August 2026

Defining Quality Youth Sports Environments

August 2026, NCCOR

What makes a youth sports environment truly “high quality”? In July 2026, NCCOR convened researchers, practitioners, policymakers, coaches, and youth-serving organizations for the Defining Quality Youth Sports Environments: A Conceptual Framework and Examples from the Field workshop to explore this important question. Through presentations and panel discussions, participants examined the evidence behind quality youth sports experiences, discussed how positive sports environments can support children’s physical, mental, and social well-being, and highlighted practical examples from organizations working to create safe, inclusive, and developmentally supportive sports programs. The workshop also introduced a conceptual framework to help guide future research, practice, and policy related to youth sports.

Workshop sessions covered topics including:

• Structural Quality, Access, Transparency, and Engagement in Youth Sport Programs
• Psychological Environment, Health, & Safety in Youth Sport Programs
• Youth Voice and Autonomy in Youth Sport Programs
• Appropriateness for Developmental Stage and Positive Youth Development in Youth Sport Programs

Recordings of all workshop sessions are now available online, along with presentation materials and additional resources. Whether you’re a researcher, practitioner, coach, or policymaker, these recordings offer valuable insights into advancing high-quality youth sports environments that help young people thrive. Visit the NCCOR website to access the recordings and learn more: https://www.nccor.org/projects/sport-and-youth-wellbeing/youth-sports-workshop/.

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NCCOR Toolbox: Wrapping Up Summer with NCCOR’s Youth Compendium of Physical Activities

August 2026, NCCOR

As summer winds down and students prepare to return to school, it is an ideal time to reflect on the many settings that support young people’s health and well-being. NCCOR’s recent Defining Quality Youth Sports Environments workshop highlighted how safe, inclusive, and developmentally supportive sports experiences can help youth thrive both on and off the field. Educators can build on these same principles in the classroom by exploring NCCOR’s Youth Compendium of Physical Activities. The Compendium provides a list of 196 common activities in which youth participate, and the estimated energy cost associated with each activity. Resources like the Youth Compendium Fact Sheets for Physical Education Teachers and Classroom Teachers provide practical, age-appropriate guidance on youth physical activity and energy expenditure, helping educators incorporate movement into learning environments and support healthy, active lifestyles throughout the school day. To learn more about NCCOR’s recent youth sports workshop and the Youth Compendium of Physical Activities, visit www.nccor.org.

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Complete Streets, Stronger Economies Report

July 2026, Smart Growth America

Smart Growth America has documented the safety benefits of Complete Streets for more than two decades, but their economic potential is often overlooked. Our new report, Complete Streets, Stronger Economies, provides the first national analysis of these investments and examines their benefits for local businesses and community economic outcomes.

Through a landscape analysis of existing research and data, the report finds that communities investing in safer transportation systems see a wide range of economic benefits. These benefits include revitalized downtown areas, increases in sales, business growth, job creation, tax revenue, and property values, as well as cost savings from fewer traffic crashes and reduced physical inactivity. Additionally, the report’s findings make clear that adopting and scaling Complete Streets projects can help communities respond to challenging social, cultural, and economic conditions.

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Practical Guide to Supporting Innovation in Rural Health

June 2026, Rural Health Information Hub

Innovation in rural health is grounded in local realities. Rural communities develop creative and adaptive solutions in response to constraints related to resources, workforce capacity, access, and infrastructure. Innovations are often driven by strong local assets, trusted community relationships, and deep community knowledge.

The Practical Guide to Supporting Innovation in Rural Health highlights promising practices that support innovation in rural health systems and community-based organizations. This guide is designed to help rural health programs, practitioners, and partners understand innovation in a rural context, identify practical strategies that meet local needs, and move from ideas to implementation. This guide includes strategies, tools, and examples that rural communities can use to design, implement, and scale innovative approaches that build on local realities and strengths.

This guide is intended for staff, leaders, and partners working in rural healthcare organizations, public health agencies, nonprofit and community-based organizations, tribal organizations, local governments, and health coalitions, as well as others working to advance rural health and well-being.

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Family-Centered Child Obesity Treatment: The TEAM UP Randomized Clinical Trial

July 27, 2026, JAMA Pediatrics

Importance

Families have limited access to pediatric weight management services.

Objective

To compare the effectiveness of enhanced standard of care (ESOC) with family-based behavioral treatment (FBT) vs ESOC alone in reducing percent over median body mass index (percent median BMI) among children and adolescents with obesity. ESOC+FBT was hypothesized to reduce relative weight more than would ESOC alone.

Design, Setting, and Participants

This was a pragmatic, comparative-effectiveness randomized clinical trial (2019-2024). Data collectors were blinded, and patients were followed up at 18 months. The setting included a total of 41 primary care clinical practices in Louisiana, New York, Missouri, and Illinois. Children and adolescents aged 6 to 15 years with obesity were referred by their primary care practitioner (PCP) or self-selected into the trial.

Interventions

ESOC was led by the PCP and intensified depending on a child’s response. ESOC+FBT included all ESOC components plus meetings with an FBT interventionist, focusing on nutritious eating, physical activity, positive parenting strategies, and management of social and environmental cues. Both interventions lasted 12 months.

Main Outcomes and Measures

Change in percent median BMI at 12 months (end of treatment).

