Appetitive Behavior, Child Obesity, Eating Behavior, Self-regulation
Conditions
Brief summary
Scientific knowledge of the cognitive-developmental processes that serve to support children's appetite self-regulation are surprisingly limited. This investigation will provide new scientific directions for obesity prevention by elucidating cognitive-developmental influences on young children's ability to make healthy food choices and eat in moderation.
Detailed description
Appetite self-regulation (ASR) has been described as involving children's use of eating-specific, top-down cognitive processes to moderate bottom-up biological drives to eat. Much of the research to date on ASR has focused on the role of bottom-up drives in shaping children's behavioral susceptibility to obesity. Alternatively, little is known about the cognitive-developmental processes that shape children's ability to make healthy food choices and eat in moderation during early childhood. The goal of this exploratory investigation is to produce rigorous evidence of cognitive developmental influences on healthy eating behaviors and weight status during preschool through the development of new measures of top-down ASR. Participants will be 125 preschoolers and their primary caregiver. Existing measures of executive functioning in children will be adapted to create new measures of eating-specific, top-down ASR. Associations with children's eating behaviors, body mass index z-scores, food parenting will be assessed.
Interventions
OTHERExecutive functioning observational tasks
Interventions take place solely at the measurement level, where children will be seen in observational tasks of general executive functioning and executive functioning around eating in which various food and non-food stimuli are presented and children's responses to task instructions are recorded.
Sponsors
Baylor College of Medicine
University of Nevada, Reno
Temple University
Study design
Allocation
NA
Intervention model
SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose
OTHER
Masking
NONE
Masking description
This is an observational cross-sectional study with interventions ONLY at the measurement level. The research assistant administers the tasks and records the outcomes; therefore, no masking is used.
Intervention model description
This is an observational, cross-sectional study that involves interventions ONLY at the measurement level.
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
4 Years to 6 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
1. Child ages 4 to 6 years of age 2. Caregiver reporting primary responsibility for child feeding outside of childcare 3. Caregiver legal guardian
Exclusion criteria
1. Caregiver \<18 years of age 2. Child major food allergies 3. Child medication use, developmental disability, or medical conditions known to affect food intake and/or growth; color blindness 4. Child in foster care
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Food choice | Assessed at 1 of 2 study visits over 2 weeks | Children's forced-choice selection of fruits, vegetables, and water over alternatives at a meal |
| Eating in the absence of hunger | Assessed at 1 of 2 study visits over 2 weeks | Children's intake of palatable foods following a standard meal |
| Body mass index z-score | Assessed at 1 of 2 study visits over 2 weeks | Age and sex specific z-score using CDC reference data |
Countries
United States
Contacts
Primary ContactChristina Croce, MS
Outcome results
None listed