Generational Differences: A Comparison of Weight-Related Cognitions and Behaviors of Generation X and Millennial Mothers of Preschool Children

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on children overweight in Japan in 2020

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to explore the association between the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and overweight incidence among preadolescent elementary school children in Japan.

METHODS

A population-based longitudinal study was conducted in Adachi City, Tokyo, Japan, using data from the Adachi Child Health Impact of Living Difficulty (A-CHILD) study. The control group (2016-2018) comprised 434 children, and the COVID-19 exposure group (2018-2020) included 3500 children. Overweight was defined as a body mass index (BMI) z-score of 1 SD or more according to the World Health Organization standards. The study design involved comparing BMI z-scores before and after exposure to the pandemic, considering the associated lifestyle changes and potential consequences on physical activity, parental employment status and income.

RESULTS

By 6th grade, the prevalence of overweight increased from 17.7% to 19.2% in the control group and 22.5% to 29.5% in the COVID-19 exposure group. Difference-in-differences analysis revealed that children's exposure to COVID-19 significantly increased BMI z-scores (coefficient 0.22, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.14-0.29) and a higher odds ratio of overweight (odds ratio 2.51, 95% CI 1.12-5.62), even after adjusting for time-varying covariates.

CONCLUSION

The COVID-19 pandemic has been associated with an increased prevalence of overweight among elementary school children in Japan.

The role of digital mobile technology in elderly health management among health care workers in Indonesia: Analysis of knowledge, attitudes, and practice

Background

Technology, including information and communication technology (ICT), plays a significant role in the quality of health services. However, its application in elderly health services is still lacking. The aim of this study was to determine the knowledge of, attitudes toward, and practices of cell phone and mobile application use for elderly health care among Indonesian health care workers.

Methods

This was a cross-sectional study conducted with health care workers in Jakarta, Indonesia. The potential subjects were contacted through instant messenger application and/or through conventional short message service or telephone calls from August through November 2020.

Results

There were 134 subjects. All the subjects had used various health applications to assist with their daily work, including telemedicine (64.2%), guidelines (60.4%), and medical calculators (46.3%). However, 96.3% of the subjects were not aware of the existence of a health application for geriatric assessment. Furthermore, 98.5% of subjects thought that it is important to use ICT to manage geriatric patients, and 94.8% felt that comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) in digital form would help them manage geriatric patients better. Nevertheless, 35.10% of subjects had never applied CGA to their geriatric patients.

Conclusions

The current health care system has begun to enter a period of using ICT in performing health services for geriatric patients. Nevertheless, only a few Indonesian health care workers were aware of or were using the geriatric mobile application. It is essential to improve the dissemination of geriatric health care and e-health literacy among them to improve the quality of elderly health care.

[Anxiety in the presence of food in schoolchildren of Baja California Sur]

Introduction

Introduction: many obese children will be obese adults unless they adopt and maintain healthy eating and physical activity patterns. Anxiety has been described in overweight and obese children with dysfunctional family environments, with impact on their quality of life; risk for some eating disorder was also found. Objective: to identify anxiety in the presence of food in schoolchildren in Baja California Sur. Material and methods: a cross-sectional study in 406 schoolchildren, from 8 to 13 years of age, was performed: nutritional status calculation, measurements of attitudes towards food (cut-off point > 20), socioeconomic level, type of family, and intake of junk food were collected. Descriptive statistics and association measures were performed using Student's t-test and the chi-squared test. Parents provided their informed consent, and children provided their assent. Results: a total of 406 schoolchildren were evaluated, with ages of 10.4 ± 1.2. Of these, 53 % had healthy weight, 44 % had overweight or obesity, and 3 % were underweight. Functional families predominated at 67 %. A middle socioeconomic level was found in 64 %. In all, 94 % consumed junk food. There is an association between anxiety in the presence of food and socioeconomic status, and anxiety in the presence of food and nutritional status (p = 0.01). In overweight and obese schoolchildren no association was found between study variables. There is anxiety in the presence of food in 40 % of the sample due to external factors, in 5 % because of tiredness or boredom, in 11 % because of negative feelings. Conclusion: there is an association between anxiety, socioeconomic status, and nutritional status. Anxiety in the presence of food occurred in 54.7 % of cases.