Yue Liao

• MPH, PhD
• Professor (Assistant) at The University of Texas at Arlington

Until recently, most studies investigating the acute relationships between affective and physical feeling states and physical activity were conducted in controlled laboratory settings, whose results might not translate well to everyday life. This review was among the first attempts to synthesize current evidence on the acute (e.g., within a few hou...

Purpose This study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA), a real-time self-report strategy, to examine (1) whether dog owners were more likely to be physically active when they were with their dogs and (2) whether being with a dog amplifies positive and dampens negative affective response during physical activity. Design Electronic EMA survey...

Background Research on children’s sedentary behavior has relied on recall-based self-report or accelerometer methods, which do not assess the context of such behavior. Purpose This study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to determine where and with whom children’s sedentary behavior occurs during their nonschool time. Methods Children (N...

This study used Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA), a real-time self-report strategy, to describe the physical and social contexts of adults' physical activity and sedentary activity during their everyday lives and to determine whether these patterns and relationships differ for men and women. Data from 114 adults were collected through mobile p...

Sedentary behaviour is emerging as an independent risk factor for paediatric obesity. Some evidence suggests that limiting sedentary behaviour alone could be effective in reducing body mass index (BMI) in children. However, whether adding physical activity and diet-focused components to sedentary behaviour reduction interventions could lead to an a...

Background Amidst the escalating prevalence of glucose-related chronic diseases, the advancements, potential uses, and growing accessibility of continuous glucose monitors (CGM) have piqued the interest of healthcare providers, consumers, and health behaviour researchers. Yet, there is a paucity of literature characterising the use of CGM in behavi...

Background The racial/ethnic and gender disparities in cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality in the United States are evident. Across nearly every metric, non-Hispanic Black women have poorer overall cardiovascular health. Emerging evidence shows a disproportionately high burden of increased CVD risk factors in Black women of childbe...

5574 Background: Patients (pts) with advanced stage ovarian cancer may proceed to maintenance therapy or routine surveillance following primary treatment. As part of a larger research study to assess real world experiences of pts, we explored whether physical activity was associated with self-reported quality of life (QOL). Methods: Pts were asked...

Purpose This study examined the effectiveness and feasibility of the Active Living After Cancer (ALAC) program for metastatic breast cancer (MBC) survivors. Methods ALAC is a 12-session community-based program to help cancer survivors improve their physical functioning and quality of life through increased physical activity. ALAC participants with...

Black women are underrepresented in clinical research and clinical trials. Knowledge gaps lead to biased clinical practice and care. There is a small but growing body of literature on Black women’s perceptions about participation when biospecimen donation is sought by researchers. This is the first known study to investigate willingness to particip...

Introduction: As our population ages, type 2 diabetes has become more prevalent in the United States and one in five mid-life adults (50-64 years) have type 2 diabetes. Unhealthy and heavy alcohol use (that exceeds recommended drinking limits) causes dysfunction of the liver and pancreas that can impact glucose control and thereby increase risks of...

Background: Cancer survivors have elevated risk for type 2 diabetes. Increasing physical activity improves glucose control. However, this evidence is majorly based on blood glucose metrics (e.g., glucose or hemoglobin A1c) at a single point in time. Little is known about the effect of physical activity on blood glucose changes throughout a day in c...

Background: Cerebral vascular diseases and neurocognitive conditions including stroke, cognitive impairment, & Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias are the fastest growing causes of morbidity and mortality. Studies have demonstrated sex differences in indices of physiological function associated with cardiovascular and metabolic disease risk/p...

Background Physical activity improves physical and psychological health in cancer survivors. This study evaluated Active Living After Cancer (ALAC), a community-based program to improve physical activity, physical function, and quality of life (QOL) in minority and medically underserved cancer survivors and their caregivers. Methods Participants c...

Background: Physical activity (PA) improves cancer survivors’ health outcomes including physical functioning, fatigue, and health-related quality of life (HRQOL), but the feasibility and effectiveness of PA programs for survivors with metastatic breast cancer (MBC) are still unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of the Activ...

Background: Glucose-guided eating (GGE) improves metabolic markers of chronic disease risk, including insulin resistance, in adults without diabetes. GGE is a timed eating paradigm that relies on experiencing feelings of hunger and having a preprandial glucose level below a personalized threshold computed from 2 consecutive morning fasting glucose...

Background: This study explored associations between social and built environmental factors and leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) in rural cancer survivors (RCS) and whether these associations differed by exercise stage of change (SOC). Method: RCS (n = 219) completed questionnaires assessing LTPA, SOC, and social (social status, connectedne...

