“…Early maturing girls are more overweight, both preceding and following pubertal development, than their later maturing peers (Davison, Susman, & Birch, 2003a;Must, Naumova, Phillips, Blum, Dawson-Hughes, & Rand, 2005). As weight status increases, so do girls' negative perceptions of their bodies (Davison, Markey, & Birch, 2003b;Murdey et al, 2004) and their athletic skills (Kolody & Sallis, 1995;Stein, Bracken, Haddock, & Shadish, 1998). Consequently, early maturing girls are more likely to express dissatisfaction with their body weight and report less positive body image and self image than later developing girls (Blythe, Simmons, & Zakin, 1985;Duncan, Ritter, Dornbusch, Gross, & Carlsmith, 1985;Murdey et al, 2004;Siegel et al, 1999).…”