# Enhancing Emotion Regulation to Support Weight Control Efforts in Adolescents with Overweight and Obesity

> **NIH NIH R01** · MIRIAM HOSPITAL · 2022 · $589,552

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
The prevalence of adolescents struggling with excess weight is remarkably high, with 38.7% of 12-15 year-olds
and 41.5% of 16-19 year-olds meeting criteria for overweight or obesity. While considerable attention has been
given to comprehensive behavioral interventions to address obesity in children, there is less empirical evidence
demonstrating efficacy of interventions with adolescents. Additionally, there is great variability in outcomes.
Limited impact of adolescent weight control treatment may be attributable to the failure of these interventions to
explicitly address key mechanisms that are necessary for successful weight loss. Notably, adolescents with
poorer emotion regulation have been found to consume foods of lower diet quality and report greater time
spent in sedentary behavior than their peers. Poor emotion regulation among adolescents has also been
associated with more rapid weight gain and higher BMI. Data from adolescents with overweight/obesity from
an outpatient weight management program at Hasbro Children's Hospital (N=124) indicate that 82% of these
youth report emotion regulation scores that are comparable to youth with significant mental health problems;
furthermore, there is a positive association between emotional dysregulation and BMI within this same
treatment-seeking sample. Despite these established relationships, interventions targeting emotion regulation
in adolescents with obesity are lacking. To fill this gap, our laboratory developed and piloted an adolescent
weight control intervention (HealthTRAC) that combines two efficacious interventions, one targeting emotion
regulation skill building, the other focused on behavioral weight control. Preliminary findings from the small pilot
trial are promising and indicate that the developed HealthTRAC intervention is acceptable, feasible to deliver,
and results in significant reduction in BMI (d=.58) and improvement in emotion regulation skills (d=.20-.35)
relative to a standard behavioral weight control (SBWC) condition. The proposed multi-site trial builds on these
previous findings and will evaluate the efficacy of the developed HealthTRAC intervention on improving
emotion regulation skills and reducing adolescent BMI. We propose to enroll 200 adolescents (100 per site)
between the ages of 13-17 years of age to receive either HealthTRAC or SBWC. Adolescents will be randomly
assigned to treatment condition within site. Intervention components will be delivered in 27.5 hours of direct
contact time across 12 months. All adolescents will be assessed prior to randomization (baseline), immediately
following the intervention (4 months), upon completion of maintenance sessions (12 months) and 18 months
after the start of intervention. The information gained in this project will extend our understanding of how
improving emotion regulation abilities can enhance adolescent weight control interventions.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10438857
- **Project number:** 5R01DK124551-03
- **Recipient organization:** MIRIAM HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** Wendy S Hadley
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $589,552
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-09-16 → 2025-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10438857

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10438857, Enhancing Emotion Regulation to Support Weight Control Efforts in Adolescents with Overweight and Obesity (5R01DK124551-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10438857. Licensed CC0.

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