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Researchers from the University of California San Diego have found that adding emotion management skills to family-based behavioral weight management may help adolescents maintain weight loss after treatment ends.
In a randomized clinical trial of 166 adolescents and their parents, one group received a family-based program focused on healthy eating, physical activity and behavior change, while the other received the same program with additional strategies for understanding and managing emotions.
Teens in both groups lost weight during the six-month program, but those who also learned how to manage their emotions regained significantly less weight during the following year.
The study was published Oct. 22, 2026, in JAMA Network Open.
Family-based behavioral treatment is an established approach to helping young people manage their weight. This program typically combines nutrition and physical activity education with strategies such as self-monitoring, goal-setting, problem-solving and positive reinforcement, while teaching parents ways to support their adolescent's behavior changes.
However, previous research has suggested that family-based treatment may become less effective as children enter adolescence. Adolescents are becoming more independent, while their emotional and social lives are also changing.
Emotion management—the ability to understand, manage and respond to emotions—develops during adolescence and can influence eating and physical activity behaviors. Standard family-based treatment does not specifically teach emotion management strategies.
"Adolescence is a time when young people are gaining independence and learning how to manage increasingly complex emotions, so treatment needs to evolve with them," said Kerri Boutelle, professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at UC San Diego School of Medicine and professor at the UC San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science.
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