Objective: Attempts have been made to reduce childhood obesity through school-based programs. Systematic reviews of studies until 2006 reported a lack of consistency about effectiveness of such programs. Presented is an updated systematic review and meta-analysis. Design and Methods: Replication of methodology used in previous comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials of school-based obesity prevention programs covering studies until 2006 to review studies thru January 2012. Results: Based on 32 studies (n 5 52,109), programs were mildly effective in reducing BMI relative to controls not receiving intervention. Studies of children had significant intervention effects, those of teenagers did not, though the difference between the two groups was not statistically significant. Metaregression showed a significant linear hierarchy of studies with the largest effects for comprehensive programs more than 1 year long that aimed to provide information on nutrition and physical activity, change attitudes, monitor behavior, modify environment, involve parents, increase physical activity and improve diet, particularly among children. Conclusions: Unlike earlier studies, more recent studies showed convincing evidence that school-based prevention interventions are at least mildly effective in reducing BMI in children, possibly because these newer studies tended to be longer, more comprehensive and included parental support.

A majority of people who feel that they need help for mental health problems do not get help.

In this article, we examined the effect of gender concordance on physicians' perception of their patients and of their medical condition, analyzing a data set of 8,258 visit questionnaires from the New Zealand National Primary Care Medical Care Survey conducted in 2001 2002. Multivariate analysis indicated that the concordant female patient/female physician dyad had a positive independent association with physicians' reporting high rapport and a negative independent association with reporting uncertainty about the diagnosis. The discordant female patient/male physician dyad had a positive independent association with physicians' perceptions of uncertainty of diagnosis and hidden agenda, and a negative independent association with rating the patient's condition of high severity. The findings suggest a need to raise male physicians' awareness to possible biases when treating female patients. The findings also suggest the need to empower female patients to take an active partnership role to improve their communication with male physicians.

Patients who report being treated as recommended in practice guidelines were more likely to be satisfied with their care. This finding may encourage primary care physicians to adhere to clinical practice guidelines.

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A greater proportion of immigrant versus non-immigrant women reported poor perceived health status (17% vs. 4%), chronic disease (61% vs. 38%), disability (31% vs. 18%) and depressive mood symptoms (52% vs. 38%). Lower rates of immigrant women visited a gynecologist regularly (57% vs. 83%) and were satisfied with their primary care physician. Lower rates of immigrants reported discussing health promotion issues such as smoking, diet, physical activity, HRT, and calcium intake with their physician. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings for designing services that will effectively promote immigrant women's health, both in Israel and elsewhere.

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