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Childhood obesity remains a significant public health crisis. Despite growing evidence that a) self-regulation and appetitive traits impact childhood obesity-related risk, and b) obesity-related risk is determined by the interplay between biological, psychological, and home environment factors, research has occurred largely within disciplines, hindering the interpretability and application of findings. We describe the rationale and methods of the Infant Growth and Development (iGrowUp) Study which tests two aims: (1) Determine the extent to which child self-regulatory and appetite constructs are distinct versus overlapping in the preschool period, and (2) Test a comprehensive model of biopsychosocial predictors (age 3.5 years) of childhood obesity-related risk (age 5 years) to determine the extent to which self-regulation in food and non-food contexts buffers children from child and home environment risk factors. iGrowUp is an interdisciplinary, longitudinal study that leverages the iGrow study, consisting of 299 diverse mother-infant dyads, followed from the prenatal period until children were 2 years old. We aim to recruit these children into the iGrowUp study and re-assess them at ages 3.5 and 5 years old, in addition to recruiting an additional 67 children. Key measures include (a) children’s self-regulation (i.e., observed emotion regulation, attentional regulation, physiological regulation, inhibitory control, executive function in response to food and non-food stimuli in comparable situations; maternal report of effortful control, emotional over-eating, satiety responsiveness), (b) food cue reactivity (i.e., motivation to eat, food responsiveness, enjoyment of food, eating in the absence of hunger), (c) parenting behaviors (i.e., maternal sensitivity, non-supportive emotion socialization, negative parenting practices, parent–child relationship quality), (d) child negative emotionality, (e) child hormonal risk from urine assays, (f) maternal reports of demographics, obesogenic food environment, and health, and (g) anthropometric measures of children. Demographic and other potential covariates will be included in structural equation models. This study has critical implications for prevention since it aims to identify the most influential mechanisms in infancy and preschool that may mitigate obesity-related risk. By combining the approaches of developmental and nutritional sciences, this project enhances the rigor applicable to basic and applied research that assesses food and non-food reactivity and regulation.
Dollar et al. (Thu,) studied this question.