A new approach to improving youth mental public health - the TRIUMPH network

In this blog, Professor Lisa McDaid, Programme Leader of the Social Relationships and Health Improvement programme, MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow, announces the launch of The Transdisciplinary Research for the Improvement of Youth MentalPublic Health (TRIUMPH) Network.

One in eight children and young people experience mental health problems and the majority of these have onset before their mid-twenties. Yet, 70% of young people have not had the appropriate intervention that they need. Young people face considerable pressures as they grow up; pressures that are driven by the ever-changing environment in which we live. Changes in technology, communications and the media that we are exposed to have coincided with an increasing prevalence of mental health problems, especially among girls – just last week, a new study reported that nearly one in four young women aged 17-19 have experienced mental illness. Yet we have few effective solutions for the improvement of youth mental public health.

Treatment and care, when accessible, treats the problems, not the causes.

The traditional mental health sciences most often focus on understanding and solving mental health problems at the individual level, but many of the drivers of poor mental health sit at the broader social, environmental and cultural level and are affected by the relationships we have, and the settings and communities that we live within.

The TRIUMPH Network

In setting up the TRIUMPH (Transdisciplinary Research for the Improvement of Youth Mental Public Health) Network we believe that there is a different, solution-focused approach. One that seeks to understand young people’s strengths, assets and resiliences, which we can draw on to improve health. Moving from problems to solutions is not easy, but if we do not act, we are in danger of failing a generation of young people. 

To improve youth mental public health, the TRIUMPH Network will bring together young people with academics from across the clinical, social, arts and design sciences in sustained collaboration with practitioners, policy-makers and third sector partners.  To make a difference, and deliver a transformative agenda of engagement and research, we will incorporate two core approaches: co-production and co-design with young people.

Co-production

Young people will be at the centre of the TRIUMPH Network. We as researchers will work with young people to facilitate their ideas, using our knowledge, training, methods and techniques to turn these into reality, into new solutions to improve youth mental public health. We will work together to find new ways to improve mental health and wellbeing, especially among marginalised groups, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and care experienced young people, where need is greatest. We will target our efforts at the peer groups, social networks and education settings with strongest influence on young people’s health and behaviours.

Co-design

To understand and identify innovative solutions, while recognising the complexity of youth mental public health, we will take a participatory design approach. This means using different visual methods and creative outputs to support engagement with young people, bringing innovation to our planned activities, making the decision-making process more accessible, and supporting productive dialogue across the Network and beyond. This will include workshops to understand the mental health problems facing young people, identify possible solutions and take forward project ideas, and information exchange and community engagement events to share learning and increase the involvement of those most affected by youth mental ill-health.

Youth mental public health is a big problem and identifying solutions at the population-level needs a bold approach. TRIUMPH’s long-term vision is to improve youth mental public health in the UK; to reduce the proportion of young people that do not receive appropriate intervention. By finding the solutions to prevent and reduce mental health problems, we can benefit young people, as well as their families, friends and the communities they live in.

TRIUMPH will achieve this by focusing where need is greatest, co-producing solutions, and building transdisciplinary research capacity to take forward interventions that are effective, acceptable, and sustainable in the real world.

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The TRIUMPH network is open to anyone with an interest in young people's mental health and wellbeing, including young people, service uses, those with lived experiences, and others directly affected by mental health issues. If you would like to join, please visit: http://triumph.sphsu.gla.ac.uk/contact 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog are those of the author.

The TRIUMPH Network is funded by UKRI. The MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit is funded by the Medical Research Council and the Scottish Government Chief Scientist Office. The views expressed are not necessarily those of the Medical Research Council or the Scottish Government.

This blog was originally published on 1st December 2018 (https://www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/healthwellbeing/research/mrccsosocialandpublichealthsciencesunit/sharingourevidence/blog/headline_624666_en.html)

How does providing support for young families affect children’s well-being?

