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An adolescent’s satisfaction with his or her relationship to his or her parents is shown to
be an insignificant predictor of adolescent overweight and obesity. This variable has not been
examined in previous studies.
Lastly, the greatest predictor of adolescent overweight and obesity in the current study is
the adolescent’s body mass index at wave I. If the adolescent is overweight or obese at wave I,
they have a high risk of being overweight or obese at wave II.
Conclusion
Adolescent overweight and obesity has become a major epidemic throughout the United
States in the past two decades. Most people blame this problem on fast food and junk food
combined with a lack of physical activity. Eating and exercise habits are most likely the biggest
two causes of overweight and obesity today, however preliminary results of this study shows that
they are not the only causes. There are several aspects of the parent child relationship that are
significant predictors of overweight and obesity, along with several other family variables and
individual variables. With the inclusion of Wave III into this study, I hope to show that the
effects of the parent child relationship on an adolescent’s weight are not only short-term, but also
have long-term effects as well. The obesity epidemic is a serious problem in our society,
creating increases in many related diseases and resulting in rising health care costs. If we can
discover all the factors that are causing this epidemic, perhaps we can begin to eliminate it more
effectively.
Convention