A Dissonance-Based Obesity Intervention

Approximately 34% of college students are overweight/obese. However, few behavioral weight loss (BWL) interventions have been developed for young adults in college. Research suggests that standard BWL interventions are not addressing the needs of young adults as they have shown poorer retention rates and weight loss compared to older adults in BWL trials. Standard BWL interventions are also time-intensive and are not conducive to inexpensive dissemination. The primary aim of this project is to examine the feasibility and acceptability of Enhanced Project Health, a dissonance-based obesity intervention for young adults enrolled in college. Enhanced Project Health is based on Project Health, a dissonance-based obesity prevention program, which has been shown to significantly decrease weight gain and future overweight/obesity onset compared to a matched intervention and minimal intervention control condition in young adults. The current intervention was expanded to consist of eight weekly group sessions and to address sleep, in addition to diet and physical activity. The secondary aim is to test the hypothesis that Enhanced Project Health will result in significantly greater reductions in weight and improvements in lifestyle behaviors compared to an assessment only condition.