Dr Alison Parkes from the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit at the University of Glasgow highlights findings from a recent study exploring the impact of support for parents on children’s well-being. 

Many parents with young children need extra help from time to time, in the form of financial aid, childcare or emotional support. Although it is well known that support can relieve parenting stress, it is less clear whether support for parents has a measurable impact on children’s well-being. Our study[i] of 2600 families living in Scotland found a link between the availability of support for mothers during the early years and children’s later mental wellbeing.

In order to be able to discount other possible explanations for the association found, the study controlled for a range of other factors related to both low levels of family support and poor child outcomes. Even after allowing for other factors such as family poverty and lone parenthood, we found lower levels of behavioural and emotional problems among school-age children whose mothers had been able to access support during their child’s early years.

The study examined mothers’ perceptions of the availability of support via two different channels: informal social support networks from friends and relatives, and support from health and social work professionals. There is universal provision of professional support for parents in the UK (for example, from health visitors and via GPs), as well as a range of support services targeted at vulnerable parents. Nonetheless, families often perceive barriers to service access and engagement. These only partly relate to low awareness or practical problems. Importantly, they also reflect parents’ perceptions that available support is inadequate to meet their needs, and fears about interference and stigma.

In exploring the ways in which support for mothers improved children’s wellbeing, the study found that professional support and social networks acted differently. Greater access to help from health and social work professionals was associated with more positive parenting, which in turn reduced the risk of children developing behavioural and emotional problems. Good social support from friends and relatives did not affect parenting so directly. However, the positive effects of social support on mothers’ greater economic security and mental wellbeing led in turn to more positive parenting, which then benefited children.

The study also looked at whether support helped to protect children’s wellbeing when families were under particular strain. Access to professional support channels had the strongest buffering effect. Among families with good access to professional support, the study found a weaker impact of less positive parenting on children’s emotional difficulties, when compared with families who found it difficult to access such help. A smaller buffering effect was found for social support. Here, the impact of family money problems on children’s emotional difficulties was weaker among families with strong social networks, compared with families who lacked this type of support. Collectively, our findings point to the value of professional services and social networks in strengthening children’s resilience to adversity. 

In conclusion, our study findings underline the importance of good social support networks for all families with young children, as well as the need to ensure good access to health and welfare services through building greater parental awareness and trust.

Further details can be found in the following open access publication (forthcoming): Alison Parkes and Helen Sweeting (2018) Indirect, and Buffering Effects of Support for Mothers on Children's Socioemotional Adjustment, Journal of Family Psychology


[i] This study used the Growing Up in Scotland first birth cohort, a nationally representative sample of families with children born between June 2004 and May 2005. For more information, see https://growingupinscotland.org.uk/

Children's rights and wellbeing

Kay Tisdall, CRFR co-director

How do children’s rights and children’s wellbeing fit together? I became concerned about this in 2012. The Government proposed new legislation, in Scotland, promising ‘to make rights real’ for children. And the Government said it would legislate for ‘Getting it Right for Every Child’ (GIRFEC), so that the initiative was fully implemented across Scotland. GIRFEC seeks to improve how professionals and agencies work together, encouraging prevention and early intervention with children and their families. GIRFEC is outcomes-based, organised around 8 children’s wellbeing indicators. With both children’s rights and children’s wellbeing placed in the same legislation, an intellectual interest – how do the two concepts fit together? – became a practical policy concern.

Over the next 3 years, I have worked with colleagues, the Common Weal, and then colleagues in Europe and North America, to work out how the concepts are similar and different. If there are differences, do the differences matter? After all, children’s rights can fit into children’s wellbeing; children’s wellbeing can fit into children’s rights.

