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Introduction Obesity rates among US Hispanic women and children are high. Childhood obesity prevention beginning prenatally is desirable, but studies show mixed results. Methods We tested a pilot intervention to promote optimal gestational and infant weight with primigravid Hispanic women at a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) on the U.S.-Mexico border. The intervention included promotora-led exercise, nutrition, breastfeeding activities (n = 23), supported by text/social media messaging (text messaging prenatally, private Facebook page postnatally). Measures included demographics, BMI, weight gain/retention, infant feeding, and attendance. Results Most women were U.S. born (73%), Spanish-language dominant (83%), with ≤ high school education (65%), and overweight/obese (56%). Retention rates were modest for the prenatal component (50%), supported by an SMS text-messaging program. Retention of the remaining postnatal sample, supported by a private Facebook® page, was 100%. Of women who regularly attended group sessions pre and postpartum, over 70% were within 5 lbs of pre-pregnancy weight at 6 months postpartum. A private Facebook® group was feasible for out-of-class support, including among women with regular cross-border mobility. Discussion While the intervention was well-received, almost 2/3 of the original participants did not follow up postpartum. Importantly, the findings indicate the use of social media (private Facebook® page) was more feasible than the SMS text-messaging program and may be a successful approach to reach and engage women living in mobile and transnational settings. Future studies should examine social media as an intervention tool to influence optimal weight and encourage healthy behaviors in primigravidas living near the U.S.-Mexico border.

Background: Away-from-home eating is an important dietary behavior with implications on diet quality. Thus, it is an important behavior to target to prevent and control childhood obesity and other chronic health conditions. Numerous studies have been conducted to improve children's dietary intake at home, in early care and education, and in schools; however, few studies have sought to modify the restaurant food environment for children. This study adds to this body of research by describing the development and launch of an innovative intervention to promote sales of healthy children's menu items in independent restaurants in Southern California, United States., Methods: This is a cluster randomized trial with eight pair-matched restaurants in San Diego, California. Restaurants were randomized to a menu-only versus menu-plus intervention condition. The menu-only intervention condition involves manager/owner collaboration on the addition of pre-determined healthy children's menu items and kitchen manager/owner collaboration to prepare and plate these items and train kitchen staff. The menu-plus intervention condition involves more extensive manager/owner collaboration and kitchen staff training to select, prepare, and plate new healthy children's menu items, and a healthy children's menu campaign that includes marketing materials and server training to promote the items. The primary outcome is sales of healthy children's menu items over an 18-week period. In addition, dining parties consisting of adults with children under 18 years of age are being observed unobtrusively while ordering and then interviewed throughout the 18-week study period to determine the impact of the intervention on ordering behaviors. Manager/owner interviews and restaurant audits provide additional evidence of impact on customers, employees, and the restaurant environment. Our process evaluation assesses dose delivered, dose received, and intervention fidelity., Discussion: Successful recruitment of the restaurants has been completed, providing evidence that the restaurant industry is open to working on the public health challenge of childhood obesity. Determining whether a restaurant intervention can promote sales of healthy children's menu items will provide evidence for how to create environments that support the healthy choices needed to prevent and control obesity. Despite these strengths, collection of sales data that will allow comprehensive analysis of intervention effects remains a challenge., Trial Registration: NCT02511938.

We compared the physiology and growth of seedlings originating from different Sequoia sempervirens (D. Don.) Endl. (coast redwood) and Sequoiadendron giganteum (Lindl.) Buchh. (giant sequoia) populations subjected to progressive drought followed by a recovery period in a controlled greenhouse experiment. Our objective was to examine how multiple plant traits interact to influence the response of seedlings of each species and seed population to a single drought and recovery cycle. We measured soil and plant water status, leaf gas exchange, stem embolism and growth of control (well-watered) and drought-stressed (water withheld) seedlings from each population at the beginning, middle and end of a 6-week drought period and again 2 weeks after re-watering. The drought had a significant effect on many aspects of seedling performance, but water-stressed seedlings regained most physiological functioning by the end of the recovery period. Sequoiadendron seedlings exhibited a greater degree of isohydry (water status regulation), lower levels of stem embolism, higher biomass allocation to roots and lower sensitivity of growth to drought compared with Sequoia. Only minor intra-specific differences were observed among populations. Our results show that seedlings of the two redwood species exhibit contrasting drought-response strategies that align with the environmental conditions these trees experience in their native habitats, and demonstrate trade-offs and coordination among traits affecting plant water use, carbon gain and growth under drought., (© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)