Lean and weight stable: behavioral predictors and psychological correlates.

Objective: To examine behavioral characteristics associated with being lean and weight stable during adulthood.

Research Methods And Procedures: Participants included 165 white married couples who were part of a larger longitudinal study. Participants' height and weight were measured on three occasions at 2-year intervals.

Attitudes, practices, and concerns about child feeding and child weight status among socioeconomically diverse white, Hispanic, and African-American mothers.

Parents play an important role in the development of their children's eating behaviors. We conducted 12 focus groups (three white, three African-American, and three Hispanic-American low-income groups; three white middle-income groups) of mothers (N=101) of 2- to less than 5-year-old children to explore maternal attitudes, concerns, and practices related to child feeding and perceptions about child weight. We identified the following major themes from responses to our standardized focus group guide: 12 groups wanted to provide good nutrition, and most wanted children to avoid eating too many sweets and processed foods; 12 groups prepared foods their children liked, accommodated specific requests, and used bribes and rewards to accomplish their feeding goals (sweets were commonly used as bribes, rewards, or pacifiers); and 11 of 12 groups believed their children were prevaricating when they said they were full and mothers encouraged them to eat more.

Predictors of fat stereotypes among 9-year-old girls and their parents.

Objective: To assess familial links in fat stereotypes and predictors of stereotypes among girls and their parents.

Research Methods And Procedures: Fat stereotypes were assessed using a questionnaire developed for this study. Participants indicated the extent to which they agreed with nine statements about thin people (e.

Percent body fat at age 5 predicts earlier pubertal development among girls at age 9.

Objective: This study examines the causal direction of the relationship between weight status and pubertal timing in girls using a longitudinal sample of 183 white girls followed from ages 5 to 9.

Methods: Girls' weight status (body mass index percentile, percent body fat, waist circumference) was assessed when they were 5, 7, and 9 years old, and their pubertal development was assessed when they were 9 years old (breast development, Estradiol, Pubertal Development Scale). Information from all measures of pubertal development at 9 years was combined to identify girls exhibiting earlier (N = 44) and later (N = 136) pubertal development relative to the sample.

Processes linking weight status and self-concept among girls from ages 5 to 7 years.

This study assessed the relationship between girls' weight status and self-concept and examined peer teasing and parent criticism as potential mediators of this relationship. Data were collected for 182 girls and their parents when the girls were 5 and 7 years old. At each age, girls' body mass index, self-concept, peer weight-related teasing (child report), and parents' criticism of girls' weight status (spouse report) were assessed.

Parental influences on young girls' fruit and vegetable, micronutrient, and fat intakes.

Objective: To evaluate parents' fruit and vegetable intake and their use of pressure to eat in child feeding as predictors of their 5-year-old daughters' fruit and vegetable, micronutrient, and fat intakes.

Subjects: Data were obtained from 191 non-Hispanic white families with 5-year-old girls.

Design: Parent data included reports of pressure in child feeding and their own fruit and vegetable intake.