Clinical trial NCT06111040: Nurturing Needs Study: Parenting Food Motivated Children
Official title: Deconstructing Food Parenting Approaches to Obesity Prevention for the Highly Food Motivated Child
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: RECRUITING
Phase: NA
Conditions: Parenting
Eating Behavior
Diet, Healthy
Pediatric Obesity
Lead sponsor: Temple University
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Baylor College of Medicine
name: University of Minnesota
First posted: 2023-11-01
Enrollment: 600
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 4
Maximum age (years): 5
Standard ages: CHILD
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: NA
Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Intervention model description: Family-based, prospective observational study with interventions at the measurement level
Primary purpose: OTHER

Brief 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.

Detailed 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 design, this investigation follow 300 caregiver/child dyads over 18 months as children transition from preschool to elementary school, when significant numbers of children begin to experience problems of poor diet quality and obesity. Children with varying food motivation will be recruited to understand whether highly food motivated children have different needs than other children. A multi-method approach will use state-of-the-art measures, including ecological momentary assessment, to comprehensively investigate the amount, types, and consistency of food parenting practices (i.e., specific, goal-oriented behaviors) needed to prevent food motivated behaviors, excessive dietary intake, and BMI gains in children. Specifically, the role of structure (i.e., theoretically supportive) and its differentiation from more coercive types of food parenting control will be comprehensively characterized.

Eligibility criteria: 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 of major food allergies (e.g., peanuts);
3. Child medication use (e.g., insulin), developmental disability (e.g., autism) or medical condition(s) (e.g., diabetes) known to affect food intake and growth;
4. Foster child.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Excessive dietary intakes
timeFrame: Baseline, 18 months
measure: BMI change
timeFrame: Baseline, 18 months
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Observed food motivated behaviors
timeFrame: Baseline, 18 months
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Philadelphia
country: United States
facility: Temple University - Center for Obesity Research and Education
state: Pennsylvania
city: Houston
country: United States
facility: USDA/ARS Children's Nutrition Research Center
state: Texas
Study officials:
affiliation: Temple University
name: Jennifer O Fisher, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
affiliation: Baylor College of Medicine
name: Sheryl O Hughes, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Fisher JO, Hughes SO, Miller AL, Horodynski MA, Brophy-Herb HE, Contreras DA, Kaciroti N, Peterson KE, Rosenblum KL, Appugliese D, Lumeng JC. Characteristics of eating behavior profiles among preschoolers with low-income backgrounds: a person-centered analysis. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2022 Jul 23;19(1):91. doi: 10.1186/s12966-022-01323-y.