The study demonstrated great promise in creating a health-conducive environment that positively impacts weight and gross motor skill development in children at risk for obesity. Program efficacy should be tested in a randomized trial.

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Background: Early childhood is a formative period for many weight-related behaviors (diet and activity), but little obesity prevention research targeting this age group has been conducted. Early care and education settings are a useful avenue for interventions targeting young children, but the limited research provides insufficient evidence upon which to base policy decisions, practice guidelines, or mobilized efforts to improve healthy eating and physical activity, and ultimately healthy weight development in these settings.Methods: In September of 2011, prominent researchers, young investigators, and leaders in early care and education came together to examine past research and to explore challenges and priorities for future research on healthy weight development in children aged 2-5 years. During this meeting, experts presented and attendees discussed key issues around measurement of diet and physical activity, policy and environment measurement, intervention approaches, policy research, and capacity development. Following the meeting, attendees were invited to participate in an online voting exercise to select top research priorities.Results: A total of 64 research issues were identified, and voting narrowed this list to 24 issues. Highest-rated issues included: Assessment of the quality of children's meals and snacks, use of financial incentives, interventions that include healthcare providers, the role of screen time, and need for multilevel interventions.Conclusions: The presentations within this meeting highlighted the importance of research to address the unique challenges for those working in early care and education settings. Expert and stakeholder consensus of priorities identified significant and innovative areas where future obesity prevention research efforts should be focused.

Childhood obesity continues to increase, disproportionately affecting Mexican American children. The aims of this review are to (a) assess the literature regarding Mexican American mothers' knowledge and perceptions of childhood obesity, prevention, and their role in prevention; (b) critically evaluate the methodological quality of the research conducted on mothers' perceptions of childhood obesity; and (c) make recommendations for future research on parental perceptions of childhood obesity. Four databases were searched for relevant articles and 22 studies met inclusion criteria and were included in the review. Social cognitive theory was used to sort findings across studies. Major findings included the following: (a) barriers to childhood obesity prevention included lack of education regarding prevention and role modeling, (b) only 23% of studies explicitly used a theoretical framework to guide their study, and (c) most studies used heterogeneous groups to examine perceptions. Implications for future research and practice are presented.

Context With 25% of pre-school age children in the United States being overweight or obese, effective interventions for these children would have significant public health implications. Randomized trials targeting this age group have been done since the last systematic review. Objective To systematically review the literature on treatment interventions for overweight or obesity in pre-school age children. Data Sources Medline (1948–July 2014), the Cochrane Central Registry (1991–July 2014), CINAHL (1990–July2014) and PAS abstracts (2000–2014). Study Selection Inclusion criteria were children age 0–6 in the study and adiposity as an outcome. Exclusions were having normal weight children in the trial and not having a comparison group. Data Extraction Data were extracted independently by two authors using a template. Results The initial search yielded 1,981 results, narrowed to 289 abstracts after initial review. Further analysis and cross-referencing led to the selection of six randomized controlled trials representing 1222 children. Two studies used systems changes and motivational interviewing and showed no significant effect on adiposity. Two studies used an intensive, multi-disciplinary approach over six months and demonstrated significant decreases in adiposity. One study tested parental coaching and showed a significant reduction in adiposity at six months. One study used education on a dairy-rich diet and showed a possible effect on adiposity. Limitations The study designs were too heterogeneous for meta-analysis; few ethnic minority subjects were included. Conclusions Multi-disciplinary, intensive interventions have some evidence of efficacy in reducing adiposity in pre-school children.