In the article just published in the Journal of Social Policy, I suggest that the time is past for casually pairing children’s rights and children’s wellbeing. Children’s rights and children’s wellbeing are distinct concepts, each with their own historical, philosophical and practical strengths and weaknesses. Children’s wellbeing benefits from being aspirational and maximising. It can easily incorporate children’s relationships and collective needs. Researchers have developed advanced quantitative methods of measurement, attractive for outcomes-based indicators. But children’s wellbeing risks being apolitical, utilitarian and professionally-led in both measurement and practice. Children’s rights, in contrast, emphasise minimum standards, do not easily include such important matters for children like love and friendship, and has had limited investment in quantitative measures to date. Children’s rights can be accused of over-emphasising individual autonomy and thus antithetical to more collective cultures around the world. Yet, children’s rights are powerful politically, backed by law and hold duty-bearers to account.

Melton claimed in 2014 that ‘the most fundament need in child policy is for due respect towards children as people’. Children’s rights require and underline such respect for children. It is possible for children’s wellbeing to include children’s rights. But this is not essential to how children’s wellbeing is conceptualised, measured or implemented. I thus favour children’s rights, at least for Scotland, where we still have so much to argue for: from children’s access to justice, to unacceptably high and increasing levels of child poverty, to urban estates replete with ‘no ball games’ signs on unused grass.

With children’s wellbeing on the national and international ascendance, a decision needs to be made about whether wellbeing or human rights best frame policy and practice. In Scotland – if only to rationalise dual planning tracks and other confusing policy requirements – we certainly need to do so.

Tisdall, E. K.M. (2015) 'Children’s Rights and Children’s Wellbeing: Equivalent Policy Concepts?' Journal of Social Policy, vol 44, no. 4, pp. 807-823., 10.1017/S0047279415000306

Melton, G. (2014) ‘ ‘Because it’s the right (or wrong) thing to do’: when children’s wellbeing is the wrong outcome’, in Ben-Arieh, A., Casas, F., Frones, I. and Korbin, J. (eds) Handbook of Child Well-Being, Dordrecht: Springer.

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Do you want to develop your skills in research and consultation with children and young people? Take a look at our Continuing Professional Development courses, delivered by Dr Susan Elsley and Professor Kay Tisdall:

10-11th March 2016: Involving children and young people in research and consultation
28-29th April 2016: Using creative methods in research with children and young people

Helping parents help children: do we know what works for children with long-term health conditions?

How easy is it for parents of children with long-term health conditions to make sure treatment plans are followed? Alina Morawska, from the Parenting and Family Support Centre at the University of Queensland explores some of the factors that influence the successful management of chronic conditions and asks what can be done to better support parents?

Can parents and the way they deal with their children’s behaviour actually make kids’ sick? Of course, this is a simplistic question and thankfully we have moved beyond the days of parentectomy(1), when removal of parents was thought to be an appropriate treatment action for chronically ill children. Yet, there is also no doubt that what parents do and how parents and children relate greatly matter to all children.

In population health terms, the question of how we can help families of children with chronic illnesses is an extremely important problem to consider. Childhood chronic health conditions, such as asthma, eczema and diabetes are common, and rates are on the rise around the world(2). It is estimated that up to a quarter of Australian children are diagnosed with long term health conditions, and while most are not life threatening they bring considerable burden for children, families and communities.

Most chronic health conditions require ongoing medical care and management. The burden of this care largely falls on parents. Parents are ultimately responsible for ensuring that children apply their eczema creams, that they take regular blood glucose readings or that they have their asthma reliever with them when they go to school. While some treatment actions are relatively straightforward, others are quite complex and require considerable knowledge and practice to implement correctly – something parents have had little preparation or training for.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that children generally don’t understand the long term benefits of treatment. As most of us have experienced at some point in our lives, treatments can be unpleasant, uncomfortable or painful. Thus, treatment requires the parent to get the child to do something they don’t want to do essentially because their parent asks. This of course mirrors any other parent-child interactions where parent and child goals and motivations differ – cleaning up rooms, completing homework, limits on screen time – however the child’s resistance and refusal to cooperate in the context of illness management is particularly problematic. Parents and children need to be able to communicate well in a positive, supportive and loving context in order effectively and correctly undertake the treatment. Over time, the transfer of responsibility for illness management from parent to child is best done when both parent and child are working together and communicating well. If the parent finds the task of getting their child to take their medication too hard, too stressful and too overwhelming they may simply give up.

