Peer Pressure Can Carry Great Weight in Girls' Eating and Exercise Habits

· Participants with a higher body mass index perceived their peers to be more concerned with weight than their thinner counterparts. They also reported engaging in more dieting and other steps to control their weight than their more svelte peers.

· African American girls were less concerned about their weight than were others.

A 2007 study by the same researchers found that teens most likely to identify with the burnout group had the worst eating, exercise and weight-control behavior of all the groups. So-called brains had the best eating and workout regimens, though they also reported more dieting than other teens. Jocks and populars didn't always eat healthfully but were the most likely to get plenty of exercise and to engage in sports.

The findings offer guidance in targeting girls who might be most vulnerable to weight issues. "Health-care providers and school personnel might ask adolescent girls about their peer crowd affiliations in order to help identify adolescents with the highest levels of risky behaviors," the authors conclude.

What also seems to help build healthy eating habits in teens is encouraging family meals, according to Project Eating Among Teens, a long-term study of nearly 5,000 adolescents and their families conducted at the University of Minnesota.

The research finds that family meals are linked to better diets, including more fruit and vegetables, less soda and less dietary fat, according to Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and a lead investigator of Project EAT.

Children from families that regularly break bread together also seem to have a lower risk of developing eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. They're less likely to be overweight. They perform better in school and are less apt to engage in risky behavior such as taking drugs, drinking, smoking and engaging in sex.