Lifestyle interventions targeting energy balance (ie, diet, exercise) are critical for optimizing the health and well-being of cancer survivors. Despite their benefits, access to these interventions is limited, especially in underserved populations, including older people, minority populations and those living in rural and remote areas. Telehealth...

Background: Recent advances in personal biosensing technologies have supported a shift from standard interventions to personalized interventions that incorporate feedback about biological markers of health (biological feedback). Nonetheless, the use of biological feedback to motivate health behavior change in behavioral interventions has not been c...

The objective of this study was to explore the experience of Hispanic cancer survivors participating in Active Living After Cancer (ALAC), a community-based physical activity program. We analyzed participation and satisfaction data from 250 participants who completed the program from 2017 to 2020 (55% Hispanic, 28% Black, 14% non-Hispanic White). U...

BACKGROUND Glucose-guided eating (GGE) improves metabolic markers of chronic disease risk, including insulin resistance, in adults without diabetes. GGE is a timed eating paradigm that relies on experiencing feelings of hunger and having a preprandial glucose level below a personalized threshold computed from 2 consecutive morning fasting glucose l...

BACKGROUND Recent advances in personal biosensing technology support the shift from standardized to personalized health interventions, whereby biological data is used to motivate health behavior change. However, the implementation of interventions using biological feedback as a behavior change technique has not been comprehensively explored. OBJEC...

Objective: Many cancer survivors do not meet recommended levels of exercise, despite the benefits physical activity offers. This study aimed to understand experiences of insufficiently active overweight/obese breast or colorectal cancer survivors, in efforts to (1) examine regular physical activity barriers, and (2) determine perceptions and accep...

Regular physical activity reduces the progression of several cancers and offers physical and mental health benefits for cancer survivors. However, many cancer survivors are not sufficiently active to achieve these health benefits. Possible biological mechanisms through which physical activity could affect cancer progression include reduced systemic...

Background Many studies show positive bidirectional associations between physical activity (PA) and sleep at the between-person level. There is an increased interest in investigating these associations at the within-person level. Few studies examined the effects of time-varying moderators on the within-person bidirectional associations between PA a...

12013 Background: Physical activity (PA) improves physical functioning and quality of life in cancer survivors, yet few cancer survivors meet recommendations of ≥150 minutes/week of moderate intensity PA. Active Living After Cancer (ALAC) is a community-based program to improve the quality of life of cancer survivors by promoting PA and providing n...

Background Survivors of breast cancer can face internal barriers to physical activity, such as uncertainty and frustration stemming from physical limitations, decreased physical functioning, fatigue, and pain. Interventions that draw from the principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) may help survivors of breast cancer overcome some of...

The objective of this study was to investigate changes in physical activity patterns associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in individuals with overweight and obesity who were participating in a school district worksite weight loss program. We conducted comparative design interrupted time series analyses on physical activity device (Fitbit) data fro...

Objective Mobile and wearable sensor technology is increasingly common and accessible. The aim of this study was to explore individuals' perceptions and acceptability of mobile and wearable sensors, as well as concerns. Methods Purposive sampling was used to recruit non-patient adults (n = 22) and cancer survivors (n = 17) for face-to-face and vir...

Purpose The purpose of this study was to develop and characterize the relevance and potential utility of an electronically delivered acceptance- and mindfulness-based approaches to physical activity promotion for insufficiently active breast cancer survivors. Methods The acceptance- and mindfulness-based physical activity intervention was delivere...

Background: As an overlooked aspect of cancer, survivorship often begs the question of “what's next?” once treatment is complete. Physical activity following treatment has been shown to improve quality of life and decrease rates of recurrence. The MD Anderson Active Living After Cancer Program (ALAC) has recruited over 900 cancer survivors and care...

Postmenopausal breast cancer is the most common obesity-related cancer death among women in the U.S. Insulin resistance, which worsens in the setting of obesity, is associated with higher breast cancer incidence and mortality. Maladaptive eating patterns driving insulin resistance represent a key modifiable risk factor for breast cancer. Emerging e...

Purpose The COVID-19 pandemic is correlated with decreased physical activity (PA). Transitioning to remote work may impact people’s acceptability and preferences for remotely delivered behavioral interventions, including PA. The objective was to examine perceptions of COVID-19 impacts on PA engagement and motivation, and perspectives related to rem...

