Background: Schools have increasing responsibility to address healthy eating, but physical barriers influence their ability to adopt and sustain recommended strategies. We took advantage of a natural experiment to investigate the role of the physical environment in shaping healthy eating attitudes and practices among school staff members. Methods:…

Many children in U.S. K-12 schools struggle with childhood obesity. A healthy lifestyle taught in a child's early years is essential for student learning, and it can set the pace for healthy choices to be made in adulthood. The purpose of this exploratory case study was to explore the experiences of parents in Montgomery County, Ohio, who…

The purpose of this study is to examine childcare providers' perceptions of their role in child health behaviors and attitudes pertaining to physical activity and nutrition. Part and full-time providers in a childcare center or family childcare home were interviewed (n = 30) in this cross-sectional, qualitative study. Transcripts were digitally…

SIP"smart"ER is a 6-month behavioral intervention designed using a health literacy universal precautions approach that has been found effective at reducing sugary beverage intake in rural, low socioeconomic adults. The purpose of this mixed-methods study is to determine if health literacy status influenced participants' satisfaction and…

African American men have high rates of chronic disease morbidity and mortality associated with their low rates of fruit and vegetable consumption. In an effort to inform tailored behavioral interventions for this demographic, we sought to assess if men with healthier eating practices viewed their environment differently than those who ate less…

A growing body of research indicates that self-control is critical to academic success. Surprisingly little is known, however, about the diverse strategies students use to implement self-control or how well these strategies work. To address these issues, the author conducted a naturalistic investigation of self-control strategies (Study 1) and 2…

Objective: To examine whether and to what extent relevant and meaningful discussions of weight loss occurred in the Weight Watchers' online community, and whether and to what extent the online community is designed for fostering such discussions. Methods: A multimethod approach was used here. First, a quantitative content analysis was conducted on…

Adolescent consumption of screen media continues to increase. A variety of theoretical constructs hypothesize the impact of media content on health-related attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. This study uses a coding instrument based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Youth Risk Behavior Survey to analyze health behavior contained in…

Background: College students experience weight gain that can contribute to serious health issues. Health education efforts with college students are increasingly utilizing new technologies. Smartphone applications (apps) in particular are growing in popularity and use in all young adults. Purpose: Formative research was conducted to describe how…

Objective: To understand the meanings of diet, physical activity, and body weight in the context of women's cancer experiences. Design: Grounded theory using 15 qualitative interviews and 3 focus groups. Setting: Grassroots community cancer organizations in the northeastern United States. Participants: Thirty-six white women cancer survivors; 86%…

This article describes an undergraduate Participatory Action Research (PAR) course in which students with and without intellectual disabilities collaborated as co-researchers in order to explore various aspects of the university experience. The article describes the university course as well as presents results of the students' PAR projects. The…

This study explored the process of how women maintained their healthy behaviors after a weight management program using a grounded theory approach. We conducted 2 focus groups and 23 interviews with a purposeful sample of African American and Caucasian women aged 30 and older who lost greater than 5% of their body weight during a weight management…