Psychosocial factors in adolescent weight management

Efforts to reduce overweight and obesity are of paramount importance, given the dramatic economic, psychological and social costs of the pandemic. Recently, the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) has been applied to adult weight management in order to understand the stages of change and processes essential for progress towards the person's healthy weight goal. The present pilot study branches off from this recent research to examine psychosocial factors related to adolescent weight management, including perceived stress levels, readiness to change exercise and eating behaviors, and self-efficacies for exercise and eating behaviors. In particular, this study examined these psychosocial factors in a demographic and age range that has been minimally studied in the literature on obesity. Survey data was collected from 62 adolescents between the ages of 16 and 19 years old; 80 percent of participants identified as non-Caucasian race. Results indicated that higher stress levels were strongly associated with higher Body Mass Index, lower self-efficacy for exercise, lower self-efficacy for controlling overeating, and reduced readiness to change exercise and eating behaviors.