The study is designed to describe the individual, cumulative, and interactive effects of children's self-esteem, health knowledge, motivation, health status, stature, maturation, fitness, family environment, and parental health motivation on exercise, dietary intake and tobacco use. All 4th, 5th, and 6th grade children from randomly selected schools will be requested to participate; assenting students with parental permission will be randomly selected until a quota of 150 students per grade is reached. In home, face to face interviews and fitness assessments will be obtained using psychometrically sound measures. The analyses are designed to: 1) determine the modifiable and non-modifiable predictors of cardiovascular health promotion behavior; 2) examine the associations between these factors; 3) determine the impact of selected independent variables on the within/between group (gender, SES, age/grade) variance relative to tobacco use, exercise and dietary intake.
| Cowell, J M; Agruss, J C (2000) Cardiovascular risk among middle school children: implications for primary care. Nurse Pract Forum 11:141-8 |
| Cowell, J M; Warren, J S; Montgomery, A C (1999) Cardiovascular risk prevalence among diverse school-age children: implications for schools. J Sch Nurs 15:8-12 |
