Bronner, Y.L. (1996, September). "Nutritional status outcomes for children: Ethnic, cultural, and environmental contexts." Journal of the American Dietetic Association 96: 891-900.
This article is a review of literature that has as its objective exploring the relationship between nutritional status outcomes among ethnically diverse children and cultural and environmental contexts. The goal of nutritional health and health education for children is to promote well-being and health and to prevent disease, and a number of studies are identified which compare the nutritional status of children and adolescent on the basis of anthropometric, biologic, and dietary intake variables, showing a disparity of outcomes. The author notes that disparities in nutritional status that begin in childhood or adolescence continue into adulthood and place young adults at increased risk for chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, and some types of cancer. The intent here is to examine documents to ascertain how children from different ethnic groups and socio-economic status develop these risk factors based on environmental and contextual issues.
The methodology was to identify relevant research articles by means of an on-line search and on the basis of references in the first set of articles found. The studies that could be included were then critically reviewed and selected if they reported findings based on accepted methodology. the findings were then synthesized in order to develop explanations consistent with the evaluation of results in these studies. The author does not provide more explanation than this of how articles were selected or of what criteria were used to reject certain articles. This makes it difficult to test those criteria as to their value.
The author considers several dimensions of health in analyzing the articles. She begins with height and weight, ...