Teen Weight Control

Summary

The prevalence of obesity in adolescents is remarkably high, with 38.7% of youth 12-15 years of age and 41.5% of 16-19 year olds meeting criteria for overweight or obesity. Behavioral weight control interventions for adolescents have had limited impact on this field and there is considerably more that needs to be done. Notably, adolescents who have difficulty managing their feelings have been found to consume higher caloric foods and report greater amounts of sedentary time. Poor emotion management among adolescents has also been associated with more rapid weight gain and higher BMI. Data from adolescents with overweight/obesity attending our outpatient weight management program (N=124) indicate that 82% of these youth report emotion regulation scores that are comparable to youth with significant mental health problems. Despite documented relationships between adolescent weight control and emotion regulation, no proven adolescent weight management programs targeting emotion regulation exist. To fill this gap, our laboratory developed and piloted an adolescent weight control intervention (HealthTRAC) that combines two previously tested effective interventions, one targeting emotion regulation skill building, the other focused on behavioral weight control. Findings from our small pilot trial are promising and indicate that the newly created HealthTRAC intervention is acceptable to parents and teens, easy to deliver, and leads to modest weight loss and improved emotion management skills compared to a standard behavioral weight control (SBWC) program. These data suggest that emotion regulation is related to weight management and may assist adolescents with overweight/obesity who are seeking to lose weight. The current multi-site study builds on this previous work and will examine the impact of the developed HealthTRAC intervention on improving emotion regulation skills and reducing adolescent BMI in a larger sample with longer term follow-up (18 months after starting the intervention). Adolescents will receive 27.5 hours of intervention time over a 12- month period. We expect that adolescents enrolled in the HealthTRAC intervention will show greater reduction in BMI over the 12-month program and will sustain these losses up to 18 months after starting the intervention compared to teens enrolled in SBWC. The information learned from this project will help us better understand how helping adolescents manage their emotions can improve weight loss outcomes.

Conditions

• Adolescent Obesity
• Weight Loss

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

HealthTRAC

Behavioral weight management intervention targeting emotion regulation skill building. Intervention components will be delivered in 27.5 hours of direct contact time across 12 months. All adolescents will be assessed prior to randomization (baseline), immediately following the intervention (4 months), upon completion of maintenance sessions (12 months) and 18 months after the start of intervention.

BEHAVIORAL

SBWC

Behavioral intervention focused on behavioral weight control. Intervention components will be delivered in 27.5 hours of direct contact time across 12 months. All adolescents will be assessed prior to randomization (baseline), immediately following the intervention (4 months), upon completion of maintenance sessions (12 months) and 18 months after the start of intervention.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Rhode Island Hospital

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Oregon

  collaborator OTHER

• Oregon Health and Science University

  collaborator OTHER

• The Miriam Hospital

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Elissa Jelalian, PhD · [email protected]

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

13 Years

Max Age

17 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-05-01

Primary Completion

2026-01-31

Completion

2026-01-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations