Understanding How Overweight and Obese Emerging Adults Make Lifestyle Choices.
EunSeok Cha, James M Crowe, Betty J Braxter and 1 others
PMID 27496826WHAT IT FOUND
Overweight and obese emerging adults said they chose unhealthy habits because they felt healthy, faced family and cultural pressures, misunderstood activity and food needs, and traded time for school or money.
They said change meant disrupting their balance and needing help weighing costs and benefits.
Key findings
01Four factors shaped lifestyle choices: perceptions of health, social and cultural pressures, low health literacy, and developmental tasks or demands.
02Some participants saw themselves as healthy despite obesity, and family messages about body size could make them underestimate their weight.
03They described token exercise, poor understanding of activity and nutrition, and fast or cheap food choices because time, money, and health literacy limited them.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The focus group sample was small (34 participants) and mostly African American women from one region, so it does not represent many cultural, ethnic, or male perspectives. Participants were selected from a parent study of overweight and obese, physically inactive emerging adults who agreed to a focus group, so they may differ from other young adults. Focus groups may not have fit the time constraints of emerging adults, and there was a high no-show rate; individual interviews might have been better. The study did not test an intervention, so it cannot show what causes behavior change or improves health outcomes. Prediabetes and normoglycemic groups were combined because their themes were similar, so differences between those groups may be hidden. Findings are based on self-reported perceptions and experiences, not measured behavior change or clinical outcomes.
Declared interests
The paper states no conflicts of interest. No funding source is reported in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that a lifestyle program works or that these findings apply to all overweight and obese young adults. This was a qualitative study of 34 participants, mostly African American women in one region, and it did not test an intervention or measure health outcomes.