Project EAT: EAT – II

The longitudinal design of EAT-II followed the same students surveyed in Project EAT-I during their transition to late adolescence and young adulthood.

More than 2,500 participants completed follow-up surveys assessing personal, behavioral, and socioenvironmental constructs in the model of factors hypothesized to influence eating behaviors. Data collection was completed in June 2004.

Published manuscripts from Project EAT-II are posted online.

Objectives

Project EAT-II addresses questions about weight status, weight control behaviors, and dietary intake patterns targeted in Healthy People 2010:

• Have there been changes in secular trends over the past 4-5 years?
• What important changes occur as youth progress through different stages of adolescence?
• What are the most relevant socioenvironmental, personal, and behavioral predictive factors during these different stages?
• How do prevalence and predictors differ for youth by gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status?

Analysis

In all analyses data are weighted to adjust for differential response rates using the response propensity method for a large number of predictor variables available from the EAT-I survey (i.e., gender, native born, ethnicity/race, socioeconomic status, overweight status, parental marital status, individual’s concern about health, and most common grade in school). Survey data collected are analyzed by a variety of statistical methods according to whether the data represents categorical or continuous variables and according to the purpose of the analysis. For details please see the individual publications from Project EAT-II that will be posted online as manuscripts are published.

Research Design

To address the Project EAT-II objectives and examine changes in eating patterns and weight status over 5 years, surveys were mailed to all original Project EAT-I participants for whom contact information was available in 2003-2004.

• The Project EAT-I survey was revised and two versions based on the model were developed. One version was mailed to participants who were in junior high school at time 1 (time 2 high school cohort) and a second version to participants who were in senior high school at time 1 (time 2 post-high school cohort). Some items from the original survey were dropped due to data redundancy (e.g., childhood weight) and several new items were added following focus groups with young adults that raised topics of relevance to the post-high school cohort. For more details about the surveys please see the Surveys Page.

• Between April 2003 and June 2004, Project EAT-II surveys and food frequency questionnaires were mailed to both cohorts randomly selected into 6 waves by the Data Collection and Support Services in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Minnesota.
• An effort was made to include as many of the original participants as possible. If the first survey was not returned, participants were sent 2 reminder postcards and 3 additional survey packets. When mail was returned due to an incorrect address, staff used internet tracking services to identify a current address based on the participant’s parent’s name and last known address.
• Of approximately 3,700 EAT-I participants contacted by mail, 2,516 responded to the EAT-II survey.