Amanda S. Birnbaum

The role of peer social network factors and physical activity in adolescent girls.

OBJECTIVE To study the relationship between peer-related physical activity (PA) social networks and the PA of adolescent girls. METHODS Cross-sectional, convenience sample of adolescent girls. Mixed-model linear regression analyses to identify significant correlates of self-reported PA while accounting for correlation of girls in the same school. RESULTS Younger girls were more active than older girls. Most activity-related peer social network items were related to PA levels. More PA with friends was significantly related to self-reported PA in multivariate analyses. CONCLUSIONS Frequency of PA with friends was an important correlate of PA among the peer network variables for adolescent girls.

School-Based Approaches to Affect Adolescents’ Diets: Results From the TEENS Study:

This article reports on the outcomes of the Teens Eating for Energy and Nutrition at School (TEENS) study, a 2-year intervention study conducted in 16 middle schools with a goal of increasing students’ intakes of fruits, vegetables, and lower fat foods. Despite positive interim results for students randomized to intervention schools, the positive effects of the intervention were not seen for the primary outcomes at the end of the 2nd year. Positive effects were seen only for a food choice score (suggesting that the students usually choose lower versus higher fat foods) and not for measures of food intake. Future studies may need to take a step back toward more controlled efficacy studies in working with this age-group. In addition, future work may consider the use of peer leaders, more intensive teacher training, ongoing formative assessment, and the testing of more powerful environmental change intervention strategies.

Associations between Perceived Family Meal Environment and Parent Intake of Fruit, Vegetables, and Fat

OBJECTIVE To describe the family mealtime environment and assess associations with adult fruit, vegetable, and fat intake. DESIGN Telephone survey. PARTICIPANTS A convenience sample of 277 adults in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area were recruited through 4 schools. The sample was 85% female and 70% married. The mean number of children in the household was 2.6 (range 1 to 9). VARIABLES MEASURED Adult fruit and vegetable intake, fat intake, and perceptions of the mealtime environment. ANALYSIS Descriptive and mixed-model linear regression. RESULTS Participants reported that the television was frequently on during dinner meals and almost one third felt that their family was too busy to eat dinner together. A higher frequency of television viewing during dinner was associated with lower fruit and vegetable consumption and higher fat consumption. Planning meals in advance was associated with higher fruit and vegetable consumption; however, 46% of the adults did not plan meals in advance. Arguments concerning eating behavior during dinner were associated with higher fat consumption. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS The family meal environment is associated with adult eating patterns and should be considered when designing nutrition messages for families.

Prevalence and Correlates of Depressive Symptoms in Young Adolescents

OBJECTIVES To assess prevalence of elevated depressive symptoms in young adolescents and examine associations between symptoms and sociodemographic and behavioral factors. METHODS Cross-sectional survey data from 3621 seventh grade students from 16 middle schools were analyzed. RESULTS Elevated depressive symptoms were reported by 40% of girls and 30% of boys. Socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, and age group were independently associated with depressive symptomatology. For girls, monthly alcohol use, monthly smoking, heavy drinking, and inhalant use were significant correlates. For boys, monthly alcohol use and inhalant use were significant. CONCLUSIONS Elevated depressive symptomatology was a prevalent problem. Substance use was often associated with depressive symptoms, especially among girls.

Perceptions of the family mealtime environment and adolescent mealtime behavior: do adults and adolescents agree?

The family mealtime environment has great potential to affect the eating behaviors of youth in the family. It is difficult to determine the important elements of a healthy mealtime environment because a valid assessment of the family environment is so difficult to obtain.The objective of this study is to examine the level of agreement between adult and adolescent perceptions of the family mealtime environment and adolescent mealtime behavior.A telephone survey was used to query adult and adolescent family members about how they perceive the family mealtime environment and the adolescents mealtime behavior. A convenience sample of 282 adult/adolescent pairs from four schools in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area completed the telephone surveys. Frequencies of responses and the associations between the adult and adolescent responses are presented. Pearson correlations and regression were used to examine the level of association between adult and adolescent responses. Mixed-model regression was used for the continuous variables, and mixed-model logistic regression was used for the dichotomous variables. This study showed very little concordance between adolescent and adult responses. Only one question regarding arguments about eating during mealtime showed concordance. Adults and adolescents living in the same household seem to have different perceptions of the family mealtime environment and adolescent eating patterns. Researchers need to be aware of and concerned with the validity of the use of self-report for descriptions of family mealtime. They also need to be aware of the difference in adult and adolescent perceptions and consider these differences when designing messages for the family.

