Deconstructing Food Parenting Approaches to Obesity Prevention for the Highly Food Motivated Child
Temple University
Summary
High food motivation among children is trait-like and increases risks of unhealthy dietary intake and obesity. Scientific knowledge of how parenting can best support healthy eating habits and growth among children who are predisposed to overeating is surprisingly limited. This investigation will identify supportive food parenting approaches for obesity prevention that address the needs of highly food motivated children.
Description
High levels of food motivation among young children are heritable, track over time, and associated with elevated risks of unhealthy eating and obesity. Despite significant growth of family-based obesity prevention efforts, the evidence base is remarkably scant on parenting highly food motivated children to prevent obesity and poor dietary outcomes. The goal of this investigation is to generate a robust basic science evidence for parenting highly food motivated children to prevent excessive dietary intakes and body mass index (BMI) gains during the preschool years. Using a prospective cohort de…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 4–5 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Yes
Inclusion Criteria: 1. Child ages 4 or 5 years at baseline; 2. Parent/ primary caregiver with legal representation (having 50% or more custody of child); 3. Parent/primary caregiver reporting primary responsibility for child feeding outside of childcare (being with child when they are eating at least two times daily); 4. Caregiver with a cell phone that can be used to send and receive text messages. If there is more than one age-eligible child in the family, we will ask the caregiver to pick the index child. Exclusion Criteria: 1. Parent/primary caregiver \<18 years of age; 2. Child history…
Interventions
- OtherMeasurement
The only interventions are at the measurement level and consist of two behavioral protocols designed to assess children's eating behavior, where food stimuli are provided and children's behavioral responses are recorded.
Locations (2)
- Temple University - Center for Obesity Research and EducationPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
- USDA/ARS Children's Nutrition Research CenterHouston, Texas