Erin E. Bannon

A randomized trial comparing two approaches to weight loss: differences in weight loss maintenance.

This study compared treatment outcomes for a new weight loss program that emphasized reducing unhealthy relationships with food, body image dissatisfaction, and internalized weight bias (New Perspectives) to a weight loss program that emphasizes environmental modification and habit formation and disruption (Transforming Your Life). Fifty-nine overweight and obese adults (body mass index ≥ 27 kg/m2) were randomly assigned to either a 12-week New Perspectives or Transforming Your Life intervention. Despite equivalent outcomes at the end of treatment, the Transforming Your Life participants were significantly more effective at maintaining their weight loss than New Perspectives participants during the 6-month no-treatment follow-up period.

Internalized weight bias: ratings of the self, normal weight, and obese individuals and psychological maladjustment.

Current measures of internalized weight bias assess factors such as responsibility for weight status, mistreatment because of weight, etc. A potential complementary approach for assessing internalized weight bias is to examine the correspondence between individuals’ ratings of obese people, normal weight people, and themselves on personality traits. This investigation examined the relationships among different measures of internalized weight bias, as well as the association between those measures and psychosocial maladjustment. Prior to the beginning of a weight loss intervention, 62 overweight/obese adults completed measures of explicit and internalized weight bias as well as body image, binge eating, and depression. Discrepancies between participants’ ratings of obese people in general and ratings of themselves on both positive and negative traits predicted unique variance in measures of maladjustment above a traditional assessment of internalized weight bias. This novel approach to measuring internalized weight bias provides information above and beyond traditional measures of internalized weight bias and begins to provide insights into social comparison processes involved in weight bias.

Assessing University Students' Self-efficacy to Employ Alcohol-Related Harm Reduction Strategies

Abstract Objective: Develop and evaluate key psychometric properties of a self-report questionnaire specifically designed to assess student drinkers’ self-confidence to employ a variety of strategies intended to reduce unhealthy consequences of high-risk drinking. Methods: Four hundred ninety-eight participants rated their confidence (from “not at all confident” to “completely confident”) to employ 17 harm reduction strategies when drinking. Results: Factor analysis and internal consistency reliability analyses indicated that the 17 items constitute a single scale with good test–retest reliability. Consistent with other research examining previous use of such strategies, women in our sample reported significantly higher harm reduction self-efficacy than did men. Harm reduction self-efficacy was also associated with reported number of high-risk drinking episodes in the previous 2 weeks. Conclusion: This brief and easily administered questionnaire holds promise as a clinical tool to identify individuals with low harm reduction self-efficacy and as an outcome measure for health promotion and educational interventions.

Step-down approach to behavioural weight loss treatment: a pilot of a randomised clinical trial

Background: In a stepped-down approach, patients begin with a more intensive treatment and are stepped down to a less intensive treatment based on achieving treatment goals. This study compared a standard behavioural weight loss programme (BWLP) to a stepped-down approach to treatment. Methods: Fifty-two overweight/obese adults (Age: M = 47 years, SD = 13.5; female = 67%) participated in an 18-week BWLP. Half of them were randomly assigned to be stepped down from weekly group meetings based on completion of weight loss goals (3%) every 6 weeks, while the other half remained in their groups regardless of weight loss. Results: There was a significant difference favouring the BWLP in the proportion of participants who met or exceeded their 3% weight loss goal during the first six weeks. While not statistically significant by the end of treatment, the BWLP participants lost nearly 3% more body weight than stepped-down participants (SC = 4.9% vs. BWLP = 7.8%; p = .10). Greater self-monitoring was associated with increased likelihood of stepped-care eligibility and higher percent weight loss at the end of treatment (p < .01). Conclusion: There was little evidence to support the efficacy of the stepped-down approach for behavioural weight loss treatment employed in this investigation.

Development of a Questionnaire to Assess University Students’ Intentions to Use Behavioral Alcohol-Reduction Strategies

Abstract Objective: To evaluate the psychometric properties of a new self-report questionnaire designed to assess college students’ intentions to employ 31 specific alcohol-reduction strategies. Method: Students attending a large public university were recruited to complete alcohol-reduction, drinking history, and personality questionnaires online. Results: Based on item–total correlations and principal components analysis, the authors eliminated 3 items and calculated average intention ratings across the remaining 28 items. The resulting scale had appropriate unidimensionality and excellent internal consistency. Correlations of intention questionnaire scores with measures of drinking history, alcohol outcome expectancies, sensation seeking, and impression management provided some support for criterion and discriminant validity of the questionnaire. Conclusion: This questionnaire could be employed as an outcome measure to evaluate prevention programs and as a clinical tool to identify clients who have little intention to employ drinking reduction strategies in heavy drinking situations.

Evaluation of the criterion and predictive validity of the Alcohol Reduction Strategies—Current Confidence (ARS-CC) in a natural drinking environment

To evaluate several psychometric properties of a questionnaire designed to assess young peoples self-efficacy to employ 31 alcohol reduction strategies, we assessed breath alcohol concentration, self-reported drinking, current strategy self-efficacy, and recent past use of these strategies in 100 young adults as they walked to and from the local bar district of a Midwestern college town. In support of criterion and predictive validity of the questionnaire, we found that lower self-efficacy at the initial assessment was significantly correlated with higher scores on a screening measure of consumption, with having engaged in more heavy drinking episodes in the past 30 days, and with higher levels of intoxication and use of fewer reduction strategies later that evening. Frequency counts indicate that 10 of the alcohol reduction strategies had been used by at least half of the sample to reduce their drinking earlier that evening.