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Background: Understanding factors that influence physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior is crucial to develop interventions to improve adolescents' health-related behaviors.Purpose: To compare the influence of friends and psychosocial factors on moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and screen time (ST) between normal weight (NW) and overweight (OW) adolescents.Methods: In all, 21 OW and 21 NW adolescents wore accelerometers and completed questionnaires assessing MVPA, ST, and psychosocial variables. The MVPA and ST were assessed in nominated friends. Adolescents participated in focus groups assessing influence on activity behaviors.Results: There were no differences in MVPA; however, NW adolescents reported less ST than OW adolescents (8.9 vs 13.1 h/wk, P = .04). For OW adolescents, friends' ST ( P = .002) and psychosocial factors ( P = .05) were associated with ST, while only PA self-efficacy was associated with MVPA. For NW adolescents, only friends' MVPA ( P = .04) was associated with self-reported PA. Exploratory analyses revealed differences among weight status and gender. Focus group discussions revealed that friends influenced both OW and NW adolescents' MVPA; however, this appeared to be more apparent for NW males, while psychosocial factors played a role in both OW and NW females. The OW adolescents reported that friends were more of an influence on their ST levels, while NW adolescents indicated that their ST was not affected by their friends' behaviors.Conclusions: Interventions to increase MVPA and/or decrease ST may need to be tailored for NW and OW adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose. Examine variation in obesity among older adults relative to the joint influences of density of neighborhood fast food outlets and residents' behavioral, psychosocial and sociodemographic characteristics. Design. Cross-sectional and multilevel design. Setting. Census block groups, used as a proxy for neighborhoods, within the metropolitan region's Urban Growth Boundary in Portland, Oregon. Subjects. A total of 1221 residents (mean age, 65 years) recruited randomly from 120 neighborhoods (48% response rate). Measures. A geographic information system-based measure of fast food restaurant density across 120 neighborhoods was created. Residents within the sampled neighborhoods were assessed with respect to their body mass indices (BMI), frequency of visits to local fast food restaurants, fried food consumption, levels of physical activity, self-efficacy of eating fruits and vegetables, household income, and race/ethnicity. Analyses. Multilevel logistic regression analyses. Results. Significant associations were found between resident-level individual characteristics and the likelihood of being obese (BMI ≥ 30) for neighborhoods with a high-density of fast food restaurants in comparison with those with a low density: odds ratios for obesity, 95% confidence intervals (CI), were 1.878 (CI, 1.006-3.496) for weekly visits to local fast food restaurants; 1.792 (CI, 1.006-3.190) for not meeting physical activity recommendations; 1.212 (CI, 1.057-1.391) for low confidence in eating healthy food; and 8.057 (CI, 1.705- 38.086) for non-Hispanic black residents. Conclusion. Increased density of neighborhood fast food outlets was associated with unhealthy lifestyles, poorer psychosocial profiles, and increased risk of obesity among older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose. To explore the relationship between the placement of fast-food outlets and neighborhood-level socioeconomic variables by determining if indicators of lower socioeconomic status were predictive of exposure to fast food. Design. A descriptive analysis of the fast-food environment in a Canadian urban center, using secondary analysis of census data and Geographic Information Systems technology. Setting. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Measures. Neighborhoods were classified as High, Medium, or Low Access based on the number offast-food opportunities available to them. Neighborhood-level socioeconomic data (income, education, employment, immigration status, and housing tenure) from the 2001 Statistics Canada federal census were obtained. Analysis. A discriminant function analysis was used to determine if any association existed between neighborhood demographic characteristics and accessibility offast-food outlets. Results. Significant differences were found between the three levels offast-food accessibility across the socioeconomic variables, with successively greater percentages of unemployment, low income, and renters in neighborhoods with increasingly greater access to fast-food restaurants. A high score on several of these variables was predictive ofgreater access to fast-food restaurants. Conclusion. Although a causal inference is not possible, these results suggest that the distribution offast-food outlets relative to neighborhood-level socioeconomic status requires further attention in the process of explaining the increased rates of obesity observed in relatively deprived populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts of health studies published in various journals. The study "Physical Activity and Clustered Cardiovascular Risk in Children: A Cross-Sectional Study (The European Youth Heart Study," by Lars Bo Andersen and colleagues, published in "The Lancet," suggests that physical activity guidelines for children should be higher than 1 hour per day in order to prevent the clustering of cardiovascular risk factors. Other topics covered include risk factors for erectile dysfunction, adherence to antiretroviral therapy in Sub-Saharan Africa and North America, and the association between poverty and obesity.