Daheia Barr-Anderson, Ph.D., Kinesiology associate professor and director of the Behavioral Physical Activity Laboratory (BPAL), Kinesiology doctoral candidate Eydie Kramer, and colleagues have published a study, “Weight-Dependent Disparities in Adolescent Girls: The Impact of a Brief Pilot Intervention on Exercise and Healthy Eater Identity,” in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH). Kramer is the lead author on the article, and the study was used in designing her current dissertation project.

The pilot study, run by BPAL, was conducted in Fort Collins, CO in Summer 2017.  It investigated disparities and changes in identity and subsequent health behavior in two cohorts of adolescent girls following a brief, multicomponent intervention. Samples of normal-weight adolescent girls from a health promotion camp and girls with elevated body mass index (BMI) from an obesity treatment camp participated in the study. Both one-week camps delivered comparable intervention components. The pilot study demonstrated that exercise identity (EI) and healthy eater identity (HEI) differ between normal-weight and obese adolescent girls, and weight-dependent identity disparities may be mitigated following brief, multicomponent interventions.