The Role of School Contexts in Adolescents' Weight-loss Behaviors and Self-perceptions of Overweight

Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health and multilevel modeling, this study investigates the role high school social contexts play in the development of adolescents' weight-loss behaviors and overweight self-perceptions. Overall, the results indicate that there is an important association between adolescents' weight-loss behaviors and self-perceptions of overweight and the weight-related context of their school. For example, both adolescent boys and girls are less likely to engage in weight-loss behaviors when overweight is prevalent among their same-sex schoolmates. However, gender differences are also found. For example, while adolescent boys' self-perceptions of overweight are significantly associated with their same-sex schoolmates' characteristics and behaviors, this is not the case for adolescent girls. Overall, these findings suggest that meso-level social contextssuch as schoolsmay be particularly important to how individuals incorporate macro-level beliefs or valuessuch as gendered body idealsinto their own behaviors and self-concepts.