Do parents really give up and not persist with their child’s prescribed management plan? We know that non-adherence with treatment and prevention is around 50% and can be as high as 75%(3). Is this just because children refuse to take medication and parents give up? Of course not; there are many reasons for non-adherence, simply forgetting being at the top of the list. But parents do say that their child’s resistance to treatment plays a role in non-adherence(4).

Non-adherence is a well-recognised problem, yet to date interventions to improve adherence, which have largely focused on education, have not been particularly effective(5). It is also the case that the effects of psychosocial parenting and family interventions on outcomes including parenting, mental health, and child illness symptoms have been limited(6). Notably, the majority of studies to date have not targeted parenting practices specifically and those that have, have had mixed outcomes.

So what should we do? How should we help parents?

Our paper(7) outlines the links between parenting and child behaviour and makes recommendations for the development and testing of parenting interventions in the context of childhood chronic health conditions. We also make some suggestions for how parenting intervention might be used to support parents, but of course whether such programs are effective is still largely an open question. We hope that research at our Centre and the work of many others around the world will be able to provide some guidance on what works and what doesn’t in the near future.

The Journal of Child Health Care has kindly made the article, on which this blog is based, open access until 2 May 2015. Please read the full article: Parenting interventions for childhood chronic illness: a review and recommendations for intervention design and delivery.

About the Triple P programme
The Triple P – Positive Parenting Program is owned by The University of Queensland. The University, through its main technology transfer company, UniQuest Pty Ltd, has licensed Triple P International Pty Ltd to publish and disseminate the program worldwide. Royalties stemming from published Triple P resources are distributed in accordance with the University’s intellectual property policy and flow to the Parenting and Family Support Centre, School of Psychology, Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences, and contributory authors. No author has any share or ownership in Triple P International Pty Ltd. Alina Morawska is an author of various Triple P resources.

Contact Alina: alina@psy.uq.edu.au at the Parenting and Family Support Centre, School of Psychology, University of Queensland

References

1. Robinson, G., 1972, The story of parentectomy. The Journal of Asthma Research, 9: p. 199-205.

2. Van Cleave, J., Gortmaker, S.L., and Perrin, J.M., 2010, Dynamics of obesity and chronic health conditions among children and youth. JAMA, 303(7): p. 623-30.

3. Morton, R.W., Everard, M.L., and Elphick, H.E., 2014, Adherence in childhood asthma: the elephant in the room. Arch Dis Child, 99(10): p. 949-53.

4. Burgess, S.W., Sly, P.D., Morawska, A., Cooper, D.M., and Devadason, S.G., 2008, Assessing adherence and factors associated with adherence in young children with asthma. Respirology, 13: p. 559–563.

5. Dean, A.J., Walters, J., and Hall, A., 2010, A systematic review of interventions to enhance medication adherence in children and adolescents with chronic illness. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 95(9): p. 717-723.

6. Law, E.F., Fisher, E., Fales, J., Noel, M., and Eccleston, C., 2014, Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Parent and Family-Based Interventions for Children and Adolescents With Chronic Medical Conditions. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 39(8): p. 866-886.

7. Morawska, A., Calam, R., and Fraser, J., 2015, Parenting interventions for childhood chronic illness: A review and recommendations for intervention design and delivery. Journal of Child Health Care 19(1): p. 5-17.

Hunger matters

Jessie Gunson (Flinders University, South Australia) kindly gave a CRFR informal seminar during her recent visit to Scotland. In this blog, Jessie and colleagues Megan Warin and Vivienne Moore (University of Adelaide, South Australia) recount the seminar and give us some insight into their recent research.

