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Objective: Describe beliefs about what makes foods healthful among low-income African American women. Methods: In one-on-one interviews, 28 low-income African American mothers viewed 30 pairs of familiar foods and explained which food in the pair was more healthful and why. Responses were grouped into codes describing concepts of food healthfulness. Results: Nutrient content, physical effects of food, and food categories were used to judge the healthfulness of foods. Fruits, vegetables, and dairy foods were considered the most healthful and starchy foods the least healthful because they were believed to cause weight gain. Beliefs about which foods contain which nutrients and which foods have particular physical effects varied widely across participants. Conclusions and Implications: Participants demonstrated awareness of which foods are healthful but lacked understanding of why those foods are more healthful than others. Knowledge about the health effects of foods may be necessary to motivate individuals to choose healthful foods. (Contains 2 tables.)

Objective: Describe lay food group categories of low-income African American women and assess the overlap of lay food groups and MyPyramid food groups. Design: A convenience sample of African American mothers from a low-income Chicago neighborhood performed a card-sorting task in which they grouped familiar food items into food groups. Setting: One-on-one interviews in a neighborhood community center. Participants: Twenty-eight African American mothers. Main Outcome Measure: A hierarchical taxonomy of food groups for each participant, represented as a matrix of distances among food items in the individual sort of each participant. Analysis: Cultural consensus analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis, and coding of food group category labels and sorting justifications. Results: Consensus analysis revealed a consistent cultural model of lay food groups among the women. Lay food groups were systematically different from MyPyramid food groups. Lay food groups were more influenced by how food items are prepared or when and how food items are eaten than are MyPyramid food group categories. Conclusions and Implications: Nutrition messages framed using lay food group categories of low-income African Americans may be more effective for that population than messages using MyPyramid food group categories.

Three experiments examine how preschoolers partition their basic level categories to form subordinate level categories and whether these have inductive potential. Results suggest that contrastive information promotes the emergence of subordinate categories as a basis of inductive inference and newly established subordinate categories can retain their inductive potential in subsequent reasoning over a week's time. (Author/KB)

Background: Physical inactivity in midlife women is associated with increased intra-abdominal adipose tissue development. We describe an innovative multimethod study 1) to better understand barriers to physical activity (PA) and 2) to engage midlife women to product test physical activities and identify local community-based providers and sustainable and fun PA experiences. Methods: Formative research on PA barriers from the Chicago site Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN) ancillary study of midlife women was used to develop a pilot testing measure. Feasibility, acceptability and sustainability of the PA activities were determined using the measure. Results: Desirable locations and/or instructors were identified. The first 2 groups identified, pilot tested, and then ranked activities for their ability to promote sustained PA. The 6 top-ranked were: circuit training, total body fitness, kickboxing, Zumba, Pilates, and pedometer. The final group pilot tested highly ranked PA in 2-week blocks, and ranked pedometer and Zumba in their top 3. Conclusion: Consensus was reached regarding activities that could be valuable in promoting sustained PA in midlife women. Choosing convenient sites and popular instructors further facilitates sustainability. Building relationships with key community partners is essential for sustainability. Community-based participant involvement in study design is a critical element in developing a healthy living intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Basic level categories are a rich source of inductive inference for children and adults. These 3 experiments examine how preschool-age children partition their inductively rich basic level categories to form subordinate level categories and whether these have inductive potential. Children were taught a novel property about an individual member of a familiar basic level category (e.g., a collie). Then, children's extensions of that property to other objects from the same subordinate (e.g., other collies), basic (e.g., other dogs), and superordinate (e.g., other animals) level categories were examined. The results suggest (a) that contrastive information promotes the emergence of subordinate categories as a basis of inductive inference and (b) that newly established subordinate categories can retain their inductive potential in subsequent reasoning over a week's time.

Experiments on categorization and reasoning in different tree experts reveal an interesting assortment of differences and similarities. Taxonomists and maintenance workers show differences in sorting, as they weight morphological features differently. Landscape workers classify trees according to goal-derived categories on the basis of utilitarian factors. Taxonomists and maintenance workers use the same taxonomies for sorting and category-based reasoning, whereas landscape personnel have different categories for sorting than for reasoning. The genus level appears to be privileged relatively in some cases and absolutely in other cases.

Objective: We examined whether a previously tested, small-changes weight loss program could be translated for use in African-American churches. Methods: The program consisted of 12 group sessions held weekly at a partner church. Key intervention messages were disseminated via Facebook. A single-arm pretest-posttest evaluation included assessments at baseline, program completion (3 months), and after 3 months with no contact (6 months). Results: Participants (N = 17; 16 women, age 57.5±12.1 years, body mass index 36.5 kg/m2±5.4, hemoglobin A1c 6.3±0.5, blood pressure 132±14/82±7) attended an average of 77% (median = 9) of treatment sessions and 94% and 100% completed the 3- and 6-month assessment visits. All participants reported they were "somewhat" or "very satisfied" with the program. There was minimal interaction with Facebook with an average of 0.5 comments and 3.9 reactions per post. The 3- and 6-month reductions (all ps < .01) were observed for weight (median = -2.7 kg; median = -2.6 kg), waist circumference (median = -3.8cm; median = -5.1cm), and hemoglobin A1c (median = -0.5; median = -0.3). At 3 months, there were significant reductions in systolic (median = -10.7 mmHg) and diastolic blood pressure (median = -8.0) but not at 6 months. Conclusions: This study suggests that a faith-based, faith-placed intervention utilizing a small-changes approach in African- American churches may achieve sustained weight loss in parishioners with obesity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]