The ease of walking and biking on a campus was related to college students' walking behavior and their BMI. Students' PA behavioral intentions were associated with moderate PA and lower BMI. These results provide evidence to focus on policies and structural supports for walkable/bikeable environments to supplement and enhance interventions encouraging individual behavior change for PA and weight management.

No abstract

The influence of relationship skills education on pathways of associations between paternal depressive symptoms and intimate partner violence and children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors via paternal warmth and avoidance of destructive conflict behavior was assessed. Participants were 3,045 low-income Hispanic American, European American, and African American fathers from the Building Strong Families Study. Families were drawn from 8 urban and rural areas across the United States and randomly assigned to a treatment and a control group. The treatment group received relationship skills education in group sessions. Assessments were conducted when children were 15 months and 36 months of age postintervention. Avoidance of destructive conflict behavior mediated the associations between intimate partner violence and children’s externalizing behavior for compliers. Links between intimate partner violence and children’s behavioral difficulties were direct for fathers in the noncomplier and control groups. Data are discussed in terms of the possible influence of relationship skills education on the associations between fathers’ personal functioning and children’s behavioral difficulties.

Using data from the add-on 5-year cohort of In-Home Longitudinal Study of preschool aged Children of the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study (FFCWS), we examined the mediating role of maternal warmth in the associations between positive and harsh maternal practices and children's externalizing and internalizing behaviors. The sample consisted of 1,922 low-income Hispanic American, African American, and European American families. For European Americans, the links between maternal psychological aggression and hostility and children's externalizing behaviors were direct. Similarly, for Hispanic Americans, the links between maternal psychological aggression, physical assault, and hostility and externalizing behaviors were direct, as was the link between maternal physical assault and internalizing behaviors. For African Americans, maternal warmth partially mediated the links between maternal hostility and physical assault and externalizing behaviors. However, the associations between psychological aggression and externalizing and internalizing behaviors were direct. The data are discussed with respect to similarities in cultural pathways of influence between harsh maternal treatment and children's behavioral difficulties across ethnic groups.