Parental influences on young girls’ fruit and vegetable, micronutrient, and fat intakes

Objective To evaluate parents’ fruit and vegetable intake and their use of pressure to eat in child feeding as predictors of their 5-year-old daughters’ fruit and vegetable, micronutrient, and fat intakes.Subjects Data were obtained from 191 non-Hispanic white families with 5-year-old girls.Design Parent data included reports of pressure in child feeding and their own fruit and vegetable intake. Girls’ intakes of fruits and vegetables, selected micronutrients, and fat were the main outcomes of interest.Statistical analysis Structural equation modeling was used to test a model describing relationships among parents’ fruit and vegetable intake, parents’ use of pressure in child feeding, and daughters’ fruit and vegetable, micronutrient, and fat intakes.Results The model provided a good fit to the data, revealing that girls’ fruit and vegetable intake was positively related to their parents’ reported fruit and vegetable intake. Parents who consumed fewer fruits and vegetables tended to report greater pressure in child feeding and had daughters who consumed fewer fruits and vegetables. Girls’ reported fruit and vegetable intakes were positively related to their micronutrient intakes and negatively associated with fat intake.Applications/conclusions This research demonstrates that parents’ own fruit and vegetable intake may encourage fruit and vegetable intake in their daughters, leading to higher micronutrient intakes and lower dietary fat intakes. Conversely, pressure to eat may discourage fruit and vegetable intake among young girls. J Am Diet Assoc. 2002;102:58–64.     

Circulating filarial antigen in cats infected with Brugia pahangi is indicative of the presence of adult worms

Using counterimmunoelectrophoresis with rabbit antisera raised against soluble extracts of adult females of Brugia pahangi parasite antigen was detected in the serum of all cats repeatedly infected with B. pahangi. Antigen was never detected in uninfected cats. The antigen was associated with the presence of adult worms. Antigen was detected consistently in a cat that was amicrofilaraemic but at autopsy harboured only two or three adult worms. Conversely, some cats showed slowly declining numbers of microfilariae and, in these, circulating antigen declined before the number of microfilariae. Eventually no antigen was detectable in circulation whereas microfilariae, although in diminishing numbers, were still present. At autopsy no adult worms were found in these cats. Antigen also appeared in several cats before they became microfilaraemic.     

Item of Service Remuneration in General Practice in the UK: What Can We Learn From Dentists?

Birch S. Item of service remuneration in general practice inthe UK: what can we learn from dentists? Family Practice 1988;5: 265–270. In response to the UK Government's proposal to increase theproportion of general practitioner income accruing from capitationpayments the General Medical Services Committee of the BritishMedical Association has called for an extension of fee for itemof service provision in general practice. In this paper theallocation of resources in primary care dentistry, where feefor service provision is currently used, is analysed in orderto shed light on the debate. Since dentists' fees are set inaccordance with average dentist time inputs, differences incost per treatment course reflect differences in course content.Multiple regression techniques are used to estimate a cost pertreatment course function. Using cross-sectional data for familypractitioner committees in England and Wales for 1982 a significantnegative correlation is found between cost per course and populationper dentist after allowing for patient demand and need characteristics.A 10% decrease in population per dentist is associated witha 2.5% increase in cost per course. The observation cannot beexplained by dentists rationing treatment in the presence ofexcess demand owing to the nature of the dentist contract. These results imply that in areas of greater supplies of dentistsadditional course content is being induced by dentists in orderto maintain workloads. Hence although fee for service provisionoffers a financial incentive to increase service provision itoffers no incentive to allocate services efficiently, that isin accordance with greatest need. The extension of fee for serviceprovision in general medical practice would appear to be inconsistentwith an objective of allocating scarce primary care resourcesin accordance with patient need.     

Restricting Access to Foods and Children''s Eating

This study evaluated maternal restriction of children's access to snack foods as a predictor of children's intake of those foods when they were made freely available. In addition, child and parent eating-related "risk" factors were used to predict maternal reports of restricting access. Participants were 71, 3-to-5-year-old children (36 boys, 35 girls) and their parents. Children's snack food intake was measured immediately following a meal, in a setting offering free access to palatable snack foods. Child and maternal reports of restricting children's access to those snack foods were obtained. In addition, information on child and parent adiposity as well as parents' restrained and disinhibited eating was used to examine "risk" factors for restricting access. For girls only, child and maternal reports of restricting access predicted girls' snack food intake, with higher levels of restriction predicting higher levels of snack food intake. Maternal restriction, in turn, was predicted by children's adiposity. Additionally, parents' own restrained eating style predicted maternal restriction of girls' access to snack foods.     

Closing the theory—practice gap: a model of nursing praxis

Summary

• ? Despite the efforts of nursing theorists, educationalists and practitioners, the theory-practice gap continues to defy resolution. This paper argues that only by reconsidering the relation between theory and practice can the gap be closed.
• ? Drawing upon ideas from teaching and other practice-based disciplines, including nursing, the article suggests that the current model of viewing theory as informing and controlling practice should give way to a mutually enhancing model in which theory is derived from practice, and in turn influences future practice.
• ? This coming together of theory and practice is referred to as nursing praxis, and suggests that informal theory should be unique to each individual encounter with each patient.
• ? The clinical nurse is thus not only a practitioner, but a theorist and researcher, who responds to patients not according to some grand, inflexible theory, but by the process of reflection-in-action, drawing upon their expertise and a repertoire of past experiences and encounters.

     

AN APPRAISAL OF TECHNIQUES FOR STUDYING CEREBRAL CIRCULATION IN THE NEWBORN

ABSTRACT. The study of cerebral circulation in ill pre-term infants is important both to improve our understanding of the physiological aspects of cerebral blood flow control, and to provide further insight into the aetiology of intracranial intra-ventricular haemorrhage. Progress in this field has been hampered by the absence of measurement techniques which must be safe and clinically applicable whilst at the same time providing results with sufficient quality for the confident development of hypotheses.
The symposium was held in order to evaluate critically the measurement techniques which might be considered for use in the sick, human newborn infant.     

EFFECT OF I.V. LIGNOCAINE ON PAIN AND THE ENDOCRINE METABOLIC RESPONSES AFTER SURGERY

Pain intensity, and blood glucose and plasma cortisol concentrationswere measured following abdominal hysterectomy in 18 patientsallocated randomly to receive either i.v. lignocaine 1.5 mgkg^–1 plus 2 mg kg^–1 h^–1, or saline. The administrationof lignocaine resulted in plasma conentrations between 1.5 and2.0 µg ml^–1 during the 2-h study period. However,the administration of lignocaine i.v. had no effect on the intensityof pain after surgery, or on the adrenocortical and hyperglycaemicresponses to surgery.