Background An expanding body of research documents the benefits of physical activity for cancer survivors' physical functioning and quality of life, but few successful models provide community‐based physical activity programs to cancer survivors. This report presents an evaluation of Active Living After Cancer, an evidence‐based physical activity p...

Objective To identify dietary self-monitoring implementation strategies in behavioral weight loss interventions. Design We conducted a systematic review of eight databases and examined 59 weight loss intervention studies targeting adults with overweight/obesity that used dietary self-monitoring. Setting NA Participants NA Results We identified...

BACKGROUND Many health conditions can be prevented, managed, or improved through behavioral interventions. Biological feedback, as a component of health behavior change interventions, is of particular interest given recent advances in wearable biosensing technology, digital health apps, and personalized health and wellness. Yet, there is a paucity...

Background: Many health conditions can be prevented, managed, or improved through behavioral interventions. As a component of health behavior change interventions, biological feedback is of particular interest given recent advances in wearable biosensing technology, digital health apps, and personalized health and wellness. Nevertheless, there is...

BACKGROUND Survivors of breast cancer can face internal barriers to physical activity, such as uncertainty and frustration stemming from physical limitations, decreased physical functioning, fatigue, and pain. Interventions that draw from the principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) may help survivors of breast cancer overcome some of...

Mobile applications and paired devices allow individuals to self-monitor physical activity, dietary intake, and weight fluctuation concurrently. However, little is known regarding patterns of use of these self-monitoring technologies over time and their implications for weight loss. The objectives of this study were to identify distinct patterns of...

BACKGROUND Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) can be managed through diet and lifestyle changes. The American Dietetics Association acknowledges that knowing what and when to eat is the most challenging aspect of diabetes management. While current recommendations for self-monitoring of diet and glucose levels aim to improve glycemic control among peopl...

Background Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) can be managed through diet and lifestyle changes. The American Diabetes Association acknowledges that knowing what and when to eat is the most challenging aspect of diabetes management. Although current recommendations for self-monitoring of diet and glucose levels aim to improve glycemic stability among p...

Background: Home-based exercise interventions might be a desirable long-term option for breast cancer survivors to enhance compliance and long-term health benefits. Purpose: To assess the effectiveness of a home-based intervention aimed at helping survivors of breast cancer meet the physical activity guidelines of the American College of Sports...

261 Background: Active Living After Cancer (ALAC) is an evidence-based group program to help cancer survivors improve their physical functioning and quality of life through increasing physical activity. It has enrolled over 800 cancer survivors in the Houston and El Paso areas. The program prioritizes serving minority and medically underserved surv...

Introduction: Regular physical activity (PA) lowers the risk of endometrial, breast, and colorectal cancer. However, nearly half of American adults are not sufficiently active. The physical inactivity rate is even higher among the overweight and obese population, which, in combination with the unfavorable effect of excess body weight, puts this pop...

The advancement of wearable technologies provides opportunities to continuously track individuals’ daily activity levels and sleep patterns over extended periods of time. These data are useful in examining the reciprocal relationships between physical activity and sleep at the intrapersonal level. The purpose of this study is to test the bidirectio...

Our ability to understand and intervene on eating in the absence of hunger (EAH) as it occurs in peoples' natural environments is hindered by biased methods that lack ecological validity. One promising indicator of EAH that does not rely on self-report and is easily assessed in free-living individuals is glucose. Here, we hypothesize that elevated...

Technological and digital progress benefits physical activity (PA) research. Here we compiled expert knowledge on how Ambulatory Assessment (AA) is utilized to advance PA research, i.e., we present results of the 2nd International CAPA Workshop 2019 “Physical Activity Assessment – State of the Science, Best Practices, Future Directions” where invit...

BACKGROUND Physical activity can confer many and varied benefits to cancer survivors. Unfortunately, many cancer survivors are not sufficiently active. The efficacy of physical activity interventions for this population may be increased by grounding them in Self-Determination Theory (SDT). Combining game design elements with wearable technologies m...

Background Physical activity can confer diverse benefits on cancer survivors. Unfortunately, many cancer survivors are not sufficiently active. The efficacy of physical activity interventions for this population may be increased by grounding them in Self-Determination Theory (SDT). Combining game design elements with wearable technologies may be a...

Background: Regular physical activity (PA) is associated with a lower risk of several types of cancers. However, two-thirds of overweight/obese adults are not sufficiently active; this, in combination with the unfavorable effect of excess body weight, puts them at greater risk for cancer. One reason that these individuals do not engage in enough P...

