Internal Cues Versus External Cues for Eating and Activity

The majority of female undergraduate students experience disordered eating and/or weight gain, increasing the risk for two serious public health problems, eating disorders and obesity. Traditional nutrition education about weight control delivered during college has not been effective and may even exacerbate these problems. Thus, the investigators propose that instead of focusing on external information as taught by nutrition education (e.g. 'calories in, calories out', quantification and cognitive processing of nutrition information), at-risk females be trained to become more attuned to their internal hunger and fullness signaling to set them on a trajectory for decreased chronic disease risk as they age.