Highlights in this issue

Abstract

This issue contains a minitheme on weight issues and obesity that is introduced by Carl-Erik Flodmark 1. Jeroen de Munter et al studied the prevalence of obesity in Swedish children in 2003 and 2011 and found that it remained stable 2. Kerstin Ekbom and Claude Marcus show that it seems to be an association between vitamin D deficiency and prediabetes in obese children 3. Meanwhile, Pernilla Danielsson et al report promising results from a behavioural treatment programme that reduced obesity in half of the 220 children after five years 4, with Ane Sofie Kokkvoll commenting on the study 5. The minitheme continues with two other papers that show that healthcare professionals and parents could not rely solely on their visual assessment of a child's weight status. Gianni Bocca et al asked Dutch healthcare professionals to rate pictures of children from underweight to obese, with only 44–52% correctly identifying obese children and most rating the children lighter than they were 6. In the second study, Diego Christofaro et al found that overweight parents were twice as likely to underestimate the weight of their teenage children 7. A previous paper in Acta Paedatrica by Diana Schwilling et al reported that listening to live harp music may reduce stress levels in very preterm infants 8. In this issue, Lena Uggla et al report that twice-weekly music therapy lowered the heart rate of children undergoing haematopoietic stem cell transplants, compared to controls receiving standard care. The effect was sustained for at least four to eight hours, indicating reduced stress levels and potentially lowering the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder 9. Töres Theorell comments on the finding 10. Feeding strategies for low-birthweight infants is a delicate balance between optimal growth and minimising the risk of necrotising enterocolitis (NEC). Sascha Meyer et al discuss their local feeding strategies and explain how a more careful feeding regime, based on a slow increment, resulted in a remarkably low incidence of NEC 11. In the accompanying editorial, Dirk Wackernagel discusses the current evidence on how to feed preterm infants 12. Readers may also be interested in the paper by Tjitske Nieuwenhuis et al, who found that children born preterm and full term had similar rates of feeding problem at three years of age 13, with Frans Walther and Roberta Pineda commenting on the finding 14, 15. In Jesper Fritz et al's intervention study, the amount of physical education (PE) in a school in southern Sweden was increased from 60 to 200 minutes per week over seven years. This resulted in increased gains in bone mass in the girls and enhanced gains in muscle strength in both genders, compared with control groups from three schools that continued with 60 minutes of PE per week 16. Luis Gracia-Marco comments on the findings 17. Readers may also be interested in the paper by Natascia Rinaldo et al, who found that a 12-week soccer training programme improved the body composition of pre-adolescent boys and increased their satisfaction with their body image 18. Figures: 1, 3, 4: IBL Bildbyrå, 2: Warschburger P, Kröller K. Pediatrics doi:10.1542/peds.2008-1845, 5: INA Agency.