 

When we think of the relationship between hunger and poverty we often conjure in our mind images from famine and overseas aid campaigns. If we are asked to think of a picture of a child who is hungry, that child would more than likely appear as thin. This child we imagine as having ‘not enough’ food. Childhood obesity, on the other hand, (indeed obesity in general) is commonly presented as being a case of ‘too much’. Too much ‘junk food’, too many calories, too many fizzy drinks. However, our recent research with children, carried out in Adelaide and funded by a Channel 7 Children’s Research Foundation grant, has prompted us to think about:

• the ‘unspoken’ possibility of being both hungry and obese,
• how this impacts on children’s lives, and
• what implications this might have for public health interventions.

Children from low socio-economic backgrounds have been made a significant priority in Australian government obesity interventions. Such programmes tend to focus on promoting change in food and exercise practices. In our research we carried out qualitative, ethnographic research with children aged 10-14 to explore their understanding of obesity in relation to a large government-funded obesity prevention programme in South Australia. We found that central to children’s experiences of food, particularly in low socio-economic settings, is how they cope with hunger, both practically and more conceptually.

Our two key findings were:

• Short term management of hunger is more important for children and their carers than long term health agendas.
• Hunger is stigmatised, therefore children who are obese are at risk of being doubly marginalised in their day-to-day lives.

Children living in low socio-economic settings experience ‘food insecurity’ where food supplies and availability are precarious and unpredictable. In our research we found that the financial vulnerability of families (for example, through unemployment, low income, or sudden changes in circumstance) meant that children experienced significant fluctuations in both their ability to access food and, therefore, their feelings of hunger. Managing hunger on a day-to-day basis was tactically imperative for children themselves, as well as for the carers and community workers that they engaged with.

 

 Children and their carers knew what the ‘healthy lifestyle’ messages were, and how these had been presented as choosing salads and fruit over fast food, and riding or walking to school instead of going in the car. However, in community settings such as after-school clubs, where the food was supplied by hunger-relief agencies, first priority was given to making sure children did not go hungry, with emphasis on healthy eating a less urgent concern.

 

The children at the centre of our study occupied a somewhat ironic position in that they were simultaneously being targeted by a major obesity intervention and by hunger relief initiatives. The children we spoke to described mixed feelings, including unease and disgust when they talked about having to eat food supplied by such agencies. They were clearly aware of where their food was coming from, and how this marked them out as ‘poor’.

 

Our findings show how restricted and constrained food choices are for children who are living in poverty, leaving little space for children (or parents and community staff for that matter) to make ‘healthy choices’ and active selections, and putting extra emphasis on the adult carers to negotiate and encourage children to eat what is available.

 

Our research shows that public health interventions need to more closely address the relationship between social and physiological causes of obesity. The dominant messages of ‘energy in versus energy out’ and ‘healthy choices’ do not take into account the urgent, day-to-day issues that take priority when living in low-socioeconomic settings. If we only see obesity in terms of excess – too much food, then we cannot understand why hunger and obesity can coexist.

 

For more information please contact Jessie Gunson by email.

 

 

 

 

 

How does research impact happen?

CRFR have been working in partnership with key voluntary sector organisations from the children and families sector since our inception in 2001.  Sarah Morton carried out an impact case study on the wider effects of CRFR and ChildLine Scotland’s (CLS) joint research conducted between 2004 and 2009.  

This research had investigated children’s concerns about significant others and children’s concerns about sexual health.  Findings about how impact occurs have just been published in an article in the Evidence and Policy Journal which the Policy Press have kindly granted open access to until the end of May 2014: Creating research impact:the roles of research users in interactive research mobilisation. The study is one of very few examples of detailed analysis of the processes of research use by non-academics.

