Research on divorce during the past decade has focused on a range of topics, including the predictors of divorce, associations between divorce and the well-being of children and former spouses, and interventions for divorcing couples. Methodological advances during the past decade include a greater reliance on nationally representative longitudinal samples, genetically informed designs, and statistical models that control for time-invariant sources of unobserved heterogeneity. Emerging perspectives, such as a focus on the number of family transitions rather than on divorce as a single event, are promising. Nevertheless, gaps remain in the research literature, and the review concludes with suggestions for new studies.

Research on Divorce: Continuing Trends and New Developments

Breakfast has been labeled the most important meal of the day, but are there data to support this claim? We summarized the results of 47 studies examining the association of breakfast consumption with nutritional adequacy (nine studies), body weight (16 studies), and academic performance (22 studies) in children and adolescents. Breakfast skipping is highly prevalent in the United States and Europe (10% to 30%), depending on age group, population, and definition. Although the quality of breakfast was variable within and between studies, children who reported eating breakfast on a consistent basis tended to have superior nutritional profiles than their breakfast-skipping peers. Breakfast eaters generally consumed more daily calories yet were less likely to be overweight, although not all studies associated breakfast skipping with overweight. Evidence suggests that breakfast consumption may improve cognitive function related to memory, test grades, and school attendance. Breakfast as part of a healthful diet and lifestyle can positively impact children's health and well-being. Parents should be encouraged to provide breakfast for their children or explore the availability of a school breakfast program. We advocate consumption of a healthful breakfast on a daily basis consisting of a variety of foods, especially high-fiber and nutrient-rich whole grains, fruits, and dairy products.

Breakfast Habits, Nutritional Status, Body Weight, and Academic Performance in Children and Adolescents

With the growing problem of childhood obesity, recent research has begun to focus on family and social influences on children's eating patterns. Research has demonstrated that children's eating patterns are strongly influenced by characteristics of both the physical and social environment. With regard to the physical environment, children are more likely to eat foods that are available and easily accessible, and they tend to eat greater quantities when larger portions are provided. Additionally, characteristics of the social environment, including various socioeconomic and sociocultural factors such as parents' education, time constraints, and ethnicity influence the types of foods children eat. Mealtime structure is also an important factor related to children's eating patterns. Mealtime structure includes social and physical characteristics of mealtimes including whether families eat together, TV-viewing during meals, and the source of foods (e.g., restaurants, schools). Parents also play a direct role in children's eating patterns through their behaviors, attitudes, and feeding styles. Interventions aimed at improving children's nutrition need to address the variety of social and physical factors that influence children's eating patterns.

A review of family and social determinants of children's eating patterns and diet quality.

In order to more effectively promote fruit and vegetable intake among children and adolescents, insight into determinants of intake is necessary. We conducted a review of the literature for potential determinants of fruit and vegetable intake in children and adolescents. Papers were identified from Medline and PsycINFO by using all combinations of the search terms: "fruit(s) or vegetable(s)" and "children or adolescents". Quantitative research examining determinants of fruit and/or vegetable intake among children and adolescents aged 6–18 years were included. The selection and review process was conducted according to a four-step protocol resulting in information on country, population, design, methodology, theoretical basis, instrument used for measuring intake, statistical analysis, included independent variables, and effect sizes. Ninety-eight papers were included. A large number of potential determinants have been studied among children and adolescents. However, for many presumed determinants convincing evidence is lacking, mostly because of paucity of studies. The determinants best supported by evidence are: age, gender, socio-economic position, preferences, parental intake, and home availability/accessibility. Girls and younger children tend to have a higher or more frequent intake than boys and older children. Socio-economic position, preferences, parental intake, and home availability/accessibility are all consistently positively associated with intake. The determinants most consistently supported by evidence are gender, age, socio-economic position, preferences, parental intake and home availability/accessibility. There is a need for internationally comparative, longitudinal, theory-based and multi-level studies taking both personal and environmental factors into account. This paper is published as part of the special Pro Children series in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. Please see [
 http://www.ijbnp.org/content/3/1/26
 ] for the relevant editorial.

