R U eating healthy 2day?

New study highlights effectiveness of healthy lifestyle text messages for teens

2013-01-09

(Press-News.org) AUDIO: Melanie Hingle, Ph.D., MPH, RD, University of Arizona, discusses the effectiveness of using text messaging to engage adolescents in ‘‘conversations’’ about health using a familiar communication method -- that is...
Click here for more information.

Philadelphia, PA, January 9, 2013 – According to the Nielsen consumer research group, teens receive an average of 3,417 text messages per month (that's 114 texts per day!). Couple this with CDC's report that high school students' consumption of fruit and vegetables is, on average, 1.2 times per day (much lower than the recommended 5 a day) and it makes sense to start using text messages to inform teens about health. In a new study released in the January/February 2013 issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, it was found that, in order to inform and motivate teens, text messages should address the reality of today's adolescent lifestyles.

The findings from this study were based on a one-year testing period involving 177 teens. During this year, researchers at the University of Arizona explored teens' preferences for message content, format, style (or message ''voice''), origin, and frequency and mode of message delivery. From the pilot test of their healthy lifestyle text messages, the researchers found that teens liked an active voice that referenced teens and recommended specific, achievable behaviors sent from nutrition professionals.

According to study's lead author, Melanie Hingle, PhD, MPH, RD, University of Arizona, "The current consensus is that intervention programs targeting adolescents combat obesity with limited, short-lived success. The majority of traditional approaches employed to date have relied on expert-led fitness and nutrition education programs delivered within the school setting. New approaches are needed to effectively engage teens in age appropriate, teen-centric, relevant activities that can be sustained beyond traditional health promotion settings. The ubiquity of mobile phone use among adolescents offers an engaging, youth-friendly avenue through which to promote healthy behaviors."

This study demonstrates a novel way in which to engage adolescents in ''conversations'' about health using a familiar communication method – that is in 160 characters or less!

### END

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Making whole wheat bread taste and smell more appetizing

2013-01-09

The key to giving whole wheat bread a more appetizing aroma and taste may lie in controlling the amounts of a single chemical compound that appears in the bread, which nutritionists regard as more healthful than its refined white counterpart. That's the finding of a new study in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, which opens the door to making whole wheat bakery products more appealing to millions of people. Devin G. Peterson and colleagues explain that whole wheat flour includes all three layers of the grain — bran, germ and endosperm — while refined flour ...

Chemical modules that mimic predator-prey and other behaviors

2013-01-09

Scientists are reporting development of chemical modules that can reproduce, on an "unprecedented" molecular level, changes and interactions that occur in natural populations of plants and animals, including those of hunting and being hunted for food, conducting mutually beneficial relationships and competing for resources. The report on these new "predator-prey biochemical oscillators," which could become building blocks for molecular machines and computers, appears in ACS Nano. Yannick Rondelez and Teruo Fujii explain that just as plants and animals interact in complex ...

Bugs need symbiotic bacteria to exploit plant seeds

2013-01-09

This press release is available in German. Aggregations of the red and black colored firebugs are ubiquitous under linden trees in Central Europe, where the bugs can reach astounding population densities. While these insects have no impact on humans, their African, Asian, and American relatives, the cotton stainers, are serious agricultural pests of cotton and other Malvaceous plants. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, recently discovered that these bugs need bacterial symbionts to survive on cotton seeds as their sole food source. ...

Used coffee grounds are a rich source of healthful antioxidants

2013-01-09

To plant food, insect repellant and other homespun uses for spent coffee grounds, scientists are adding an application that could make the gunk left over from brewing coffee a valuable resource for production of dietary supplements. Their new report in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry concludes that used coffee grounds are a rich source of healthful antioxidant substances. Maria-Paz de Peña and colleagues explain that people around the world drink millions of cups of coffee every day, generating about 20 million tons of used grounds annually. Although some ...

Expert suggests tried-and-true strategies to strengthen your relationship

2013-01-09

URBANA – What are you doing to keep your relationship alive? A University of Illinois study highlights the importance of five relationship maintenance strategies that couples can use to preserve or improve the quality of an intimate relationship. "Relationships are like cars in that you have do certain things to keep them running, especially when your goal is to strengthen and preserve your bond with your partner," said Brian Ogolsky, a U of I professor of human and community development. To determine which factors are the most important in promoting healthy relationships, ...

News from the world of quantum physics: A non-causal quantum eraser

2013-01-09

This press release is available in German. Whether a quantum object behaves like a wave or like a particle depends (according to the Copenhagen interpretation) on the choice of measurement apparatus used for observing the system, and therefore on the type of measurement performed. Anton Zeilinger's team of physicists at the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences has recently taken this phenomenon further than ever. Whether a certain photon behaves like a particle or like a wave depends on the measurement performed on a second photon. In the ...

Supply problems spark search for new ways to make magnets -- not the 'fridge' variety

2013-01-09

Mention magnets, and most people think of trivial applications of those pieces of metal, like holding family photos and reminder notes on the refrigerator. An article on magnets in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), however, focuses on the critical role magnets play in the real world and the search for new materials to make them. C&EN is the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. In the article, C&EN Senior Correspondent Mitch Jacoby explains that magnets are crucial to an enormous number of ...

Why are children at higher risk for negative health effects of environmental toxins?

2013-01-09

New Rochelle, NY, January 9, 2013—More than 85,000 synthetic chemicals are registered for commercial use with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and only about half of those produced in large quantities are tested for their potential toxic effects on humans. Children are particularly vulnerable to environmental toxins and a detailed look at how and why, and what can be done to protect children's health, is presented in a two-part article published in Alternative and Complementary Therapies from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The articles are available ...

Tree seeds offer potential for sustainable biofuels

2013-01-09

Tree seeds, rather than biomass or fuel crop plants, could represent an abundant source of renewable energy, according to research published in the International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management. The study suggests that seeds from the Indian mahua and sal trees have almost as good a thermal efficiency as biodiesel but would produce lower emissions of carbon monoxide, waste hydrocarbons and NOx (nitrogen oxides). Sukumar Puhan of the GKM College of Engineering and Technology and colleagues N. Vedaraman and K.C. Velappan of the Central Leather Research Institute, ...

Oscillating gel gives synthetic materials the ability to 'speak'

2013-01-09

PITTSBURGH—Self-moving gels can give synthetic materials the ability to "act alive" and mimic primitive biological communication, University of Pittsburgh researchers have found. In a paper published in the Jan. 8 print edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Pitt research team demonstrates that a synthetic system can reconfigure itself through a combination of chemical communication and interaction with light. Anna Balazs, principal investigator of the study and Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering in Pitt's Swanson ...

R U eating healthy 2day?

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: