, required resources, and outcome. The processes’ high uncertainty sets boundaries for the application of traditional business process management concepts, such as process automation, process modeling, process performance measurement, and risk management. Organizations must thus exercise caution when it comes to managing creative processes and supporting these with information technology. This, in turn, requires a profound understanding of the concept of creativity in business processes. In response to this, the present paper introduces a framework for conceptualizing creativity within business processes. The conceptual framework describes three types of uncertainty and constraints as well as the interrelationships among these. The study is grounded in the findings from three case studies that were conducted in the film and visual effects industry. Moreover, we provide initial evidence for the framework’s validity beyond this narrow focus. The framework is intended to serve as a sensitizing device that can guide further information systems research on creativity-related phenomena.

Invention and business performance in the tissue-engineering industry

Tissue engineering is a young and interdisciplinary scientific discipline but it offers exciting opportunities to improve the quality of health care for hundreds of thousands of patients. Lured by its potential, several start-up companies, pharmaceutical corporations, and medical device enterprises alike are investing heavily in this sector. Invention is a key driver of competition in this sector. In this study, we aim to explain the variation in inventive output across the different firms in the sector. Our major premise is that firms that forge alliances will be able to tap into the expertise of their partners and thus improve their chances of inventive output. We further argue that alliances that enable technology acquisition or learning will enhance the inventive output of firms more than other kinds of alliances. We measure the inventive output of a company by the number of patents filed. On the basis of a preliminary analysis of seven companies, we find support for the hypotheses. We also argue that, to achieve commercial success, firms need to manage time to market (through alliances or otherwise), have a global outlook, nurture their financial resources, and attain critical mass through mergers.

Business Leaders Hall of Fame collection

"Qld Business Leaders Hall of Fame" is a research project that includes interviews with eminent Qlders that produced oral history interviews and digital stories about their life/company's achievements. This model was able to test and evaluate the use of oral history and digital storytelling for learning and community heritage purposes. Interviewees include; Sir John and Valmai Pidgeon, Joseph Saragossi, Robert Bryan, Clem Jones, Jim Kennedy, Sr Angela Mary, Castelmaine Perkins, Burns and Philp, Qantas, Don Argus & Steve Irwin.

Complaining in cyberspace : the motives and forms of hotel guests’ complaints online

Traditionally, consumers who have been dissatisfied with service have typically complained to the frontline personnel or to a manager in either a direct (face-to-face, over the phone) manner, indirect by writing, or done nothing but told friends and family of the incident. More recently, the Internet has provided various “new” ways to air a grievance, especially when little might have been done at the point of service failure. With the opportunity to now spread word-of-mouth globally, consumers have the potential to impact the standing of a brand or a firm's reputation. The hotel industry is particularly vulnerable, as an increasing number of bookings are undertaken via the Internet and the decision process is likely to be influenced by what other previous guests might post on many booking-linked sites. We conducted a qualitative study of a key travel site to ascertain the forms and motives of complaints made online about hotels and resorts. 200 web-based consumer complaints were analyzed using NVivo 8 software. Findings revealed that consumers report a wide range of service failures on the Internet. They tell a highly descriptive, persuasive, and credible story, often motivated by altruism or, at the other end of the continuum, by revenge. These stories have the power to influence potential guests to book or not book accommodation at the affected properties. Implications for managers of hotels and resorts are discussed.

Business Process Model Merging : An Approach to Business Process Consolidation

This paper addresses the problem of constructing consolidated business process models out of collections of process models that share common fragments. The paper considers the construction of unions of multiple models (called merged models) as well as intersections (called digests). Merged models are intended for analysts who wish to create a model that subsumes a collection of process models - typically representing variants of the same underlying process - with the aim of replacing the variants with the merged model. Digests, on the other hand, are intended for analysts who wish to identify the most recurring fragments across a collection of process models, so that they can focus their efforts on optimizing these fragments. The paper presents an algorithm for computing merged models and an algorithm for extracting digests from a merged model. The merging and digest extraction algorithms have been implemented and tested against collections of process models taken from multiple application domains. The tests show that the merging algorithm produces compact models and scales up to process models containing hundreds of nodes. Furthermore, a case study conducted in a large insurance company has demonstrated the usefulness of the merging and digest extraction operators in a practical setting.