/pdf/determinants-of-fruit-and-vegetable-consumption-among-yes1iq8753.pdf

Determinants of fruit and vegetable consumption among children and adolescents: a review of the literature. Part I: quantitative studies

Why do people think and act politically in the manner they do? Despite the foundational nature of this question, answers are unfortunately incomplete and unnecessarily tentative, largely because political scientists do not take seriously the possibility of nonenvironmental influences. The suggestion that people could be born with political predispositions strikes many as far-fetched, odd, even perverse. However, researchers in other disciplines—‐ notably behavioral genetics—‐have uncovered a substantial heritable component for many social attitudes and behaviors and it seems unlikely that political attitudes and behaviors are completely immune from such forces. In this article, we combine relevant findings in behavioral genetics with our own analysis of data on a large sample of twins to test the hypothesis that, contrary to the assumptions embedded in political science research, political attitudes have genetic as well as environmental causes. 1

https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=poliscifacpub

Are Political Orientations Genetically Transmitted

Influences on adolescent eating patterns: the importance of family meals

This article uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to investigate the short-term effects of parental separation on adolescent delinquency and depression. Findings indicate that parent-adolescent relationships prior to marital dissolution moderate the effects of parental separation on adolescent delinquency. The higher adolescents' satisfaction with their relationship with the same-sex parent prior to residential separation the greater their increases in delinquent behavior when they are separated from this parent at Wave 2. These results highlight the importance of interpersonal relationships within the family prior to parental separation. Opposite-sex parents constitute a significant influence on adolescents' depression regardless of family structure. These findings suggest that research on parental influences on children's well-being needs to pay more attention to gender-specific effects.

The Effects of Parent‐Adolescent Relationships and Parental Separation on Adolescent Well‐Being

Using a nationally representative sample of adolescents, this article examines how various individual and contextual characteristics are related to the likelihood of interscholastic athletic participation. Girls are significantly less likely than boys to participate. The influence of socioeconomic background, siblings, family structure, year in school, attendance at a private school, size of the school, region of the country, and urbanicity have similar effects on socializing boys and girls into athletics. However, the gender difference in participation rates are greater for blacks than whites. Results indicate that some of the association between athletic participation and academic outcomes is due to the tendency for better students to participate in athletics. Net of these effects, analyses indicate that participation in athletics has a positive influence on adolescents' academic outcomes. The positive influence of athletic participation on unexcused absences and educational expectations is significantl...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.1525/sop.2002.45.4.415.pdf

Who Plays and Who Benefits: Gender, Interscholastic Athletics, and Academic Outcomes:

A central sociological problem is the extent to which genetics and the environment influence human behavior. Studies of twins are a core method in attempts to disentangle and to determine the comparative strength of genetic and environmental influences on psychosocial outcomes. A critical assumption of twin studies is that both monozygotic "identical" twins and dizygotic "fraternal" twins share common social environments. Therefore, any greater similarity of monozygotic than dizygotic twins is attributed to genetic influences. This paper tests the equal environment assumption by examining the extent to which greater concordance of adolescent monozygotic compared to dizygotic twins results from social, as well as genetic, influences. Bivariate comparisons indicate that monozygotic twins show greater similarity than dizygotic twins in socially-based characteristics including physical attractiveness, time spent in each other's company, the overlap in friendship networks, and friends' use of alcohol. Multivariate analyses indicate that measures of the social environment sometimes reduce or eliminate apparent genetic effects. In comparison with genetic indicators, social variables are usually stronger predictors of depression and alcohol use and abuse. These findings suggest that past twin studies could overstate the strength of genetic influences because some similarities in behavior among monozygotic compared to dizygotic twins stem from social influences.

Rethinking twins and environments: possible social sources for assumed genetic influences in twin research.

Freese and Powell make a number of critiques of the theoretical assumptions, statistical methods, and use of variables in our paper, which raises questions about the typical use of the equal environments assumption in twin research. We do not find that any of their critiques modify our conclusion that the equal environments assumption cannot be taken for granted but must be subjected to empirical testing. We hope that our paper and the resulting exchange will lead sociologists to become more actively involved in the debate regarding the extent of genetic and environmental influences on social behaviors.

Tami M. Videon

Papers

Influences on adolescent eating patterns: the importance of family meals

The Effects of Parent‐Adolescent Relationships and Parental Separation on Adolescent Well‐Being

Who Plays and Who Benefits: Gender, Interscholastic Athletics, and Academic Outcomes:

Rethinking twins and environments: possible social sources for assumed genetic influences in twin research.

Double Vision: Reply to Freese and Powell*