Growth Mixture Modeling of Adolescent Body Mass Index Development: Longitudinal Patterns of Internalizing Symptoms and Physical Activity

Growth mixture modeling was used to identify different trajectories of body mass index ( BMI ) among adolescents ages 10–15 from a national sample. Three distinct classes were found for both boys and girls: “normative” (90.9% and 89.7%), “high increasing” (6.3% and 7.4%), and “decreasing” (2.8% and 2.9%). Multinomial logistic regression identified family income as predictive of class membership for boys and pubertal status and being rural as predictive for girls. Parent‐reported health was a common predictor across gender. Growth curves of internalizing symptoms and physical activity were modeled to explore trends across classes. Findings highlight complexities in the relations between BMI , internalizing symptoms, and physical activity in this developmental period.