Association of School Nutrition Policy and Parental Control With Childhood Overweight Journal of School Health, 05/25/2012

Seo DC et al. – School nutrition policy and parental control over children's eating and physical activity habits are associated with the children's overweight status.

• Data were analyzed from a total of 246 pairs of children and parents who were recruited in the 2008-2009 academic year from 10 randomly selected public secondary schools in Indiana (school response rate = 66.7%; participant response rate = 73.5%).
• Logistic regression analyses were performed to examine odds ratios of different levels of school nutrition policies and parental control with and without adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics.

• Children who attended schools where soda pop (OR = 3.79, p < .01) and non-low-fat salty snacks (OR = 2.46, p = .05) could be purchased were more likely to be obese than those at schools where such items were not sold.
• Children whose parents rarely or never ensured that their child was avoiding eating too many sweets (OR = 2.33, p = .08), avoiding spending too much time watching TV (OR = 2.24, p = .06), or engaging in physical activity (OR = 2.35, p = .09) were more likely to be obese than children whose parents did so always or most of the time.