Results

A total of 1631 parents completed the web screen for their child, and 901 parent-child dyads were excluded or declined participation before randomization. The final sample of 730 children, each with a participating parent, had a mean (SD) age of 10.8 (2.5) years, 387 (54%) were female, 337 (47%) had Medicaid, and 160 (22%) had food insecurity. At the end of the treatment period, children in the group receiving ESOC+FBT experienced a significant reduction in percent median BMI (−6.4; 95% CI, −8.29 to −4.43) vs ESOC (−2.6; 95% CI, −4.46 to −0.71), with a mean between-group difference of −3.8 units (95% CI, −6.20 to −1.34 units; P = .002). Children’s quality of life improved across both treatment arms at months 12 and 18. Similarly, weight-associated quality of life improved in both treatment arms, with greater improvements in ESOC+FBT at the end of the treatment period (6.8; 95% CI, 5.33-8.30 vs 4.8; 95% CI, 3.40-6.17; difference, 2.0 units; 95% CI, 0.05-4.00 units). There were no adverse events related to trial participation.

Conclusions and Relevance

Results of this randomized clinical trial show that ESOC+FBT demonstrated a significantly larger reduction in child percent median BMI than did ESOC alone. These findings support the added value of incorporating FBT into pediatric primary care settings and its feasibility in reaching a geographically and socioeconomically diverse patient population.

[Source]

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What Makes Them Move? An Agent-Based Model of Childhood Physical Activity

July 14, 2026, Childhood Obesity

Background

Engaging in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) in early childhood can have both immediate and long-term health benefits. Strategies for consistently supporting this are currently unknown, largely due to the vast number of potentially interrelated and dynamic contributing factors that may also be heterogenous across children.

Methods

We developed an agent-based model (ABM) that represents children ages 3–9 who can engage in MVPA in a variety of settings in which they spend time. Our model incorporates key theoretical constructs identified in the literature and is grounded in high-quality empirical evidence, primarily participant data from a cohort-based randomized controlled trial with extensive longitudinal accelerometry measurement. We assess the ABM’s ability to reproduce patterns of MVPA observed in the cohort.

Results

We uncovered a specific model representation of key pathways and settings involved in MVPA for this age group that can closely reproduce real-world MVPA across multiple a priori assessment metrics. This specification provides new insights into modeled contributors to MVPA. Within our model, the most important within-model pathway driving MVPA for girls is the quality of the built environment, while, for boys, it is the social environment; given the relative availability of the two, this might explain observed differences in MVPA in real-world settings.

Conclusions

In addition to immediate insights, this article provides proof of principle for a powerful tool that can further explore the etiology of childhood MVPA and inform practices and policies to positively affect early childhood PA, setting the stage for lifelong health.

[Source]

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State-Level Differences in Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption by Income Among Children Aged 1–5 Years, United States, 2021–2023

July 14, 2026, Childhood Obesity

Background

Sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption among young children can be associated with obesity and other adverse health outcomes. Consumption varies by socioeconomic factors such as household income and geographic region, although how these factors might jointly affect SSB consumption is unknown. We evaluated state-level associations between income-to-poverty ratio (IPR) and SSB consumption among children aged 1–5 years in the United States.

Methods

We conducted a pooled cross-sectional study of 55,399 children aged 1–5 years using 2021–2023 National Survey of Children’s Health data. We estimated the prevalence of SSB consumption ≥4 times per week by household IPR (<130%, 130%–349%, ≥350%) and state. Multivariable logistic regression evaluated the association between IPR and SSB consumption after adjusting for age, sex, and race and ethnicity.

Results

Nationally, 21.1% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 20.2%–21.9%) of children consumed SSBs ≥4 times per week, and this varied significantly by IPR (<130%: 33.1% [95% CI: 30.7%–35.6%], 130%–349%: 22.4% [95% CI: 21.0%–23.9%], ≥350%: 12.1% [95% CI: 11.2%–13.0%]). Substantial geographic variation was observed; SSB consumption ranged from 8.6% (95% CI: 6.4%–11.3%) in Vermont to 33.7% (95% CI: 28.9%–38.8%) in Mississippi. In multivariable models, children from households with a lower IPR (<130% compared with ≥350%) had significantly higher SSB consumption for most states, although the magnitude of this association differed by state.

Conclusions

To reduce SSB consumption among young children, findings highlight the need for potential interventions tailored to the needs of those residing in low-income households.

[Source]

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Beyond the Individual: Family-Level Impacts of Caregiver GLP-1 Use on Food Environments and Child Health Behaviors

July 8, 2026, Childhood Obesity

Abstract

Parental behaviors shape children’s obesity risk, yet little is known about family-level implications of caregiver glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) use. This cross-sectional study surveyed caregivers who started GLP-1 medication for weight management within the past 6 months and lived with at least one child aged ≤18 years (n = 58). Guided by the Family Ecological Model, the survey assessed caregiver perceptions of family health behaviors since starting GLP-1 medication. Nearly half of caregivers reported offering healthier foods to children (46.6%) and increased focus on managing children’s nutrition and physical activity (50.0%). About one-quarter of caregivers reported healthier child eating (27.6%) and physical activity (24.1%). Most caregivers reported no change in child eating (67.2%) and physical activity (72.4%). Caregivers were more likely to report healthier foods offered following GLP-1 initiation when concern about a child’s weight had been raised by pediatrician (p = 0.02). Caregiver GLP-1 initiation may provide an opportunity to support family-centered obesity prevention.

[Source]

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