Understanding High School Adolescents' Weight Status: Intrapersonal, Family, Peer, Academic, and Behavioral Predictors

• In Event: 72.050 - Poster Session 17
  In Poster Session: 72.050-1 - Adolescent Adjustment: Peer, Family, and School Contexts

Abstract

Research has suggested that a multitude of factors are associated with youth being overweight, which affects a host of social, academic, and emotional developmental processes and outcomes. We explored key intrapersonal and environmental predictors of weight, including family and peer relationships, and intrapersonal variables, including self-esteem, body image, mood, and self-control for eating, peer and parent acceptance, along with risk taking behavior and academic achievement among 210 ethnically and economically diverse high school students. Several themes surfaced: Adolescents are very aware of their overweight status, body satisfaction and perceptions of parents’ negative comments about others’ weight consistently explained weight status, and several gender differences emerged. Implications are important for applied contexts and helping professionals, as well as future research

Authors

• Cheryl Leigh Somers, Wayne State University

• Kathryn Combs

• Francesca Pernice-Duca, Wayne State University

• Noel Kulik, Wayne State University