Temperament and Parenting: Risks for Rapid Weight Gain and Childhood Obesity

儿童肥胖正以惊人的速度增长。在2-5岁儿童中，超重儿童的患病率在过去30年中几乎增加了两倍，从5%增加到13.9%。肥胖是一种多因素疾病，有多种原因，包括遗传、社会、文化和行为因素，所有这些因素都可能相互作用。本建议的目的是研究这些因素及其在婴儿期体重迅速增加和幼儿期超重中的作用。我们建议研究基于基因的儿童特征和早期父母喂养方式之间的相互作用，作为儿童肥胖的危险因素。更具体地说，父母用食物来缓解婴儿痛苦的喂养做法明显与紧迫感的气质特征相互作用，这种特质以敏感的奖励系统为特征，增加了儿童肥胖的风险。这一假设是由拟议研究的中心原则指导的；这种气质与健康和适应有间接联系，要么是通过唤起父母的反应，要么是通过与父母的行为相互作用，这可能会缓冲负面缺陷，要么会增加不良结果的风险。为了实现这一目标，我们将通过日记、实验室访问、电话调查和家长报告等多种方法对婴儿/幼儿的性情和育儿方式进行评估。婴儿和学步儿童体重迅速增加是建议的结果。确定儿童生命早期存在的可改变因素将有助于更成功的干预措施，旨在减少儿童和成人肥胖。

Obesity in childhood is increasing at an alarming rate. For children ages 2-5 years, the prevalence of overweight children has almost tripled over the last 30 years, from 5% to 13.9%, Obesity is a multifactorial condition with varying causes including genetic, social, cultural, and behavioral factors, all of which may interact. The aims of the present proposal are to examine a number of these factors and their role in rapid weight gain in infancy and overweight in early childhood. We propose to investigate the interaction between genetically-based child characteristics and early parent feeding practices as risk factors for childhood obesity. More specifically, the parent feeding practices of using food to soothe infant distress is explicitly to interact with the temperament trait of urgency, which is characterized by a sensitive reward system, to increase the risk of childhood obesity. This hypothesis is guided by the central principle of the proposed study; that temperament is linked to health and adjustment either indirectly by evoking parenting responses or through interactions with parenting behaviors that may either buffer the negative defects or increase the risk for poor outcome. Toward this goal infant/toddler temperament and parenting will be assessed throughout the first l8 months of life using multiple methods including diaries, laboratory visit" telephone surveys and parent reports. Rapid weight gain in infancy and toddler weight are the proposed outcomes. Identifying modifiable factors present early in a child's life will contribute to more successful interventions aimed at reducing childhood and adult obesity.