Obesity risk in urban adolescent girls: nutritional intentions and health behavior correlates.

Abstract

Obesity is an expanding epidemic and minority adolescent girls are at high risk. One way to tailor interventions for obesity prevention is to target intention to engage in particular behaviors. Data collected from adolescent girls' intentions and behaviors regarding nutrition, physical activity, and sleep patterns were used to examine nutritional intentions in relation to healthy behaviors. Adolescent girls reported behaviors that increased their risks for obesity. Nutritional intentions were significantly associated with physical activity and sleep. These results suggest that healthy behaviors tend to occur in clusters, possibly extending the theory of planned behavior beyond individual behaviors to groups of related behaviors. Nurses can intervene with high-risk adolescent girls by promoting healthy diets, recommended levels of physical activity, and adequate sleep.