The Role of Peer Relations on Youth Eating and Choices of Activities

描述（由申请人提供）：虽然没有朋友和同伴拒绝的社会和情感成本是众所周知的，但很少有研究测试同伴关系和友谊是否通过改变他们的饮食行为和身体活动来影响青少年的健康。这项拟议中的研究旨在评估同伴关系和友谊是否能促进食物摄入量和活动选择的变化。具体目标1将测试超重儿童的“选择性友谊”的假设，即强化和维持暴饮暴食、久坐行为的时间分配和受害的社会标志。超重和正常体重的参与者将在三种情况下接受测试：与不熟悉的同伴，与朋友和单独。时间分配到饮食和活动和食物摄入量将进行比较。友谊质量、同伴受害、社会认知和内化症状将在最后一次会议完成时进行评估。我们希望超重的朋友分享更多的肥胖行为，比如更少的时间分配给积极的休闲活动，更多的时间用于饮食和更多的能量消耗。我们还预测超重儿童和他们的共同朋友之间在报告同伴受害和内化症状方面的相似性，但高质量的友谊会减少心理困扰。具体目标2将测试同伴和朋友的行为是否可以用来改变青少年的饮食和时间分配到其他活动，使用建模范式。超重和正常体重的青少年将观看关于健康饮食和体育活动的信息视频或对照视频（学习技巧）。然后，我们将根据实验条件评估儿童观看健康行为视频是否会影响朋友或不熟悉的同伴的饮食行为和活动。据推测，观看健康视频可以预测二人组中另一个孩子的食物摄入量和活动选择，而观看对照视频则不能预测这些变量。具体目标3将使用行为选择范式确定朋友和同伴是否可以改变超重和瘦弱青少年身体活动的强化价值。将比较青年为获得食物和体育活动而进行的体力活动与单独进行体力活动与与朋友或同伴一起进行体力活动（视实验条件而定）时的工作量。这一预测表明，超重的青少年在独自获得食物点和在不熟悉的同伴在场的情况下进行体力活动时，他们的反应模式会出现偏差。然而，朋友的存在会增加超重青少年身体活动的强化价值。这项研究旨在了解同龄人和朋友在青少年坚持健康建议方面的作用。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): While the social and emotional costs of friendlessness and peer rejection are well-known, few studies have tested whether peer relationships and friendships impact youths' health by altering their eating behavior and physical activity. The proposed research is designed to assess whether peer relations and friendship can promote changes in food intake and choice of activities. Specific Aim 1 will test the hypothesis that "assortative friendship" in overweight children reinforces and maintains overeating, time allocation to sedentary behavior and social markers of victimization. Overweight and normal-weight participants will be tested on three occasions: with an unfamiliar peer, with a friend and alone. Time allocation to eating and activities and food intake will be compared across sessions. Friendship quality, peer victimization, social cognitions and internalizing symptoms will be assessed on the last session completed. We expect overweight friends to share more obesigenic behaviors such as less time allocation to active leisure activities, more time engaged in eating and greater energy consumption. We also predict similarity between overweight children and their mutual friends in the extent to which they report peer victimization and internalizing symptoms, but that a high quality friendship will diminish psychological distress. Specific Aim 2 will test whether the behavior of peers and friends may be used to modify youths' eating and time allocation to alternative activities, using a modeling paradigm. Overweight and normal-weight youths will be exposed to an informational video on healthy eating and physical activity or a control video (study skills). Then we will assess whether the child exposed to the healthy behavior video influences the eating behavior and activities of a friend or an unfamiliar peer depending on the experimental condition. It is hypothesized that exposure to the healthy video will predict food intake and choices of activities of the other child in the dyad, whereas exposure to a control video will not predict these variables. Specific Aim 3 will determine whether friends and peers can modify the reinforcing value of physical activity in overweight and lean youths, using a behavioral choice paradigm. The amount of work youth perform to gain access to food and to physical activity will be compared when physical activity is performed alone and when it is performed with a friend or with a peer depending on the experimental condition. The prediction is that overweight youth will show a biased allocation of their pattern of responses to gain access to food points when alone and when the alternative involves being physically active in the presence of an unfamiliar peer. However, the presence of a friend will increase the reinforcing value of physical activity in overweight youth. This research is designed to understand the role of peers and friends in youth adherence to health recommendations. Public Health Relevance: The proposed research is designed to assess whether peer relationships and friendship can promote changes in food intake and choice of activities. Findings from this study may improve understanding of barriers to weight loss in overweight youths and past non-adherence to health recommendations.