Regular exercise is important for children's and adolescents' health maintenance, facilitating weight control, strengthening bones, and improving cardiovascular risk factors and mental health. Active childhoods help promote lifetime fitness. Physicians can assess children's weight and activity levels during routine exams. With simple…

Although both low socioeconomic status and cigarette smoking increase health problems and mortality, their possible combined or interactive influence is less clear. On one hand, the health of low status groups may be harmed least by unhealthy behavior such as smoking because, given the substantial health risks produced by limited resources, they…

Obesity is second only to smoking as the nation's number one preventable cause of death. Fewer than one in four kids gets 20 minutes of physical activity per week and fewer than one in four participate in at least 30 minutes of physical activity a day. In an effort to help students switch to a healthier lifestyle and through a grant from PANA…

The present analysis aimed to describe the degree of tracking of physical activity over an 8-year follow-up period among a cohort of 557 adolescents in western Norway (13 years of age at baseline). Frequency and time spent in leisure-time physical activity were assessed at ages 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19 and 21 years through self-report…

School rules in Japan are consequential in prescribing socially accepted patterns of students' lifestyles both within and outside schools. This article discusses how school rules were interpreted as a social problem in the 1980s and the 1990s. Social constructionist perspectives of social problems call for sensitivity to the plurality of people's…

It is well established and supported by research that regular physical activity has positive benefits to health. Currently, there is much concern about the decreasing amount of physical activity in adults and children with a corresponding increase in obesity and morbidity/ mortality rates. This study was designed to investigate the activity…

Promoting efficient energy use in schools that consequently reduces greenhouse gas emissions is the purpose of a residential Energy Efficiency in Schools (EEIS) program reported on in this paper. Research on this program aligns with one of the "key "overarching" sustainability issues", set out in the "Learning for…

The study reported here provides an example of the complex interface among historical study, current issues, and adolescents' complex social worlds. The authors investigated the ways in which a group of eighth grade students conceptualize the significance of gender in the context of a study of antebellum U.S. history. Fifty students participated…

Data from the National Center for Health Statistics suggests that about 17.4 per 1,000 males ages 15-19 years became teen fathers in 2002. Longitudinal studies suggest this number might be even higher. While the incidence of teen fatherhood is lower than that of teen motherhood, these young men are a potential resource for their child, as well as…

Substantial scientific evidence supports the role of physical activity in disease prevention and healthy lifestyle promotion, and quality physical education represents our best opportunity to provide all children with experiences that promote physical activity now and for a lifetime. The purpose of this article is to document the need for quality…

Nonaversive behavior management is an approach to supporting people with undesirable behaviors that integrates technology and values. Although this approach has attracted numerous proponents, more adequate definition and empirical documentation are still needed. This article presents an introduction to the nonaversive approach. Important…

The status of the minimally functioning elementary and secondary schools and universities of the Gaza Strip and West Bank in the midst of political and social turmoil is discussed; the daily life of a university teacher is described; and the potential role of American academics is examined briefly. (MSE)

People with profound intellectual disabilities rarely experience a physically active lifestyle, and their long-term physical inactivity likely contributes to poor health. The authors developed and implemented a pilot exercise program for persons with a profound intellectual disability and conducted a study to evaluate the effort. The development…

This article makes the case that current conceptions of sexual health literacy have limited relevance to the Ugandan context because they assume that knowledge of unsafe sexual practices will lead to changes in behavior and lifestyle. Drawing on a longitudinal case study with 15 Ugandan schoolgirls in rural Uganda from August 2004 to September…

Quality of life, physical and mental health, and lifestyle behaviors were assessed in 500 graduate and undergraduate students at a Historically Black University. 82% of the sample rated their quality of life positively. 11.3% of the sample reported mild depression, while 4.9% and 1.1% of the sample reported moderate and severe depression…