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Highly visible public health education efforts have resulted in increased awareness of the childhood obesity epidemic but not a related decline in the number of overweight children. The Transtheoretical Model was used to examine the associations among child risk factors, parent's knowledge of factors associated with childhood obesity and their access to healthy foods in their community and parent's stage of change (SOC) in making behavior changes to improve their child's diet and level of physical activity. Parents (n = 124) of children between 6-12 years of age were surveyed. Perceived weight of the child and the child's body mass index (BMI) were found to be associated with parent's SOC for food portions and dietary fats, yet this was not observed for the fruits and vegetables or physical activity domains. Food availability and parent's childhood obesity knowledge was not found to be associated with parent's SOC. This study provides evidence that intervention efforts that stress knowledge of the causes and harmful effects of being overweight may have limited effectiveness.

This study of a sample of 4,044 eighth grade students taken from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) was designed to examine the contribution that zero-tolerance disciplinary policies, school climate, parents' and teachers' perceptions of disciplinary climate make to students' perceptions of the school's disciplinary climate. Additionally, this study examined whether school location (i.e., urban and suburban) and school type (i.e., public and private) are associated with differences in disciplinary practices, perceptions of school discipline and school climate. Zero-tolerance disciplinary policies were found to be both directly and indirectly associated with students' perceptions of fewer discipline problems. Additionally, private schools can be characterized as having: tougher discipline policies; less teacher concern about school discipline; more student concern about school discipline; and more positive perceptions of school climate among administrators and parents than their public school counterparts. Implications for social work practice are discussed. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery

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