The concepts of ‘research uptake, use and impact’ were defined in this study, in order to describe the processes of research utilisation and their link to different kinds of impact:

• Research uptake: research users have engaged with research: they have read a briefing; attended a conference or seminar; were research partners; were involved in advising and shaping the research project in some way; or engaged in some other kind of activity which means they know the research exists.
• Research use: research users act upon research, discuss it, pass it on to others, adapt it to context, present findings, use it to inform policy or practice developments.
• Research impact: changes in awareness, knowledge and understanding, ideas, attitudes and perceptions, and policy and practice as a result of research.

The phrase ‘research uptake, use and impact’ then sets out a process-orientated definition of research getting into policy and practice, and implies a pathway of engagement between research and relevant communities, activity and change that creates impact.

The impact case study found many examples of research from the CRFR/CLS partnership being used in several sectors. However, there were only three examples of clear links between the research and wider change. The paper demonstrates how research came to have an impact in alcohol policy, sex education practice, and in the call-taking practice of CLS. In each case practitioners, policy-influencers or policy-makers played a key role in generating impact. They used their specific knowledge of the settings they worked in to rework the research in order for it to have an impact:

In the alcohol policy example a key policy-influencing organisation commissioned a follow-up study from ChildLine Scotland to draw out children’s experiences of living with parents who drink which had a significant impact on national policy.

In the sex education example, one organisation created a quiz based on the research which was extensively used throughout schools and children’s services in a large local authority area. There was clear evaluation evidence that this quiz had changed parents, teachers and other professionals views of their role in sex education.

Within ChildLine Scotland, an organisational learning process involved all key stakeholders in consideration of the implications of the research for the service, leading to a change in call-taking processes, and specialised training for call-takers.

The fact that the research had been conducted in partnership between a service agency and a research centre was important in achieving impact. The research was relevant and timely due to the participation of a non-academic with rich networks and on-the-ground knowledge in the research team. Both agencies had high levels of credibility and trust amongst policy and practice communities who were interested in the research. ChildLine Scotland workers talked about the research within their networks prior to it coming out creating anticipation of the findings and readiness to use them.

While the ways that research led to impact described here suggest that engagement and collaboration between research producers and research users are important elements in how research gets used, it is those members of the public, business, government or the third sector who take up the research, if timely and relevant, who are key to subsequent impact. Impact cannot be achieved by researchers alone. It would be impossible to anticipate all of the context-specific potential uses of research that might create impact, and interacting with all of the relevant stakeholders in a meaningful way may also be challenging. Knowledge exchange work to generate impact by CRFR and CLS was also key to stakeholders engagement and subsequent use of the research.

Read the full article here: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tpp/ep/2015/00000011/00000001/art00004

Children's diet unaffected by fall in household income

CRFR Associate Researchers, Dr Valeria Skafida and Dr Morag Treanor, gained media coverage earlier in the month when they published their article exploring whether a change in family income is a good predictor of children's diet.

The research found that changes in a family’s income do not affect the healthiness of their children’s diet, and that a drop in family income does not trigger a decrease in the amount of fruit and vegetables their children eat. The finding challenges the idea that the healthiness of a diet is directly linked to income levels.

Changes in how parents felt about money were more strongly linked to their children’s diets than their actual incomes. This could be because income is not evenly distributed within the home, or because it is perception of poverty rather than measured poverty that determines food choices.

 The study, which used data from the Growing Up In Scotland survey, compared the diet of about 3000 children at the age of two and then again at age five. It also tracked the income of their parents over the same period.

The diets of young children in Scotland deteriorated between the ages of two and five for all, regardless of a family’s income level. By the age of five all children are likely to eat fewer vegetables and to have more sweets and sugary drinks than at the age of two, and this may be because children become better able to demand and reject foods as they grow.

When the children were two, less than 8.1% soft drinks more than once a day. By the age of five, this increased to 28.7%. Similarly, aged two, 6.4% of the children never ate vegetables, but this rate increased nearly five times (27.9%) by the time they turned five.

