Childhood obesity has reached epidemic levels in developed countries. Twenty five percent of children in the US are overweight and 11% are obese. Overweight and obesity in childhood are known to have significant impact on both physical and psychological health. The mechanism of obesity development is not fully understood and it is believed to be a disorder with multiple causes. Environmental factors, lifestyle preferences, and cultural environment play pivotal roles in the rising prevalence of obesity worldwide. In general, overweight and obesity are assumed to be the results of an increase in caloric and fat intake. On the other hand, there are supporting evidence that excessive sugar intake by soft drink, increased portion size, and steady decline in physical activity have been playing major roles in the rising rates of obesity all around the world. Consequently, both over-consumption of calories and reduced physical activity are involved in childhood obesity. Almost all researchers agree that prevention could be the key strategy for controlling the current epidemic of obesity. Prevention may include primary prevention of overweight or obesity, secondary prevention or prevention of weight regains following weight loss, and avoidance of more weight increase in obese persons unable to lose weight. Until now, most approaches have focused on changing the behaviour of individuals in diet and exercise. It seems, however, that these strategies have had little impact on the growing increase of the obesity epidemic. While about 50% of the adults are overweight and obese in many countries, it is difficult to reduce excessive weight once it becomes established. Children should therefore be considered the priority population for intervention strategies. Prevention may be achieved through a variety of interventions targeting built environment, physical activity, and diet. Some of these potential strategies for intervention in children can be implemented by targeting preschool institutions, schools or after-school care services as natural setting for influencing the diet and physical activity. All in all, there is an urgent need to initiate prevention and treatment of obesity in children.

Depression is one of the most common mental disorders in Western countries and is related to increased morbidity and mortality from medical conditions and decreased quality of life. The sociodemographic factors of age, gender, marital status, education, immigrant status, and income have consistently been identified as important factors in explaining the variability in depression prevalence rates. This study evaluates the relationship between depression and these sociodemographic factors in the province of Ontario in Canada using the Canadian Community Health Survey, Cycle 1.2 (CCHS-1.2) dataset.

This article provides an overview and application of Q-methodology for nursing researchers, with an illustration of its appropriate usage. Q-methodology has been identified as a method for the analysis of subjective viewpoints and has the strengths of both qualitative and quantitative methods. It shares with qualitative methodologies the aim of exploring subjectivity; however, statistical techniques are used to reveal the structure of views. This article describes the use of Q-methodology to examine subjectivity systematically, revealing connections between accounts that other techniques may overlook. An example from the literature is presented. Q-methodology is useful in qualitative nursing research concerned with the exploration and comparison of subjectivity and attitudes. It can be used to effectively identify attitudes, perceptions, feelings, and values as well as explore life experiences such as stress, self-esteem, body image, and satisfaction.

Much attention has been given to the adequacy of prenatal care use in promoting healthy outcomes for women and their infants. Adequacy of use takes into account the timing of initiation of prenatal care and the number of visits. However, there is emerging evidence that the quality of prenatal care may be more important than adequacy of use. The purpose of our study was to explore women's and care providers' perspectives of quality prenatal care to inform the development of items for a new instrument, the Quality of Prenatal Care Questionnaire. We report on the derivation of themes resulting from this first step of questionnaire development.

As the primary source of dietary vitamin C is fruit and to some extent vegetables, the plasma level of vitamin C has been considered a good surrogate or predictor of vitamin C intake by fruit and vegetable consumption. The purpose of this systematic review was to investigate the relationship between dietary vitamin C intakes measured by different dietary methods and plasma levels of vitamin C.