Assessing weight perception accuracy to promote weight loss among U.S. female adolescents: A secondary analysis

A nonexperimental, descriptive, comparative secondary analysis design was conducted using data from Wave II (1996) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Data representative of U.S. female adolescents (N = 2216) were analyzed using STATA statistical software. Descriptive statistics and survey weight logistic regression were performed to determine if demographic and independent (body-mass index, weight perception, and weight perception accuracy) variables were associated with trying to lose weight and engaging in exercise as a weight-loss method.Age, Black or African American race, body-mass index, weight perception, and weight perceptions accuracy were consistently associated with the likeliness of trying to lose weight among U.S. female adolescents. Age, body-mass index, weight perception, and weight-perception accuracy were positively associated (p < 0.05) with trying to lose weight. Black/African American subjects were significantly less likely than their White counterparts to be trying to lose weight. There was no association between demographic or independent variables and engaging in exercise as a weight-loss method.Findings suggest that factors influencing weight-loss efforts, including age, race, body-mass index, weight perception, and weight-perception accuracy, should be incorporated into existing or new multi-component weight-loss interventions for U.S. adolescent females in order to help reduce the national epidemic of overweight and obesity among U.S. female adolescents.Due to the increased worldwide prevalence of overweight and obesity, health care officials consider overweight and obesity a global epidemic [1,2], especially among young people. The latest estimates among children and adolescents in 34 countries indicate a prevalence of overweight ranging from 5.1% to 25.4% and obesity from 0.4% to 7.9%. Overweight and obesity also represent a national epidemic in the United States, where the prevalence of overweight and o