**5. Conclusions**

The results of this bi-national study highlight some of the di fferences and similarities in various psychosocial, behavioral, and socio-environmental factors among a multiethnic sample of healthy-weight, overweight, and obese youths. We hope our findings help to demonstrate the importance of considering a wide range of risk and protective factors for obesity among adolescents, when planning future studies and interventions. Additionally, our results support the need for multifactorial approaches when developing interventions to address the growing problem of obesity among youth in the US and Mexico. Intervention programs should use an integrated approach that addresses several of these factors to help to reduce the alarmingly high rates of obesity among youth in the US and Mexico. More research is needed on how these factors may interact with each other to cause obesity, since many are interrelated. Our study paves the way for future studies to focus on adopting a transdisciplinary approach to identify and address important risk factors for obesity among youth.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, Y.N.F., L.S.M., N.S., and D.L.P.; Data curation, Z.A.C. and P.R.-P.; Formal analysis, Z.A.C. and P.R.-P.; Funding acquisition, Y.N.F., L.S.M., J.S., and D.L.P.; Investigation, Y.N.F., L.S.M., T.C.E., and D.L.P.; Methodology, Y.N.F., Z.A.C., P.R.-P., L.S.M., T.C.E., K.G.-C., N.S., and D.L.P.; Project administration, Y.N.F., L.S.M., T.C.E., and D.L.P.; Resources, Y.N.F., L.S.M., J.S., and D.L.P.; Software, Z.A.C. and P.R.-P.; Supervision, Y.N.F., L.S.M., T.C.E., and D.L.P.; Writing—original draft, Y.N.F., and Z.A.C.; Writing—review and editing, Y.N.F., Z.A.C., P.R.-P., L.S.M., T.C.E., K.G.-C., J.S., C.M.L., and D.L.P.

**Funding:** This study was supported by a gran<sup>t</sup> from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) awarded to Patrick (grant number R01DK071101-01A2), and an NIDDK Research Supplement to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research Grant awarded to Flores (grant number: 3R01DK071101-02S1). Contreras received a gran<sup>t</sup> from the Drabkin–Neumann Internship at UCLA to support her work on this study. Flores was also supported by NIH/NCI K07CA197179. Additional funding was provided by the Epidemiological and Health Services Research Unit of the Mexican Institute of Social Security.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

**Compliance with Ethical Standards:** All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committees and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The Institutional Review Boards of the University of Washington, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Mexican Institute of Social Security approved all study materials, including the study questionnaire, protocol, and consent forms. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
