The Relationship of Stress to Health-Promoting Behaviors of College-Educated African American Women

Background: More research has been done involving obese and overweight African American women who have low and middle socioeconomic status (SES) and have a high school education or some college. Fewer studies have involved African American women who have completed college, and even fewer numbers of studies have involved African American women of middle and high SES with bachelor's and graduate degrees. Methods: Quantitative analysis, using analysis of variance (ANOVA), Pearson's product moment statistics, and stepwise multiple regression, was performed. Utilizing Pender's health promotion model, the relationships among weight, body image, self-efficacy, stress, and health-promoting behaviors were determined in a purposive sampling of 167 subjects who were members of an organization of women in the Metropolitan Washington, D.C., area, whose membership consists primarily of college-educated African American members. These participants were compared for the association of weight, body image, self-efficacy, a...