Primary Care Treatment for Overweight Adolescent Females (SHINE)

This project will examine the effectiveness of a primary care based intervention to help overweight teen girls adopt healthy lifestyle practices. Participants are adolescent females at select Kaiser Permanente Northwest primary care clinics with a body mass index above the 90th percentile. Teens will be randomly assigned to (1) a behavioral weight control program (enriched intervention), (or 2) usual-care (control). Primary care providers of teens in the intervention condition are given customized plans describing the teen's eating and physical activity habits and instructions on how to best work with these teens and their families. The behavioral weight control program is specifically tailored for teen girls and includes separate group meetings for teens and parents, follow-up telephone contacts with their group leader, and coordinated feedback from the teen's primary care provider.