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Principal Investigator: Tonja Nansel
Organization: EUNICE KENNEDY SHRIVER NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF CHILD HEALTH & HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Fiscal Year: 2024
Award: $880,951
Funding agency: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Inadequate intake of whole plant foods and excessive intake of discretionary foods (foods of minimal nutritional value and high energy density) begin in early childhood. Early childhood is a critical period for the development of food preferences and eating behaviors, which in turn influence child growth and adiposity, underscoring the need for research elucidating the influences on intake during this period. Poor diet quality, in particular, excess intake of discretionary foods, may in part be prompted by the propensity to engage in hedonic, or reward-related eating. The highly processed nature of discretionary foods stimulates activation of reward circuitry, contributing to their consumption for hedonic purposes, and potentially displacing intake of more healthful foods. Critical knowledge gaps remain regarding the development of hedonically-motivated food intake in early childhood and the roles of parental influences, the degree of exposure to highly rewarding foods, and other modifiable family feeding practices that shape the child's food environment. Understanding the influences on food reward sensitivity and its impact on child diet and growth will elucidate the relative importance of individual and environmental factors on eating behaviors and related health indicators and provide critical knowledge to guide future intervention to advance the development of healthful eating habits.
The overarching goal of the proposed research is to follow the PEAS (Pregnancy Eating Attributes Study) cohort from child age 3 to 7 years to investigate relationships of child eating behaviors and neuro-behavioral responses to food (e.g., eating in the absence of hunger, attentional bias to food cues, food reinforcement value, self-regulation) with maternal dietary intake and food reward-related characteristics, infant feeding practices and eating behaviors, and early life exposure to discretionary foods. Recruitment for Sprouts began in March 2019. In-person data collection was interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020; data collection was continued online to the extent possible until in-person visits resumed in late 2021. The first three waves of assessments at ages 3.5, 5 and 6 years have been completed; assessments at age 7 years are in progress.
Analyses conducted to date have examined early childhood appetitive traits and attentional bias to food cues. Most appetitive traits increased from infancy to age 3.5 years; further, lower infant satiety responsiveness predicted greater child zBMI, while infant zBMI was not predictive of subsequent child appetitive traits (Cummings et al., 2023, PMID 37669768). Maternal feeding style was not directly associated with child diet quality but moderated the effect of child appetitive traits on diet quality. When maternal style was authoritarian, greater food responsiveness and enjoyment of food were associated with better diet quality. When maternal feeding style was authoritative, greater slowness in eating was associated with lower diet quality. Regardless of maternal feeding style, greater food fussiness was associated with lower diet quality (Cummings et al, 2024, PMID: 38325502). Additionally, greater presence of ultraprocessed foods in the home was associated with higher attentional bias to food images (relative to color-matched non-food images) in an eyetracking task. Findings suggest that exposures to ultraprocessed food in the home may induce cue-reward reinforcement that shapes the development of child eating behaviors and subsequent risk for obesity (McNeel et al., 2024).
Terms: <0-11 years old><2 year old><2 years of age><7 year old><7 years of age><Advanced Development><Age><Appetite><Authoritarianism><BMI><BMI percentile><BMI z-score><Body mass index><COVID crisis><COVID epidemic><COVID pandemic><COVID-19 crisis><COVID-19 epidemic><COVID-19 era><COVID-19 global health crisis><COVID-19 global pandemic><COVID-19 health crisis><COVID-19 pandemic><COVID-19 period><COVID-19 public health crisis><COVID-19 years><Characteristics><Child><Child Development><Child Youth><Childhood><Children (0-21)><Color><Consumption><Cues><Data Collection><Desire for food><Development><Diet><Diet Habits><Dietary Habits><Dietary intake><Eating><Eating Behavior><Edible Plants><Environmental Factor><Environmental Risk Factor><Exposure to><Family><Food><Food Intake><Food Plants><Food Preferences><Future><Generalized Growth><Gestation><Goals><Growth><Health><Home><Image><Individual><Infant><Infant and Child Development><Informal Social Control><Intake><Interruption><Intervention><Intervention Strategies><Knowledge><Life><Nature><Nutritional><Obesity><Persons><Postpartum Period><Pregnancy><Process><Psychological reinforcement><Quetelet index><Reinforcement><Research><Rewards><SARS-CoV-2 epidemic><SARS-CoV-2 global health crisis><SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic><SARS-CoV-2 pandemic><SARS-coronavirus-2 epidemic><SARS-coronavirus-2 pandemic><Satiation><Self Regulation><Self-control as a personality trait><Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoV 2 epidemic><Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoV 2 pandemic><Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 epidemic><Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pandemic><Shapes><Testing><Tissue Growth><Unhealthy Diet><Visit><Weight><adiposity><age 2 years><age 7 years><aged 2 years><aged two years><ages><attentional bias><authoritarian><cohort><coronavirus disease 2019 crisis><coronavirus disease 2019 epidemic><coronavirus disease 2019 global health crisis><coronavirus disease 2019 global pandemic><coronavirus disease 2019 health crisis><coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic><coronavirus disease 2019 public health crisis><coronavirus disease crisis><coronavirus disease epidemic><coronavirus disease pandemic><coronavirus disease-19 global pandemic><coronavirus disease-19 pandemic><corpulence><critical period><developmental><dietary><diets><early childhood><early life exposure><early pregnancy><eating habit><eating in absence of hunger><energy density><environmental risk><eye tracking><feeding><food environment><gestational weight gain><hedonic><high reward><homes><imaging><infancy><infantile><interventional strategy><kids><neurobehavioral><nutritious><obesity risk><ontogeny><parent influence><parent role><parental influence><parental role><pediatric><poor diet><post-partum><predict responsiveness><predicting response><prenatal><recruit><response><reward circuitry><risk for obesity><risk of obesity><satiety><self control><seven year old><seven years of age><severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 global health crisis><severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 global pandemic><trait><two year old><two years of age><unborn><visual tracking><weights><youngster>