(An item from the ISHN Member information service) A systematic review of over 700 studies of programs to reduce adolescent child bearing in low and middle income countries, published in issue #4, 2013 of Studies in Family Planning, reports that "A total of 737 studies published between 2000 and 2011 were reviewed; 19 were identified as meeting eligibility criteria. Studies were included that: evaluated program effects on adolescents and young people, either as the primary target population or as a subset of a broader target group; evaluated an intervention intended to reduce adolescent fertility or generate improvements on a related outcome; and reported childbearing-related outcomes. Evidence indicates that a variety of interventions may be successful at reducing fertility, including school-based programs, health counseling, and cash transfers. An overview of evaluation efforts to date is provided, and potential best practices are highlighted." Read more>>
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(An item from the ISHN Member information service) An article in issue #4, 2013 of Pastoral Care in Education offers some insights on how teachers can collectively develop a negative view or perception of individual students when discussing them in teacher conferences/meetings. The researchers report that "Using positioning analysis, the transcriptions of 15 interviews with staff were analysed. The school staff’s reflections on the individual students covered three areas: health, social well-being and education. The results show the ways in which positions were shaped and illustrate a reflexive process that developed continually throughout the staff’s relationships with the students. The staff positioned the students and indicated attributions of the students; however, the attributions were predominately negative. With each position, the staff’s view of students as subjects or objects and their relationships to the students are described in terms of mutual or one-way dialogue. Read more>>
(An item from the ISHN Member information service) An article in Issue #6, 2013 of the American Journal of Tropical Diseases & Hygiene describes the contributions of non-governmental organizations to WHO targets for control of soil-transmitted helminthiases. The authors note that Soil-transmitted helminthiases (STH) may affect up to 1 billion children globally. They estimate that "In 2010, NGOs delivered 65.4 million STH treatments, which is an estimated 25.1% of the total delivered. Of these treatments, 23.3 million (35.6%) were not reported to the WHO; 22.3 million (95.7%) were from countries that had not submitted STH treatment reports to the WHO. Read more>>
(An item from the ISHN Member information service) Three articles in Issue #4, 2013 of Research Quarterly for Exercise & Sport discuss the effectiveness of physical education teachers. Collectively, they provide an analysis bridging the past, present and future. The first article describes the past in measuring PE teacher effectiveness and then goes onto to examine the issue using student performance and teacher observation models. The second article suggests that current trends in measuring PS teacher will result in teachers being accountable in "providing students with ample health-enhancing physical activity to help them become physically fit and to learn generalizable movement and behavioral skills designed to promote physical activity and fitness outside of class time". The third article postulates that the future policy environment that has teachers being held responsible for academic and economic outcomes rather than adjusting for social and economic realities. In this context, the PE teacher may end being judged on student learning and therefore, the content of PE curricula will become far more important. Read more>>
(An item from the ISHN Member information service) A systematic review published in the December 2013 issue of the International Journal of Physical Activity & Health concludes that being friends with others who are active will influence levels of activity but not necessarily with sedentary behaviours. The "findings confirm evidence from a previous review [30] which showed that peer networks have a greater influence on physical activity and sedentary behavior for boys compared with girls. This observation is strengthened by more longitudinal evidence, lending weight to the peer contagion models of physical activity (i.e., after becoming friends, behavior become similar) as opposed to the peer selection model (i.e., adolescents choosing friends who have similar behavior to themselves at the outset). This review identified a lack of explicit use of theoretical frameworks in studies to date." The article (full-text available) also offers an -in-depth discussion of friendships, friendship networks, types and duration of friendships and more.. Read more>>
(An item from the ISHN Member information service) Two articles in December 2013 Issue of Public Health Nutrition report on small scale studies of actual student choices about healthier food when thery are offered in school cafeterias. The first study of two large secondary schools found that "Despite the availability of nutritionally valuable dishes of the day, the most popular food items were sandwiches, pizza and desserts. FSM )free school meals) students were slightly more likely to choose the more nutritionally valuable dish of the day" The suthors suggest that ". School food standards should be reassessed in light of students’ preferences". The second artticle reported on a study in elementary schools where fruit was placed on student trays automatically to encourage their consumption. The authors report that "Requiring that fruits and vegetables be placed on each child's tray increased the fraction of children who ate a serving of fruits or vegetables by 8 percentage points (P < 0·01) but led to an extra 0·7 servings being thrown away per lunch served (P < 0·01). The default option approach cost $US 1·72 to get one additional child to eat one serving of fruits and vegetables for 1 d." They suggest the "default option, as a stand-alone programme, had only a limited impact on fruit and vegetable consumption but was much less cost-effective than other approaches". Read more>>
(An item from the ISHN Member information service) An article in Issue #2, 2013 of Nutrition Research Reviews presents the case that social norms can likely influence eating habits and may have an impact on the effectiveness of various interventions. Although it is possible unfair to comment on this conclusion without reading the full article, our immediate reaction is dismay. Surely this analysis is not new. There is a wide and deep body of knowledge on social influences that affect our behaviours...peers, close friends, the media, parents, social norms and so on. We also know that modifying normative beliefs is an important part of educational programs, including efforts to change the beliefs of students and the teachers. Surely we can move beyond this simple, endless analysis and produce research studying which interventions are more effective in counter-acting or strengthening which influences. Read more>>
(An item from the ISHN Member information service) An article in Issue #2, 2013 of Nutrition Research Reviews offers a unique macro-analysis of how food intake and physical activity have both declined in the UK. The attiocle suggests that both have declined, but the levels of food intake have not declined as much as activity levels, thereby creating the obesity/overweight trend. However, the provocative wording of the article also caught our attention in as much it shows how easily we can revert to stigmatizing attitudes and terminology. Read more>>
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