Gender inequality and the spread of HIV-AIDS in India

Purpose The purpose of the paper is to analyze the low status of women as being a major contributor for the observed gender inequality in the spread of HIV/AIDS in India. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses data from National Aids Control Organization (NACO), National Family Health Survey (NFHS 3), and the Directorate of Economics and Statistics. Findings This study highlights the problems facing women in deterring the spread of HIV/AIDS in India. The status and empowerment of women are important variables in combating the disease among both men and women in India. Literacy, education, exposure to the media, labor market participation, awareness of HIV/AIDS, and economic independence are important considerations in improving the status of women in India. Policymakers need to focus on gender inequality in order to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS in India. Originality/value While absolute figures indicate men are more likely to be infected with HIV/AIDS, the rate of decline is higher for men compared to women in India. We explore several plausible explanations for such observed inequality in the spread of HIV/AIDS across gender. In particular, a potentially important factor - the low status of women in society is attributable as an impediment to the spread of the disease. A case study of the relationship between gender empowerment and the spread of HIV/AIDS in the state with the highest concentration, Manipur, provides more insight to the difficulties faced by women in combating HIV/AIDS in India.

Infant and young child feeding indicators and determinants of poor feeding practices in India : secondary data analysis of National Family Health Survey 2005–06

Background: In India, poor feeding practices in early childhood contribute to the burden of malnutrition and infant and child mortality. Objective. To estimate infant and young child feeding indicators and determinants of selected feeding practices in India. Methods: The sample consisted of 20,108 children aged 0 to 23 months from the National Family Health Survey India 2005–06. Selected indicators were examined against a set of variables using univariate and multivariate analyses. Results: Only 23.5% of mothers initiated breastfeeding within the first hour after birth, 99.2% had ever breastfed their infant, 89.8% were currently breastfeeding, and 14.8% were currently bottle-feeding. Among infants under 6 months of age, 46.4% were exclusively breastfed, and 56.7% of those aged 6 to 9 months received complementary foods. The risk factors for not exclusively breastfeeding were higher household wealth index quintiles (OR for richest = 2.03), delivery in a health facility (OR = 1.35), and living in the Northern region. Higher numbers of antenatal care visits were associated with increased rates of exclusive breastfeeding (OR for ≥ 7 antenatal visits = 0.58). The rates of timely initiation of breastfeeding were higher among women who were better educated (OR for secondary education or above = 0.79), were working (OR = 0.79), made more antenatal clinic visits (OR for ≥ 7 antenatal visits = 0.48), and were exposed to the radio (OR = 0.76). The rates were lower in women who were delivered by cesarean section (OR = 2.52). The risk factors for bottle-feeding included cesarean delivery (OR = 1.44), higher household wealth index quintiles (OR = 3.06), working by the mother (OR=1.29), higher maternal education level (OR=1.32), urban residence (OR=1.46), and absence of postnatal examination (OR=1.24). The rates of timely complementary feeding were higher for mothers who had more antenatal visits (OR=0.57), and for those who watched television (OR=0.75). Conclusions: Revitalization of the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative in health facilities is recommended. Targeted interventions may be necessary to improve infant feeding practices in mothers who reside in urban areas, are more educated, and are from wealthier households.

How does small business impact on utilization of industry-led supply chain innovation capacity

This research uses confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling to examine how organizational size - made up of four dimensions - control, resources, trust and complexity - impacts on utilization of industry-led supply chain innovation capacity in a traditional agribusiness industry, the Australian beef industry. It confirms small business rather than larger business accords greater importance to exploiting supply chain dynamic capabilities, particularly in relation to utilizing industry –led supply chain innovation capacity. For small business in Australian beef supply chains, being agile and able to adapt and align their business practices with supply chain partners is integral to ensuring these businesses remain relevant and competitive in this market. In theoretical terms this is supported by authors in the dynamic capabilities literature as they argue these types of capabilities enable organizations to innovate faster (or better), often leading to the creation of newer sources of competitive advantage.