Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Use Of Social Media In Adolescent Obesity Intervention, Helen Hansen

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Childhood and adolescent obesity strongly predicts adult obesity (Spruijt-Metz, 2011) and literature highlights the transitional period into college as a “high risk weight gain period” (Holm-Denoma, Joiner, Vohs, & Heatherton, 2008). Obesity is associated with poor physical outcomes (Freedman, Dietz, Srinivasan, & Berenson, 1999; Katz & D’Ambrosio, 2010) and psychological conditions are found in 34% of children and adolescents with an obesity-related condition, in comparison to 20% of the children in the general population (Wang & Beydoun, 2007). In the context of obesity programs, growing evidence supports the efficacy of increasing physical activity without calorie restriction to decrease body fat …