A new Child Trends brief finds that youth who have not participated in out-of-school time programs are significantly more likely than are their participating peers to live in an unsupportive neighborhood; to spend more than two hours a day watching TV or playing video games; and to have parents who are in poor health, who don't exercise, and who have less than a high school education.

February 4, 2009 is National Girls and Women in Sports Day. On his blog, "The Dad Man" Joe Kelly has tips on what fathers can do with daughters tips on what fathers can do with daughters.

Project Play is an initiative to inspire families and neighborhoods to play traditional backyard games like "Follow the Leader," "Treasure Hunt," or "Kick the Can"-games that demand imagination and foster creativity. Through a series of lively hardcover children's books featuring a group of active neighborhood kids, Project Play provides guidance to parents and children for getting back to basics and enjoying the joy and freedom of playtime. In addition, Project Play encourages parents to make play a priority-for as founder and author Marlene Byrne believes-it is as equally important to be creative and imaginative as it is to be smart.

There aren’t many physical challenges that measure up to running a marathon. In Los Angeles, volunteers have helped thousands of low-income middle and high school students train for and complete the L.A. marathon each March, changing some lives along the way. Holly St. Lifer reports.

Thanks to new legislation, schools across the country have to roll out comprehensive new wellness policies before the start of the next school year. It's an issue that the Girl Scouts of America has been focusing on, so Connect for Kids decided to find out what Girl Scouts across the country have to say about staying healthy and how schools can help. Sisters Lauren and Megan from Columbia, S.C. kick off a series of interviews prepared by Emerson Hunger Fellow Roshin Mathew.

May 1 - 7 is National Physical Education and Sport Week.

While the federal government has played a role in regulating school feeding programs for low-income children for about 40 years now, school districts are now working to comply with a new, much broader federal requirement calling for the development of local "wellness policies" that address issues of all the foods and drinks made available to all students during the school day, along with nutrition education, physical education, and the encouragement of healthy habits. Roshin Mathew explains.

New research on Swedish twins—published in the March issue of the U.S. journal, Archives of General Psychiatry—suggests that anorexia nervosa may be inherited, and linked with anxiety and/or depression early in life. Noting that this is not a "disorder of choice," researchers posit that a genetic predisposition may be triggered by environmental factors. Anorexia has highest death rate of any mental illness; this study may influence identification and treatment.

The headline says it all: "Inequality in the Built Environment Underlies Key Health Disparities in Physical Activity and Obesity." That's the bottom line from a new study in the journal Pediatrics, which finds that areas with higher socio-economic status were significantly more likely than lower-economic and high-minority blocks to have one or more recreational facilities that enable physical activity. This is the first study to look at the disparity in access to recreation sites and the activity and overweight patterns in U.S. teens.