Objective: Health-risk behaviors have an unclear etiology and college students have elevated risk for engagement. Emotion dysregulation and several personality dimensions have been implicated in health-risk behaviors, but these constructs have rarely been studied together. Further, it is unknown if different types of health-risk behaviors have…

Objectives: Researchers examined associations between specific forms of emotion dysregulation and numerous behavioral manifestations of impulsivity (i.e., problematic alcohol use, drug use, risky sexual activity, binge eating, non-suicidal self-injury). Participants: Participants were 238 undergraduate students (69% female). Method: Emotion…

Adolescents often practice unhealthy behaviors to lose weight or keep from gaining weight. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has conducted biennial Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) of various health risk behaviors since 1991 using U.S. representative samples of high school students and is therefore best for us to identify risk/preventive…

Objective: To conduct a pilot test to determine if the Body Project, an eating disorder prevention program, was able to reduce risky sexual behaviors. Participants: Twenty college-age women ages 18-21 (in March, 2015) who endorsed both body image dissatisfaction and previous or current sexual activity. Methods: Participants were randomized to the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of girls and boys about the effects that body-based harassment would have on girls' eating habits and engagement in physical activity. Five scenarios were read to focus groups comprised of 12- to 14-year-old students in grades 7 and 8. Each scenario represented behaviours that fall…

Under heightened emotional states, individuals are more inclined to engage in ill-considered or rash actions than at other times. The authors present evidence for the existence of 2 related traits called positive and negative urgency. The traits refer to individual differences in the disposition to engage in rash action when experiencing extreme…

Objective: This study examined the association between restricting calories on intended drinking days and drunkenness frequency and alcohol-related consequences among college students. Participants: Participants included a random sample of 4,271 undergraduate college students from 10 universities. Methods: Students completed a Web-based survey…

The present study utilizes the National College Health Risk Behavior Survey to examine the relationship between health-risk behaviors and sexual victimization among a sample of college women. A prospective design is utilized to examine the relationship between health-risk behaviors as measured at baseline and sexual victimization during a 3-month…

The national Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) monitors priority health risk behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of death, disability, and social problems among youth and adults in the United States. The national YRBS is conducted every two years during the spring semester and provides data representative of 9th through 12th grade…

Disordered eating among American adolescent females represents a significant health issue in our current cultural climate. Disordered eating receives insufficient attention, however, due to the public's unfamiliarity with symptoms and consequences, absence of treatment options, and unreliable instrumentation to detect disordered eating. Disordered…

Research confirms a direct link between student health risk behavior and education outcomes, education behaviors, and student attitudes. This article discusses barriers to comprehensive school health programming; summarizes relevant information concerning several health-risk behaviors (intentional injuries, diet, physical activity, sexual-risk…

This youth risk behavior survey was completed by 7,667 students at 127 Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) middle schools. The document is organized around the six categories of behavior that contribute substantially to the leading causes of death, illness, and social problems in the United States: unintentional and intentional injuries; tobacco use;…

This report reviews current statistics on the state of girls' lives in the United States at the end of the 20th century. Six chapters cover: (1) "Framing Gender, Identity, and Adolescence" (trends in research on adolescent girls, exploring identities, how girls are doing, and conditions that support or hinder girls' healthy sense of…