Unhealthy weight management behavior among adolescent girls with type 1 diabetes mellitus: The role of familial eating patterns and weight-related concerns

Chronic Illness and Disordered Eating: A Discussion of the Literature

“…This weight gain occurs because insulin prompts the body to reduce blood glucose levels, with 1 removal route being fat deposition (16). A large increase in weight in a short period of time may negatively affect the body image and self-esteem of some individuals with type 1 diabetes (24,25) and cause them to fear that they will be unable to control their weight.…”

Preventing and treating adolescent obesity: A position paper of the Society for Adolescent Medicine

“…Parents can foster adequate, not restrictive or excessive, food consumption along with adequate, not excessive, exercise by their adolescents [1]. Efforts aimed at preventing overweight need to be congruent with adolescents' sensitivity to weight-related issues so as to avoid inadvertently evoking body dissatisfaction and/or unhealthy food-restricting behaviors [14,15]. Health care providers should encourage parents to examine their home environment to identify changes that can be made to facilitate healthier eating and physical activity behaviors while placing less focus on body weight, shape and size.…”

Eating among teens: Do family mealtimes make a difference for adolescents' nutrition?

“…Previous large studies of adolescents have suggested the role of broad familial factors such as family connectedness in protecting youth from high-risk behaviors (Resnick, Harris, & Blum, 1993;Resnick et al, 1997). Few studies, however, have examined the specific role of family meals in protecting youth from disordered eating, and those that have been done have tended to focus on small, narrowly defined populations such as female college students or girls with diabetes (Ackard & Neumark-Sztainer 2001;Mellin, Neumark-Sztainer, Patterson, & Sockalosky, 2004;Crowther, Kichler, Sherwood, & Kuhnert, 2002;Miller, McCluskey-Fawcett, & Irving 1993;Worobey, 2002), thus limiting their generalizability and utility for guiding the development of public health interventions. I will summarize our findings from Project EAT and then report findings from another study we did that has implications for health interventions.…”

“…The AHEAD study (Assessing Health and Eating in Adolescents with Diabetes) focused on diabetic teens, a population that faces particularly strong requirements to control their food intake in order to remain healthy. In the AHEAD study, we conducted individual interviews with thirty adolescent girls (ages thirteen to twenty years) with type 1 diabetes mellitus (Mellin et al, 2004;Neumark-Sztainer, Patterson, et al, 2002). We also interviewed their parents in separate interviews.…”