This competitive continuation grant proposes 5 years of funding to continue the prospective longitudinal study of the developing behavioral controls of food intake, with a focus on dieting, and concurrent emergence of problems of energy balance (overweight, obesity, and eating disorders) among girls. 192 girls were followed longitudinally from ages 5 to 9 years, and this application proposes to continue through 11, 13, and 15 years, when problems of energy balance are pervasive among girls. Overweight, obesity, and chronic dieting have reached epidemic proportion in the US and pose major threats to adolescent girls' health, including elevated risk for CVD, NIDDM, cancer, depression, and low self-esteem.
Specific aims are unchanged: 1) to characterize individual differences among girls in the development of the behavioral controls of food intake and weight status from middle childhood through middle adolescence. 2) To identify familial predictors of individual differences among girls in the behavioral controls of food intake and weight status. The investigators propose to use longitudinal data to evaluate whether familial influences such as parents' weight status, dieting history and child feeding strategies identified in childhood predict differences in eating and weight patterns into adolescence. Such information is essential in designing effective preventive interventions to address the epidemic levels of overweight, chronic dieting and weight concerns among girls and women. 3) To obtain descriptive data on what girls are doing when they report dieting. Girls report that they are dieting, but specific weight control strategies used can have very different implications for health; for example, are dieting girls eating more fruits and vegetables, or using purgatives and fasting?
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