Health Education Research Advance Access originally published online on July 21, 2006
Health Education Research 2007 22(2):192-202; doi:10.1093/her/cyl065
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Testing a conceptual model related to weight perceptions, physical activity and smoking in adolescents
1 Faculty of Physical Education
2 Center for Health Promotion Studies, School of Public Health, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
3 Alberta Center for Active Living, Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
4 University of Toronto, Canada
5 School of Physical Education, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada
* Correspondence to: Dr R. C. Plotnikoff, 5-10 University Extension Center, 8303 - 112 Street, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2T4. E-mail: ron.plotnikoff{at}ualberta.ca
The purpose of this study was to test a conceptual model based on theoretical and empirically supported relationships related to the influences of weight perceptions, weight concerns, desires to change weight, friends, age and location in relation to physical activity (PA) and smoking in adolescents. A total of 1242 males and 1446 females (mean age = 15.6 ± 1.3) were recruited from rural and urban Canadian schools. Study respondents provided self-reports of PA, ‘smoking’, ‘perceived body weight’, ‘desire to change weight’, ‘concern about weight gain’ and ‘friends' smoking and PA behaviors’. Results revealed an acceptable fitting model 
2 (40) = 155.63, P < 0.05, root mean square error of approximation = 0.047 and comparative fit index = 0.98. Large effect sizes for both genders were observed between friends' and adolescents' smoking behavior, and between perceived body weight and desire to change weight. Further, significant differences were identified between the male and female models [2 difference (24) = 65.28, P < 0.05]. Several findings of this study point to the need to design programs to motivate adolescent females to adopt healthy weight-control practices and to target young peoples' social networks to promote health behaviors, especially with regard to smoking.
Received on December 22, 2005; accepted on June 15, 2006
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