News Summary

• University of Minnesota School of Public Health researchers have found unhealthy weight control behavior among teen girls is steadily improving as year-to-year obesity rates fall.
• The researchers also found obesity rates climbing among minority teen males.
• The data suggest that social norms around dieting and unhealthy weight control behaviors are showing improvement.

Quotes

• “Over the past decade a lot of public health attention has been directed toward both obesity and eating disorders. We want to find out what happened during the past decade to see if some positive changes had occurred and to identify the scope of problems that still need to be addressed.” - Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, Ph.D., M.P.H.
• “The data suggest that social norms around dieting and unhealthy weight control behaviors are showing some improvements. We’d like to think it’s because the weight-related culture in girls is getting a little bit better. Perhaps efforts from the eating disorders community and research findings showing that dieting and unhealthy weight control behaviors are not effective in weight management are having an impact.” - Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, Ph.D., M.P.H.

Full Text

A University of Minnesota School of Public Health analysis has unearthed some good news: unhealthy weight control behavior among teen girls is steadily improving as obesity rates fall. But the researchers also found obesity rates climbing among minority teen males.

The trends emerged from data collected by the University of Minnesota’s Project EAT 2010, a comprehensive study that investigates the dieting, eating and physical activity habits of adolescents. The study compared approximately 3,000 adolescents in 1999 to a similar number in 2010 to determine trends over time in obesity and weight-related attitudes and behaviors over this time period.

“Over the past decade a lot of public health attention has been directed toward both obesity and eating disorders,” said Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, Ph.D., M.P.H., the principal investigator for Project EAT and a professor within the School of Public Health’s Division of Epidemiology and Community Health. “We wanted to find out what happened during the past decade to see if some positive changes had occurred and to identify the scope of problems that still need to be addressed.”

For girls, the data showed encouraging trends. Dieting decreased 6.7 percent, unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals and using food substitutes fell 8.2 percent and extreme weight control behaviors such as self-induced vomiting dipped 4.5 percent. Overall, in girls, obesity rates rose slightly, shifting from 16.3 to 19.1 percent.

“The data suggest that social norms around dieting and unhealthy weight control behaviors are showing some improvements,” Neumark-Sztainer said. “We’d like to think it’s because the weight-related culture in girls is getting a little bit better. Perhaps efforts from the eating disorders community and research findings showing that dieting and unhealthy weight control behaviors are not effective in weight management are having an impact.”

The findings are more troubling for minority boys. The prevalence of obesity spiked 7.8 percent for all boys, topping out at 26 percent, with large disparities among ethic/racial groups. Obesity rates climbed from 14.4 to 21.5 percent among black boys, 19.7 to 33.6 percent among Hispanic boys and 21.2 to 33.5 percent among Asian boys. White boys held steady around 18 percent.

“What our analysis finds is that obesity prevention messages may not be reaching these boys,” Neumark-Sztainer said. “The findings suggest a real need for improved public health outreach to those populations.”

Project EAT was designed to investigate the factors influencing eating habits of adolescents, to determine if youth are meeting national dietary recommendations, and to explore dieting and physical activity patterns among youth. Through a greater understanding of the socioenvironmental, personal, and behavioral factors associated with diet and other weight-related behaviors during adolescence more effective nutrition interventions can be developed.

Project EAT 2010 is funded by a grant from the National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute. The latest findings appear in the January issue of Preventative Medicine.