Weight Control and Weight Change Among Adolescent

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal is to assess the behavioral predictors of weight gain and the development of overweight and obesity in adolescence and early adulthood in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). In cross-sectional studies researchers have observed a strong association between dieting and being overweight or obese. The cross-sectional association between dieting and weight status may be due to overweight individuals being more likely than their normal weight peers to go on diets to lose weight. Since most dieting efforts are not successful, or at least not successfully maintained, overweight individuals may remain overweight despite, not because of, their dieting attempts. Only prospective analyses can help to determine whether dieting leads to great weight gain or is simply an ineffective strategy to lose and maintain weight. Add Health is a school-based study of adolescents from 80 high schools and 52 middle schools from the U.S. This sample is representative of U.S. schools with respect to region of country, urban/city, school type, ethnicity, and school size. We seek to analyze data from Wave I (1995-1996), Wave II (1996), and Wave III (2001-2002) to assess whether weight change between 1995 and 2001 is predicted by weight change goals (e.g., desire to lose, maintain, or gain weight) or weight control practices in 1995 and 1996. Specifically we will assess whether the development of overweight and obesity is predicted by dieting, using diet pills, self-inducing vomiting, and/or using laxatives to lose weight. In addition, we will investigate whether adolescents who report using exercise to maintain their weight will gain less weight than their peers not using exercise as a weight control behavior. We will also investigate the weight change patterns of adolescents who report that they are trying to gain weight. We will assess whether self-reported use of dieting, exercise, or weight lifting to gain weight or build muscle predicts weight change over a six-year period. We will assess whether these associations exist and whether they vary by gender and/or race/ethnic group. This study will have good power to detect moderate associations (e.g., relative risk >= 1.6). Add Health is the only large prospective study of adolescents with enough males and non-white subjects to assess whether predictors vary by or are modified by gender and/or race/ethnicity, therefore our results should make an important contribution to the field.