Description/Overview: The prevention and treatment of overweight/obesity in adolescence is a major public health problem in the United States today. The incidence of adolescents who are overweight or obese has increased dramatically over the past 30 years, with approximately 17.1 percent of teens now being overweight (i.e., a gender and age-specific body mass index (BMI) at or above the 85th percentile), or obese (a gender and age-specific BMI at or above the 95th percentile). In Hispanic children and adolescents, overweight and obesity estimates are as high as 34 percent. Key factors influencing the obesity epidemic include an increase in sedentary activities and changes in dietary patterns and food consumption (e.g., large portion sizes, fast foods). Being overweight predisposes adolescents to adverse health outcomes compared to their non-overweight counterparts, including Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, sleep apnea, increased asthma symptoms and a shortened life span. In addition, overweight and obese adolescents, in comparison to normal weight adolescents, have a higher prevalence of school and mental health problems, including poor academic performance and self-esteem, anxiety and depressive disorders, and a greater number of reported suicide attempts. In order to develop effective interventions to prevent and treat this public health epidemic as well as to explain their effectiveness, it is necessary to have valid and reliable instruments that tap variables that lead to overweight and obesity in adolescents. Therefore, this presentation will provide an overview of cognitive theory and how it guided the development of a theory based model of adolescent overweight and four new instruments that tap healthy lifestyle knowledge, perceived difficulty in leading a healthy lifestyle, and healthy lifestyle behaviors. The psychometric properties of these new scales will be discussed with further implications for research and their use in clinical practice.

Learner Objective #1: Describe the psychometric properties of four new instruments designed to measure adolescent healthy lifestyle knowledge, perceived difficulty and behaviors.

Learner Objective #2: Discuss the implications of using these instruments in future research and clinical practice.