Children’s diets deteriorated when parents believed that they were going through financial hardships. For parents whose financial situation changed from ‘feeling comfortable’ to ‘finding it difficult ’to cope as their offspring grew from age two to age five, children ate fewer varieties of fruit and vegetables, and ate crisps and sweets more often.

Among families whose income did not change, children from families with a low income were more likely to have poorer diets to begin with. This group also had diets improve the most from age 2 to age 5. Two in ten (20.5 per cent) of these children lowered their sweet consumption compared with only one in 10 (11.2 per cent) in high-income homes.

These findings are published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2014/01/17/jech-2013-203308.short?q=w_jech

 

Valeria is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Population Health Studies. Morag is a Research Fellow with the Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research and Policy. Both Valeria and Morag completed their PhDs at CRFR.

 

 

 

How active are our children?

Walk past any school playground or park and you might think that our children look pretty active, but are they?

Findings from the Millennium Cohort Study published today show that only half of 7-year-olds across the UK achieve the current recommendation for physical activity (60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity every day).

This is the first time that a UK wide survey has used an objective measurement of activity (using accelerometers with 6,000 children) and as such is an important piece of new research.

The good news is that children in Scotland are the most active in the UK.  52.5% of children in Scotland met the recommended level, compared 51.7% in Wales, 50.9% in England and 43.4% in Northern Ireland.

The bad news is that the difference in activity levels between boys and girls (at UK level) is worryingly high. Just 37.8% of girls met the recommended level of physical activity, compared with 63.3% of boys. Clearly, gender differences in physical activity start young, but continue into adolescence and adulthood.

Findings from the Growing Up in Scotland study (GUS) highlight the factors associated with low activity levels and high levels of ‘screen time’ amongst six year olds. A report published last year found that the factors associated with low physical activity are: mother’s lower physical activity, a less warm mother-child relationship, mothers not being aware of the 60 minutes per day recommendation and not having a swimming pool nearby.

The factors associated with high ‘screen time’ are: mother’s high screen time, a TV in the child’s bedroom, fewer mother and child shared activities, fewer rules about behaviour, greater social deprivation and poor quality local green spaces.

The MCS researchers suggest that a comprehensive policy response is required to increase the time that children spend in more intense physical activity and to reduce the time spent being sedentary. This should include a focus on parents’ modelling of behaviour, as well as making sure that all children have safe places to play outside.

Link to BBC coverage

 

Is there something special about family meals?

More Scottish teenagers are overweight or obese than anywhere else in Europe (IASO data for 2012). This single statement points to an urgent need to improve children's diet. Recent research from Valeria Skafida at CRFR looks at the eating habits of toddlers under 5 years of age and asks if and why family meals promote better eating habits.

Research has shown that family meals are generally linked to positive nutritional outcomes, yet it remains unclear exactly what it is about them that are so beneficial. Using data from Growing Up in Scotland (www.growingupinscotland.org.uk) this research looked at the quality of children's diets to explore its relationships to families meal habits, how often family's ate together, meal enjoyment and different family characterstics.

The research found a number of factors which were significantly associated with healthier diets in toddlers, including:

• eating a main meal and limiting snacking
• having regular meal times
• eating the same food as parents
• eating in a dining space rather than in bedrooms or living rooms
• enjoying meal times as a 'time to talk to each other'
• being the first-born child

Interestingly, and contributing something new to our knowledge in this area, this research found that eating at the same time as parents or eating together as a family was not a significant indicator of a nutritious diet. Eating the same food as parents was the aspect most strongly linked to dietary quality in toddlers.

For more discussion about these findings please read our latest briefing: Is there something special about family meals? Exploring how family meal habits relate to young children's diets.

This research is part of ongoing postdoctoral reserach looking at the changing food habits of children in the context of family life. Please contact Valeria at valeria.skafida@ed.ac.uk.

We publish 6-8 research briefings every year. Read them all at: http://www.crfr.ac.uk/pubbriefings.html.