Psychology

Northern Arizona UniversityPsychology

928-523-3063

Women’s Weight Management Research Program

Enrollment for this year's program is closed. Watch for our ads in the Arizona Daily Sun beginning in December for information about our Spring 2013 program!

Purpose

The Women’s Weight Management program focuses on researching the effects of the Stoplight Program, a small lifestyle change that helps increase the quality of a person’s diet.

The Stoplight Program uses the colors of a stoplight to indicate types of food. For instance:

green foods are healthy and consist primarily of fruit and vegetables
yellow foods are healthy but are higher in calories like whole grains and lean meats
Red foods generally do not have much nutritional value like high sugar and fatty foods

We will also assess the effectiveness of two types of activities: a stretching/walking group and a yoga group, as well as a variety of psychological variables that may be impacted by weight. We will evaluate whether these variables will change over the course of the program.

Principal investigator

The research project is overseen by Dr. Suzanne Daiss. Dr. Daiss is a faculty member in the Department of Psychology and Director of the Health Psychology Center. Dr. Daiss is a clinical health psychologist who specializes in women's health issues. She has more than 27 years experience doing clinical work and has been supervising student clinicians at Northern Arizona University for 23 years. She supervises the groups run by graduate student clinicians.

Participation eligibility

You must be a women aged 25 to 63.
You must have a BMI of 25 or over (which is generally at least 20 pounds overweight). See the BMI chart on the registration page of this site.
You must must be able to walk and do gentle stretching as part of the program, which includes wearing a pedometer and increasing step counts over the course of the program.
You must not have any serious disease that would limit participation, such as (but not limited to) untreated high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, or untreated diabetes.
You must not have current anorexia or bulimia.
You must have clearance from your physician to participate. Click here to open and print a physician's release form in .doc format. You must fax the completed form to 523-2161 before the program begins.
You must not participate in another weight loss program during this program ( e.g. Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig).
You must be able to commit to the full study—10 weeks in the program and assessment at 3 months as a follow up.
You must be ready and willing to make a lifestyle change. This program is designed for women who enjoy group interaction and problem-solving as they work toward their goals.
You must be willing to record food intake and step counts.
You must be willing to be randomly assigned to either physical activity group: stretching/walking or yoga. You cannot request to be in a specific group due to the research protocol. These activities will be extremely gentle and will be suitable for participants of any weight, body size, or level of fitness.

If there is any question about suitability for the program, Dr. Daiss will speak with you.

Benefits

Benefits of participating include receiving a 10 week group-based weight loss program including extra physical activity groups offered at a minimal cost of $65.00, which covers costs of materials. Other benefits of participating include increasing scientific knowledge of how to best provide weight management programs and how weight affects a variety of physiological and psychological variables.

Risks

Risks of participation include the possibility of feeling uncomfortable filling out health and psychological questionnaires or talking about your weight issues in a group setting.

You can choose not to answer any assessment questions and you can talk to your group leaders or Dr. Daiss if you feel distress. You may also experience mild soreness as a result of increasing your physical activity. You may discontinue participation at any time during the study.

Compensation

There is no monetary compensation for participation in this research program.

Group meetings

Groups will be held on Monday nights, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. One and a half hours will be devoted to the educational and group discussions and the last 30 minutes will be devoted to the specialized physical activities (either stretching/walking or yoga). Thursday evenings the groups will meet from 5:30 to 6:30 for the specialized physical activities. The groups will start February 6th. Follow-up assessments will be conducted three months after the groups are completed.

Measure variables

In order to help understand the many ways in which weight affects women, a variety of questions will be asked about the following topics:

Physical assessments

height
weight
waist and hip measurements
blood pressure

Psychological assessments

brief medical history, including premenstrual symptoms, perimenopause, and menopausal symptoms
quality of life
food intake
eating behaviors
physical activity
body image
self-esteem/self-compassion
sexuality
spirituality and/or religion
depression
anxiety

All answers to these questions are entirely confidential. Three assessments will be conducted: the first one prior to the start of the groups, the second at the end of the 10 week period and the third at three months after the end of the program.

Apply

Applications for spring of 2013 will be accepted beginning in December 2012. Please check back for application availability.