Development and Verification of the Effect of Health Lifestyle Education Program for Cancer Prevention in Late School-aged Children

PURPOSE: This study was done to develop and test the effectiveness in late school-aged children of a healthy lifestyle education program for cancer prevention. METHODS: Participants were 26 students in the sixth grade of N elementary school in J City (experimental group) and 25 students in the sixth grade of D elementary school with same educational conditions (control group). The research design was a nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design. Data collection and execution of the study were carried out from March 10 to May 19, 2011. For the experimental treatment, 7 weekly sessions of the healthy lifestyle education program for cancer prevention were given by the researcher. Posttest was done immediately following the conclusion of the program and 4 weeks later. Frequencies, percentages, chi2-test, t-test, repeated measures ANOVA and paired t-test with SPSS WIN 18.0 were used to analyze the data. RESULTS: Perceived barriers, perceived self-efficacy, activity related effect and family support significantly influenced cancer prevention knowledge and increases in healthy life styles. CONCLUSION: Results indicate that, as this program for cancer prevention was effective in increasing healthy lifestyle practices in these children, there is a need to further develop, test and implement programs in all schools.

Iron Status in Adolescent Female Athletes / 대한혈액학회지

BACKGROUND: This study was aimed at assessing iron nutrition and lipid panel in adolescent female athletes, which were compared with those in general adolescent students. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Physical measurement and blood examination were done from adolescent female athletes (N=83) and apparently healthy students (N=758). Anemia was defined as a hemoglobin less than 12g/dL. Iron deficiency was defined as a serum ferritin concentration<10ng/mL. The diagnosis of iron deficiency anemia (IDA) was established when a low hemoglobin level (Hb<12g/dL) was associated with ferritin<10ng/mL and/or transferrin saturation<10%. RESULTS: The prevalence of anemia in female athletes aged 11 to 14 years was 22.2%, which was significantly higher than that of comparison group (10.1%). However, there were no significant differences in proportion of iron deficiency (20% vs. 27.4%) and IDA (15.6% vs. 8.9%) between two groups. The prevalence of anemia in female athletes aged 15 to 19 years was 26.3%. The prevalence of iron deficiency and IDA were 31.6% and 21.1%, respectively, which were not significantly different from the comparison group. The mean triglyceride level in the athlete girls was lower than the comparison group. And the mean HDL cholesterol level was higher than the comparison group. CONCLUSION: As the prevalence of iron deficiency and IDA is relatively common in adolescent female athletes, the measurement of iron nutrition is warranted in these groups with nutritional education.