Background: Physical activity (PA) is associated with a reduced risk of numerous types of cancer and plays an important role in maintaining a healthy weight. Wearable PA trackers may supplement behavioral intervention and enable researchers to study how determinants like self-efficacy (SE) predict PA patterns over time. Methods: We used multi-st...

Background Previous studies have shown affective and physiological states in response to exercise as predictors of daily exercise, yet little is known about the mechanism underlying such effects. Purpose To examine the mediating effects of self-efficacy and outcome expectancy on the relationships between affective and physiological responses to ex...

Mobile technology has become a ubiquitous part of everyday life and is changing the way we offer clinical care and perform clinical research. We have unprecedented access to data for one's self-care as well as for sharing with health care providers. Meeting the challenge posed by the influx of wearable device data requires a multidisciplinary team...

Objective: We examined the acute bidirectional relationships between affective states and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) or sedentary behavior (SB) in children, and whether perceived stress moderates these associations. Method: A total of 180 children (mean age = 9.6 years, 51.7% female, 53.9% Hispanic) completed a 7-day ecologica...

The aim of this study was to investigate associations between types of motivation for physical activity and self-reported weekly aerobic moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) in the 2012 and 2014 waves of the nationally representative Health Information National Trends Survey 4 (n = 7307). We further explored differential associations betwe...

BACKGROUND New methods for assessing diet in research are being developed to address the limitations of traditional dietary assessment methods. Mobile device–assisted ecological momentary diet assessment (mEMDA) is a new dietary assessment method that has not yet been optimized and has the potential to minimize recall biases and participant burden...

Background: New methods for assessing diet in research are being developed to address the limitations of traditional dietary assessment methods. Mobile device-assisted ecological momentary diet assessment (mEMDA) is a new dietary assessment method that has not yet been optimized and has the potential to minimize recall biases and participant burde...

BACKGROUND Wearable sensors have been increasingly used in behavioral research for real-time assessment and intervention purposes. The rapid advancement of biomedical technology typically used in clinical settings has made wearable sensors more accessible to a wider population. Yet the acceptability of this technology for nonclinical purposes has n...

Background: Wearable sensors have been increasingly used in behavioral research for real-time assessment and intervention purposes. The rapid advancement of biomedical technology typically used in clinical settings has made wearable sensors more accessible to a wider population. Yet the acceptability of this technology for nonclinical purposes has...

Background: The integration of body-worn sensors with mobile devices presents a tremendous opportunity to improve just-in-time behavioral interventions by enhancing bidirectional communication between investigators and their participants. This approach can be used to deliver supportive feedback at critical moments to optimize the attainment of hea...

Objective: To examine the associations between high-fat/high-sugar foods (HFHS) and fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption and affective states in women. Methods: The researchers used electronic ecological momentary assessment to capture HFHS and FV consumption in the past 2 hours (predictor) and current affective states (outcome) across 1 week am...

Current knowledge about the relationship of physical activity with acute affective and physical feeling states is informed largely by lab-based studies, which have limited generalizability to the natural ecology. This study used ecological momentary assessment to assess subjective affective and physical feeling states in free-living settings across...

Psychosocial stress may be a factor in the link between physical activity and obesity. This study examines how the daily experience of psychosocial stress influences physical activity levels and weight status in adults. This study reports temporally ordered relationships between sedentary, light, and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity levels an...

Purpose: Affective response during physical activity may influence motivation to perform future physical activity behavior. However, affective response during physical activity is often assessed under controlled laboratory conditions. The current study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to capture affective responses during free-living phy...

Key to prevention of substance use disorders involves understanding the antecedents of drug misuse that often occur or surface in childhood and increase the likelihood of subsequently developing a range of risky behaviors in adolescence. Targeting these antecedent factors prior to their full emergence through effective preventive interventions has...

Background: Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) is a method of collecting real-time data based on careful timing, repeated measures, and observations that take place in a participant's typical environment. Due to methodological advantages and rapid advancement in mobile technologies in recent years, more studies have adopted EMA in addressing to...

Background Nutrition education is an integral component of establishing healthy eating habits in early childhood. Few nutrition interventions in kindergartens have been evaluated, and none have tested program effectiveness, implementation and dissemination. The Building a Healthy Me (BHM) is an 8‐unit classroom‐based nutrition education program for...

Flowchart for literature search.

School shootings may have serious negative impacts on children years after the event. Previous research suggests that children exposed to traumatic events experience heightened fear, anxiety, and feelings of vulnerability, but little research has examined potential aggressive and disruptive behavioral reactions. Utilizing a longitudinal dataset in...

