OBJECTIVE. We designed and tested a novel health promotion program for elementary schools that was based on peer teaching from older to younger schoolchildren (“Healthy Buddies”). SUBJECTS AND METHODS. This prospective pilot study compared the effect of our program (2–3 hours/week, 21 weeks) in 2 Canadian elementary schools (intervention: n = 232 children, the whole school implementing the program; control: n = 151). Older students (4th through 7th grade) were given direct instruction from 1 intervention teacher and were paired with younger students (kindergarten through 3rd grade) for the whole school year. Students in 4th through 7th grade then acted as teachers for their younger “buddies.” All lessons included 3 components of healthy living: nutrition, physical activity, and healthy body image. The students first learned how to be positive buddies and learned the 3 components of a healthy life. Thereafter, they learned how to overcome challenges to living a healthy life. Outcome measures (intervention and control schools at the beginning and end of the school year) included validated questionnaires that assessed healthy-living knowledge, behavior and attitude, a 9-minute fitness run, self-competence, body satisfaction, disordered eating symptoms, and anthropometry (BMI, blood pressure, and heart rate). RESULTS. Compared with control students, both older and younger intervention students showed an increase in healthy-living knowledge, behavior, and attitude scores and a smaller increase in systolic blood pressure. BMI and weight increased less in the intervention students in 4th through 7th grade and height more in the intervention students in kindergarten through 3rd grade. CONCLUSIONS. Our student-led curriculum improved knowledge not only in older schoolchildren but also in their younger buddies. It also decreased weight velocity in the older students. Student-led teaching may be an efficient, easy-to-implement way of promoting a healthy lifestyle from kindergarten to 7th grade.

The Urban Residential Wildlife Habitat Program is an initiative of the Southeast Region U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the SouthFace Energy and Environmental Resource Center. This project is one of several that the Service's Southeast Region is involved with under a fledgling community assistance effort titled "The Small Urban Refuge Initiative." The objective of the SouthFace project is to develop a number of wildlife habitat areas along a path circling an energy-efficient home located on an urban residential lot in Atlanta, Georgia; and to demonstrate the integration of environmentally- friendly practices inside and outside of the dwelling.

The influence of climatic condition on behavior is especially important in the study of primate mother-infant interactions, because thermoregulatory requirements may influence contact between individuals. However, weather conditions are not often considered in the interpretation of data. This study examined the relationship between ambient temperature and the behavior of 135 captive mother-infant baboon pairs living in outdoor social groups. We analyzed several measures of contact (ventroventral contact, making and breaking contact, contact index), mother-infant interactions, and general activity. A total of 7230 fifteen-minute observations were collected during the first 8 weeks of the infants' lives, during which temperatures ranged from -2.2 to 41.1degreesC (average 23.3degreesC). Partial correlations between temperature and the mean frequency or duration per hour of each behavior category, while controlling for the effect of infant age, indicated that temperature had a significant overall effect on several behaviors related to contact and proximity. Ventroventral contact and huddling the infant were significantly negatively related to temperature, while the frequency of making and breaking contact with the infant were positively related to temperature. In addition, temperature was related to other behaviors at particular weeks of infant age. This study indicates that temperature should be considered as an important variable in understanding nonhuman primate mother-infant behavior.

Methylmalonic aciduria (MMA) is an autosomal recessive inborn error of metabolism that results from functional defects in methylmalonyl CoA mutase (MCM), a nuclear-encoded, mitochondrial enzyme that uses the vitamin B12 derivative, adenosylcobalamin (AdoCbl) as a cofactor. To date, 23 mutations have been identified at the MUT locus on the short arm of chromosome 6, causing the mut forms of MMA (mut complementation group; mut MMA, McKusick #251000). We now report seven novel mutations. Three were found in mut0 patients: R228Q (c759G→A) was found as a heterozygous change; G312V (c1011G→T) and 346delL (c1112delCTT) were both found as homozygous changes. Four mutations were found in mut– patients: A191E (c648C→A) and V633G (c1974T→G) were found in the same patient; 684insL (c2128insCTC) and L685R (c2130T→G) were both found as homozygous changes. The recent modelling of the human methylmalonyl CoA mutase allowed for an interpretation of the identified mutations. Hum Mutat 11:270–274, 1998. © 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.