Predictors of Violent Behavior in an Early Adolescent Cohort: Similarities and Differences Across Genders

The authors assessed a cohort of 2,335 students from the Minneapolis, Minnesota, area to identify predictors of violent behavior and to determine whether the predictors varied by gender. The sample was 76% White; boys and girls were equally represented. The majority lived with two parents. A measure of violent behavior collected at the end of the eighth-grade year (2000) was entered into Poisson regression against baseline data collected at the beginning of the seventh-grade year (1998). Predictors of violent behavior influencing both boys and girls included depressive symptoms, perceived invulnerability to negative future events, paternal nonauthoritative behavior, and drinking alcohol. Additional predictors of violent behavior specific to girls included both risk and protective factors.

A schematic for focusing on youth in investigations of community design and physical activity.

This paper provides a first step in addressing special considerations for youth in a relatively new area of physical activity research. After reviewing the urgent need for novel approaches to increasing physical activity, the growing interest in the effects of community design are discussed. Although most discussion on this topic has focused on adults, there are important differences between youth and adults that warrant a special focus on youth and need to be accounted for. This article presents a schematic that accounts for how and where youth spend their time, decomposing the day into time spent in travel and time spent at destinations, and identifying portions of those times that are spent engaged in physical activity. By focusing on both spatial and behavioral dimensions of youth time, the schematic may help organize and advance scientific inquiry into the relationships between community design and physical activity specifically for youth.

Longitudinal Invariance of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale among Girls and Boys in Middle School.

This study tested the longitudinal factorial invariance of a theoretically consistent, higher-order model for Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression (CES-D) scores among adolescent girls and boys in middle school. Data were collected from 2,416 adolescents who completed a survey containing the CES-D in the fall of 1998, spring of 1999, and spring of 2000. The invariance analyses were conducted using LISREL 8.50 with maximum likelihood estimation and the Satorra-Bentler scaled chi-square statistic and standard errors. The higher-order model demonstrated longitudinal, as well as gender, invariance of the overall factor structure and first- and second-order structure coefficients, first-order factor variances, second-order factor variances and covariances, and item uniquenesses. The results demonstrate that meaningful comparisons of composite CES-D scores can be made across time among girls and boys in middle school.

Intraclass Correlation for Measures from a Middle School Nutrition Intervention Study: Estimates, Correlates, and Applications

This article presents the first estimates of school-level intraclass correlation for dietary measures based on data from the Teens Eating for Energy and Nutrition at School study. This study involves 3,878 seventh graders from 16 middle schools from Minneapolis–St. Paul, Minnesota. The sample was 66.8% White, 11.2% Black, and 7.0% Asian; 48.8% of the sample was female. Typical fruit and vegetable intake was assessed with a modified version of the Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System questionnaire. Twenty-four-hour dietary recalls were conducted by nutritionists using the Minnesota Nutrition Data System. Mixed-model regression methods were used to estimate variance components for school and residual error, both before and after adjustment for demographic factors. School-level intraclass correlations were large enough, if ignored, to substantially inflate the Type I error rate in an analysis of treatment effects. The authors show how to use the estimates to determine sample size requirements for future studies.

Examination of perceived neighborhood characteristics and transportation on changes in physical activity and sedentary behavior: The Trial of Activity in Adolescent Girls.

We examined the association between perceived neighborhood characteristics and transport and 2-year changes in accelerometer-determined nonschool MET-weighted moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MW-MVPA) and sedentary behavior of adolescent girls. Reporting that children do not play outdoors in their neighborhood, that their neighborhood was well lit, and that there were trails in their neighborhood were each associated with significant decreases in nonschool MW-MVPA. None of the neighborhood or transportation measures was associated with changes in nonschool sedentary behavior. Further work is needed to understand the determinants of the decline in physical activity and the increase in sedentary behavior among adolescent girls.