Background: The school environment has the potential to influence student body mass index (BMI) through programs and policies. Our objective was to examine the effect of modifying obesity-related school policies and programs on youths' BMI trajectories. Methods: Obesity-related school policies and programs related to physical activity and healthy…

Background: Declines in physical activity (PA) in children and youth have contributed to increases in childhood overweight and obesity. The Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program was developed to promote school active transportation (AT) and reverse the trend. Methods: Adopting concepts of a realist approach, this article seeks to understand…

The worldwide rise in obesity makes this the first non-infectious epidemic in human history. The rapid increase is, in fact, influenced more by environment than biology. In an effort to halt the trend, Quebec has launched a major awareness-raising campaign that focuses on healthy environments and targets stakeholders in schools, municipalities,…

Schools are places of learning, but they are also sites of struggle when fitness, obesity, and body image issues converge for students and teachers. Responding to teachers' concerns about their students on diets, a Canadian teachers' organization produced a body image program which included a training day for schools undertaking whole-school…

The objective is to examine school-level program and policy characteristics and student-level behavioural characteristics associated with being overweight. Multilevel logistic regression analysis were used to examine the school- and student-level characteristics associated with the odds of a student being overweight among 1264 Grade 5-8 students…