Melanie D Hingle

Screen media (television, computers, and videogames) use has been linked to multiple child outcomes, including obesity. Parents can be an important influence on children's screen use. There has been an increase in the number of instruments available to assess parenting in feeding and physical activity contexts, however few measures are available to assess parenting practices regarding children's screen media use. A working group of screen media and parenting researchers convened at the preconference workshop to the 2012 International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA) annual meeting, "Parenting Measurement: Current Status and Consensus Reports," to identify and prioritize issues in assessing screen media parenting practices. The group identified that screen media use can pose different risks for children, depending on their age and developmental stage, across physiologic, psychosocial, and development outcomes. With that in mind, a conceptual framework of how parents may influence their child's screen-viewing behaviors was proposed to include the screen media content, context of viewing, and amount viewed. A research agenda was proposed to prioritize a validation of the framework and enhance the ability of researchers to best assess parenting influences across the three domains of content, context and amount of children's screen media use.

PMID: 22078775;PMCID: PMC3215937;Abstract:

Objective: Generate and test parents' understanding of values and associated reason statements to encourage effective food parenting practices. Methods: This study was cross-sectional. Sixteen parents from different ethnic groups (African American, white, and Hispanic) living with their 3- to 5-year-old child were recruited. Interested parents were directed to a Web site, where they provided screening information and informed consent. Two types of telephone interviews were used: semistructured intensive interviews and cognitive interviews. Results: The most common core values identified in the semistructured interview were religion/spirituality, family, and health, which appeared invariant across parent ethnicity. Parent responses to cognitive interviews enabled rephrasing of statements that were not well understood, the list of values was increased, and reason statements were added to cover the spectrum cited by parents. Conclusions and Implications: Values and reason statements will be used to tailor intrinsic motivational messages for effective food parenting practices. © 2011 Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior.

This paper presents the protocol for an ongoing research study to develop and test the feasibility of a multi-behavioral mHealth app. Approximately 27 million women smoke in the US, and more than 180,000 women die of illnesses linked to smoking annually. Women report greater difficulties quitting smoking. Concerns about weight gain, negative body image, and low self-efficacy may be key factors affecting smoking cessation among women. Recent studies suggest that a multi-behavioral approach, including diet and physical activity, may be more effective at helping women quit. Guided imagery has been successfully used to address body image concerns and self-efficacy in our 3 target behaviors-exercise, diet and smoking cessation. However, it has not been used simultaneously for smoking, diet, and exercise behavior in a single intervention. While imagery is an effective therapeutic tool for behavior change, the mode of delivery has generally been in person, which limits reach. mHealth apps delivered via smart phones offer a unique channel through which to distribute imagery-based interventions.

Fruit and vegetable (FV) intake has been proposed to protect against obesity. The purpose of this paper was to assess the FV consumption to adiposity relationship. Twenty-three publications were included.