1-193 - The Positive and Negative Roles of Peer Relations in Childhood Obesity

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Nearly one third of American children and adolescents are classified as overweight or obese. Obesity is linked to negative outcomes in children across physical, social, mental health, and academic domains, and one particular area in which these children exhibit difficulty is peer relations. Understanding the peer relations struggles of overweight and obese children may be critical to untangling the host of negative outcomes that these children face. At the same time, peer relations have the potential to play an important positive role in these children’s treatment. This symposium will highlight this complex interplay of obesity and peer relations across multiple age groups.

The first paper will examine how the degree of obesity in middle childhood negatively impacts peer relations, with a particular focus on especially negative effects suffered by severely obese children. The second paper will investigate the negative peer process of weight-related victimization and its mediating role in the relation between BMI and reactive aggression in pre-adolescence. The third paper will turn to adolescence and evaluate how improvements in peer relations may enhance outcomes in a weight-loss intervention, particularly for boys.

Weight, peer relations, and subsequent psychosocial and health outcomes are dynamically interlinked, with relations among constructs likely to mutually reinforce each other over time. Discussion will focus on this complexity, with a particular emphasis on how understanding these relations may help to inform public health programs, prevention programs, and interventions for both obesity and negative peer relationships.

Sub Unit

• Social Relationships

Chair

• Megan K. Bookhout, University of Delaware

Discussant

• Mitchell J. Prinstein, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Individual Presentations

• The Peer Experiences of Severely Obese, Obese, and Overweight School Children - Presenting Author: Amanda Harrist, Oklahoma State University; Julie M. Rutledge, Louisiana Tech University; Laura Hubbs-Tait, Oklahoma State University; Lenka H. Shriver, University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Taren M. Swindle, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences; Glade L. Topham, Kansas State University

• The Impact of Weight-Related Victimization on the Relation Between Children’s Weight and Aggression - Presenting Author: Megan K. Bookhout, University of Delaware; Julie A. Hubbard, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware; Stevie N. Grassetti, University of Delaware; Marissa A. Smith, Kennedy Krieger Institute; Lauren E. Swift, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

• Gender as a Moderator of Outcomes of a Peer-Enhanced Adolescent Weight Control Intervention - Presenting Author: Diana Rancourt, University of South Florida; David H. Barker, Bradley/Hasbro Children’s Research Center, Rhode Island Hospital and The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University; Elissa Jelalian, The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and The Miriam Hospital’s Weight Control and Diabetes Research Center