Decisions to perform moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) involve behavioral cognitive processes that may differ within individuals depending on the situation. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) was used to examine the relationships of momentary behavioral cognitions (i.e., self-efficacy, outcome expectancy, intentions) with MVPA (measu...

Higher positive and lower negative affective response during physical activity may reinforce motivation to engage in future activity. However, affective response during physical activity is typically examined under controlled laboratory conditions. This research used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to examine social and physical contextual in...

Parental stress is an understudied factor that may compromise parenting practices related to children's dietary intake, physical activity, and obesity. However, studies examining these associations have been subject to methodological limitations, including cross-sectional designs, retrospective measures, a lack of stress biomarkers, and the tendenc...

Child obesity continues to be a prevalent public health issue. This meta-analysis synthesized 17 studies investigating the association between levels of psychological stress experienced by mothers and the body mass index of their children. The overall standardized mean difference effect size was positive and significantly different from zero in cro...

Research on adolescent physical activity is mixed regarding the role of parent activity. This study tested parent encouragement, direct modeling, and perceived influence as moderators of objectively-measured (accelerometer) parent and child moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) associations. Parent-child dyads (n = 423; Mchild age = 11.33 y...

Background: Positive affective (i.e., emotional) response to physical activity is considered a key reinforcement process underlying motivation to engage future activity. However, affective response to physical activity is typically examined under controlled laboratory conditions. To understand how affective responses to physical activity may differ...

Objective: Emerging adulthood (ages 18-25 years) has been associated with elevated substance use. Transitional life events (TLEs) during emerging adulthood in relation to substance use are usually examined separately, rather than as a constellation. The purposes of this study were (a) to explore distinct subgroups experiencing various TLEs during...

Purpose: This study examined the changes in friends' and parental influences on cigarette smoking across two developmentally distinct social environments for adolescents: junior high school and high school. Methods: Longitudinal data consisting of seven repeated measures following 1,001 adolescents from 7th to 12th grade was obtained from the Mi...

Objective The current study evaluated the overall public health impact of the Shaping Up My Choices' (SMC) programme, a 10-week school-based nutrition education curriculum developed for third-grade students, using the RE-AIM (Reach, Efficacy, Adoption, Implementation, Maintenance) framework.DesignRandomized controlled trial to evaluate the programm...

Introduction: Intention and self-efficacy (SE) are recognized as important cognitive determinants for physical activity (PA). However, few studies have examined the near-time (within a few hours) effects of intention and SE on PA. Methods: This study used electronic surveys delivered by mobile phones to assess adults' intention and SE in PA during...

Background: Parental factors may play an important role in influencing children's physical activity levels. Purpose: This cross-sectional study sought to describe the locations of joint physical activity among parents and children. Methods: Parent-child pairs (N = 291) wore an Actigraph GT2M accelerometer and GlobalSat BT-335 global positionin...

Introduction: Mobile phones are ubiquitous and easy to use, and thus have the capacity to collect real-time data from large numbers of people. Research tested the feasibility and validity of an Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) self-report protocol using electronic surveys on mobile phones to assess adults’ physical activity and sedentary behav...

The research examined joint physical activity and sedentary behavior among 291 parent-child pairs who both wore an accelerometer and Global Positioning System (GPS) device during the same 7-d period. Children were 52.2% female, 8-14 yr, and 43.0% Hispanic. Parents were 87.6% female. An ActiGraph GT2M accelerometer and GlobalSat BT-335 GPS device co...

INTRODUCTION: School-based nutrition education programs have demonstrated modest levels of effectiveness. However, past studies typically do not consider the overall public health impact of the interventions. The current study used a well-known evaluation framework (RE-AIM) to evaluate the Reach, Efficacy, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance...

This study used real-time electronic surveys delivered through mobile phones, known as Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA), to determine whether level and experience of leisure-time physical activity differ across children's physical and social contexts. Children (N = 121; ages 9 to 13 years; 52% male, 32% Hispanic/Latino) participated in 4 days...

The risk of obesity during childhood can be significantly reduced through increased physical activity and decreased sedentary behavior. Recent technological advances have created opportunities for the real-time measurement of these behaviors. Mobile phones are ubiquitous and easy to use, and thus have the capacity to collect data from large numbers...

Numerous studies have been carried out to try to better understand the genetic predisposition for cardiovascular disease. Although it is widely believed that multifactorial diseases such as cardiovascular disease is the result from effects of many genes which working alone or interact with other genes, most genetic studies have been focused on iden...