Objective Examine the relationship of family meals to children’s consumption of fruit and vegetables as well as soda and chips. Additionally, to assess the relationship between viewing TV during family meals and children’s diet. Design Cross-sectional study that used a questionnaire completed by parents. Setting Thirteen schools in San Diego, CA. Participants Seven hundred ninety-four children and their parents. Analysis Ordinal regression assessed associations between children’s intake of fruit, vegetables, soda, and chips with family meal frequency and TV viewing during family meals. Results Children who consumed breakfast, lunch, or dinner with their family at least 4 days per week ate fruit and vegetables 5 or more times a week 84%, 85%, and 80%, respectively. Of those children who ate breakfast, lunch, or dinner with their family at least 4 days per week, 40%, 44%, and 43%consumed soda and chips 5 or more times a week, respectively. Children who ate breakfast with their families at least 4 times a week were more likely to consume fruit and vegetables, and children whose TV was never or rarely on during family meals were less likely to consume soda and chips (P 0.04 and P < 0.001, respectively). Conclusions Interventions geared at increasing the frequency of eating breakfast as a family and decreasing the amount of TV watched during family meals are needed, especially among acculturating Latino families.

Background Lung cancer exhibits unique patterns among women, including high adenocarcinoma rates among non-smokers. Inconsistent findings regarding hormonal factors on risk may reflect incomplete control for confounding, misclassification of exposures, or insufficient attention to variation by histology. Methods Among 185,017 women, ages 50–71 years, recruited during 1995–1996 for the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study, we identified 3,512 incident lung cancers (including 276 in never smokers) in follow-up through December 2006. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards models estimated relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for self-reported hormonally-related risk factors. Results After adjustment for smoking and other confounders, subjects with late menarche were at reduced risk, with the association specific for adenocarcinomas (RR=0.72 for menarche 15+ vs. <11, p for trend<0.01). Subjects with early ages at ovarian cessation (either from natural menopause or bilateral oophorectomy) were at an increased risk for adenocarcinomas and squamous cell tumors, but the associations were strongest for smokers, suggesting either residual confounding or an enhanced effect of menopausally-related factors among subjects with decreased endogenous estrogens. In contrast, we saw no relationships of risk with either parity, age at first birth, or exogenous hormone use. Conclusions Elevated levels of hormones may adversely affect lung function early in life, while assisting with cellular and immunologic responses later in life. Additional attention towards the role of hormonal factors may further our understanding of lung carcinogenesis. Impact Our findings provide some support for a role of hormonal factors in the etiology of lung cancer, although the mechanisms appear complicated.

Studies have shown that whites have a higher colorectal cancer survival rate than blacks. However, it is unclear whether racial disparities result from unequal access to medical care or factors other than healthcare access or both. This study assessed whether non-Hispanic Whites (NHWs) and non-Hispanic Blacks (NHBs) differ in colon cancer (CC) survival in an equal-access healthcare system and examined whether racial differences varied by demographic and tumor characteristics. The study included 2,537 Military Health System patients diagnosed with CC between 1998 and 2007. Median follow-up time was 31.4 months. Cox models estimated hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for race, overall and stratified by age at diagnosis, sex, and tumor stage. No difference in overall survival (OS) between NHWs and NHBs was observed in general. However, among patients younger than 50 years old, NHBs experienced significantly worse OS than NHWs (HR: 2.27, 95% CI: 1.48–3.49). Further stratification by sex and tumor stage showed that this racial disparity was confined to women (HR: 2.80, 95% CI: 1.30–6.00) and patients with distant stage disease (HR: 2.65, 95% CI: 1.38–5.08) in this age group. When medical care is equally available to NHWs and NHBs, similar overall CC survival was observed; however, evidence of racial differences in survival was apparent for patients younger than 50 years old. This study suggests that factors other than access to care may be related to racial disparities in CC survival among younger, but not older, patients.