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和活动选择的变化。具体目标1将检验这一假设，即超重儿童的“强迫性友谊”强化并维持了暴饮暴食、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进行测试：与不熟悉的同龄人，与朋友和独自一人。将比较各阶段的进食和活动时间分配以及食物摄入量。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评估。我们预计超重的朋友会有更多的肥胖行为，比如分配给积极休闲活动的时间更少，更多的时间用于饮食和更多的能量消耗。我们还预测，超重儿童和他们共同的朋友在报告同伴受害和内化症状的程度上具有相似性，但高质量的友谊会减少心理困扰。具体目标2将测试同龄人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替代活动，使用建模范例。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录像或对照录像（学习技能）。然后，我们将根据实验条件评估接触健康行为视频的儿童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，接触健康的视频将预测食物摄入量和选择的活动的另一个孩子在二分体，而接触控制视频不会预测这些变量。具体目标3将确定朋友和同龄人是否可以使用行为选择范式来修改超重和消瘦青年的体力活动的强化价值。根据实验条件，将比较单独进行体力活动和与朋友或同龄人一起进行体力活动时青年为获得食物和体力活动所做的工作量。预测是，超重青少年在独自一人时以及在不熟悉的同龄人面前进行身体活动时，会表现出对获得食物点的反应模式的偏见分配。然而，朋友的存在会增加超重青年体育活动的强化价值。这项研究旨在了解同龄人和朋友在青少年遵守健康建议方面的作用。 公共卫生相关性：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和活动选择的变化。这项研究的结果可能会提高对超重青少年减肥障碍和过去不遵守健康建议的理解。

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.