Childhood is a crucial period for establishing lifelong healthy nutritional habits. The environment has an important influence on children’s dietary intake. This book focuses on the influence of environmental factors on the dietary intake of children and adolescents (0–18 years of age) within various settings including home, early care and education, school, college, holiday clubs, neighborhoods, and supermarkets. The reported studies examine a variety of factors within these settings, including the influence of cooking and parenting, teacher style, resources and barriers within various settings, marketing, and many other factors. The dietary intake behaviors examined include snacking, fruit and vegetable intake, beverage intake, and also nutrition in general. In addition, several papers focus on problems caused by inadequate nutrition, such as hunger and obesity. This work underlines the importance of the environment in influencing children’s and adolescents’ dietary intake. In addition, the papers identified some crucial barriers and facilitators for the implementation of environmental changes to enable a healthy diet for young children. Therefore, it provides some important directions for both future research and practice.

Childhood is a crucial period for establishing lifelong healthy nutritional habits. The environment has an important influence on children's dietary intake. This book focuses on the influence of environmental factors on the dietary intake of children and adolescents (0-18 years of age) within various settings including home, early care and education, school, college, holiday clubs, neighborhoods, and supermarkets. The reported studies examine a variety of factors within these settings, including the influence of cooking and parenting, teacher style, resources and barriers within various settings, marketing, and many other factors. The dietary intake behaviors examined include snacking, fruit and vegetable intake, beverage intake, and also nutrition in general. In addition, several papers focus on problems caused by inadequate nutrition, such as hunger and obesity. This work underlines the importance of the environment in influencing children's and adolescents' dietary intake. In addition, the papers identified some crucial barriers and facilitators for the implementation of environmental changes to enable a healthy diet for young children. Therefore, it provides some important directions for both future research and practice.

More children born today will survive to adulthood than at any time in history. It is now time to emphasize health and development in middle childhood and adolescence--developmental phases that are critical to health in adulthood and the next generation. Child and Adolescent Health and Development explores the benefits that accrue from sustained and targeted interventions across the first two decades of life. The volume outlines the investment case for effective, costed, and scalable interventions for low-resource settings, emphasizing the cross-sectoral role of education. This evidence base can guide policy makers in prioritizing actions to promote survival, health, cognition, and physical growth throughout childhood and adolescence.

Youth obesity is an ongoing problem in the United States. Obese children and adolescents are likely to be obese as adults and have an increased risk of developing chronic diseases, including coronary heart disease, earlier in life. The multifactorial nature of obesity continues to challenge researchers and health professionals to determine methods for preventing and reducing childhood obesity. Research has suggested that obesity is a normal response to an "obesigenic" environment. Emerging as one of the most influential environments in obesity and behavior development is the home food environment. However, little is understood about the role of the home food environment in obesity and disease development in youth. The purpose of this research was to examine factors that influence the home food environment as well as the relationship between the home food environment and dietary intake, obesity, and disease development in a nationally representative sample of U.S. youth aged 6-19 years from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Race-ethnicity and poverty income ratio (PIR) were found to influence home food availability, family meal patterns, and family food expenditures, three aspects of the home food environment. Race-ethnicity, PIR, and home food availability appeared to influence dietary consumption in youth. However, home food availability did not appear to be related to overweight or obesity in youth. Overweight and obesity in children and adolescents was associated with adverse lipid concentrations. The home food environment is complex but may serve as a modifiable area for nutrition educators to influence dietary intake in youth. Racial and socioeconomic disparities in home food environments should be addressed in the development of effective public policy and nutrition education development. Although the home food environment was not found to be related to obesity in youth, research should continue assessing environmental factors of obesity development as obesity is related to disease development earlier in life.

Pediatric Food Preferences and Eating Behaviors reviews scientific works that investigate why children eat the way they do and whether eating behaviors are modifiable. The book begins with an introduction and historical perspective, and then delves into the development of flavor preferences, the role of repeated exposure and other types of learning, the effects of modeling eating behavior, picky eating, food neophobia, and food selectivity. Other sections discuss appetite regulation, the role of reward pathways, genetic contributions to eating behaviors, environmental influences, cognitive aspects, the development of loss of control eating, and food cognitions and nutrition knowledge. Written by leading researchers in the field, each chapter presents basic concepts and definitions, methodological issues pertaining to measurement, and the current state of scientific knowledge as well as directions for future research.

Creating an environment in which children in the United States grow up healthy should be a high priority for the nation. Yet the prevailing pattern of food and beverage marketing to children in America represents, at best, a missed opportunity, and at worst, a direct threat to the health prospects of the next generation. Children's dietary and related health patterns are shaped by the interplay of many factorsâ€"their biologic affinities, their culture and values, their economic status, their physical and social environments, and their commercial media environmentsâ€"all of which, apart from their genetic predispositions, have undergone significant transformations during the past three decades. Among these environments, none have more rapidly assumed central socializing roles among children and youth than the media. With the growth in the variety and the penetration of the media have come a parallel growth with their use for marketing, including the marketing of food and beverage products. What impact has food and beverage marketing had on the dietary patterns and health status of American children? The answer to this question has the potential to shape a generation and is the focus of Food Marketing to Children and Youth. This book will be of interest to parents, federal and state government agencies, educators and schools, health care professionals, industry companies, industry trade groups, media, and those involved in community and consumer advocacy.