Factors Associated With Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors Among Adolescents.
Colleen M McGovern, Lisa K Militello, Kimberly J Arcoleo and 1 others
PMID 29941235WHAT IT FOUND
Adolescents who believed they could handle healthy habits had fewer negative feelings and more healthy behaviors.
For boys, beliefs also linked directly to behaviors; for girls, beliefs worked mainly through feelings. Screening mood and self-beliefs may help identify adolescents who need support.
Key findings
01The analysis showed that adolescents' thoughts and feelings were linked to healthy lifestyle behaviors, and the links were different for boys and girls.
02For boys, positive thoughts were associated with lower negative feelings and directly associated with more healthy lifestyle behaviors.
03For girls, positive thoughts were associated with lower negative feelings but not directly associated with healthy lifestyle behaviors; the indirect effect through feelings was stronger than for boys.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
This was a secondary analysis of baseline data, so it could answer only questions related to the measures collected in the original trial. The data were cross-sectional, so the study cannot show that thoughts or feelings caused behaviors. All measures were self-report, so responses may be biased. The sample came from two school districts in the Southwestern United States and was mostly Latino and receiving public assistance, so it may not represent all adolescents. The analysis used a significance threshold of p less than .10.
Declared interests
The article is listed as supported by NIH extramural research. The supplied text does not state author conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that teaching adolescents positive thinking will improve their healthy behaviors. These data are cross-sectional self-report associations, not a test of an intervention.