Project Number: 6250-51000-053-70
Project Type: Specific Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Mar 01, 2010
End Date: Mar 31, 2014

Objective:
Objective 1: Identify risk factors, moderators, and mediators for obesity and obesity-related behaviors, including dietary, physical activity, and lifestyle factors using extant datasets. Sub-objective 1A: Determine differences in diet quality among obese, overweight, and normal weight children among a nationally representative sample. Sub-objective 1B: Examine walking or biking to school, objective physical activity, and weight status in adolescents. Sub-objective 1C: Examine the association of television viewing (TV) with source of food, eating occasion, and portion size. Sub-objective 1D: Determine associations between objectively measured physical activity and markers of insulin resistance and cardiovascular disease in US children and adolescents. Sub-objective 1E: Determine the relationship between dietary energy density, obesity, and the metabolic syndrome among adolescents.

Approach:
We will conduct cross-sectional data analyses of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and will focus on the following: diet quality, active commuting to school, television and video viewing, physical activity, and dietary energy density among nationally representative samples of US youth to determine associations with obesity and related disorders. We will identify potential dietary underreporting by using gender and age group specific cutoffs for reported energy intake as a percentage of predicted energy requirements as previously developed by USDA funded research. We will use linear/logistic regression analyses and stratify by socio-demographics to determine the highest at-risk groups for poor diet quality. Since Healthy Eating Index (HEI)-2005 assesses diets on a per 1000 calorie basis, it will not be necessary to control for diet quantity or energy intake for these analyses. To identify potential socio-demographic disparities in the association between moderate to vigorous physical activity and markers of insulin resistance and cardiovascular disease, interactions with gender, race/ethnicity, and income will be examined.