Cognitive change in obese adolescents losing weight.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate how obese adolescents think about themselves in terms of exercise, eating, and appearance and whether these cognitions change over the course of a residential weight loss camp.


METHODS
Obese adolescents [N = 61; age, 14.1 (+/-0.2) years; BMI, 33.9 (+/-0.7) kg/m(2)] completed assessments of body weight and height and self-esteem and a sentence-completion test eliciting thoughts and beliefs about exercise, eating, and appearance at the start and end of the camp (mean stay, 26 days). They were compared with a single assessment of 20 normal-weight adolescents [age, 15.4 (+/-0.2) years; BMI, 21.8 (+/-0.5) kg/m(2)].


RESULTS
The obese adolescents lost 5.7 kg and reduced their BMI SD score by 0.25. Camp residence was associated with a significant reduction in the number of negative automatic thoughts and an increase in positive thoughts, especially related to exercise and appearance. There was no change in conditional beliefs, either functional or dysfunctional. Including BMI SD score change as a covariate took away all the main and interaction effects of time, showing that cognitive change was largely accounted for by the reduction in weight. Despite this improvement, campers remained cognitively more negative and dysfunctional than the normal-weight comparison adolescents.


CONCLUSIONS
Obese adolescents not only lost weight, but they improved their self-representation, specifically in terms of automatic thoughts about exercise and appearance. Although these are short-term cognitive changes, they reflect positively on the camp experience and show the value of psychological improvement in assessing obesity-treatment outcomes.
Academic Unit of Psychiatry & Behavioural Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom.
Stephen B
SB
Barton
Lucy L M
LL
Walker
Gillian
G
Lambert
Paul J
PJ
Gately
Andrew J
AJ
Hill
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D001294:Attitude to Health; D001828:Body Image; D015992:Body Mass Index; D004435:Eating / Q000523:psychology; D015444:Exercise / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006294:Health Resorts; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009765:Obesity / Q000523:psychology*; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent; D012649:Self Concept; D015431:Weight Loss