Promoting Food Acceptance Through Positive Parenting: the Play and Grow Study

University at Buffalo (UB)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Overweight, Childhood; Eating, Healthy; Obesity, Childhood; Overnutrition; Pediatric Obesity

Treatments: Behavioral: Associative Conditioning; Behavioral: Repeated Exposure

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06074926

STUDY00007145

Details and patient eligibility

About

Approximately one half of adults and one-fifth of children have obesity, including 14% of 2-5-year-olds. Early obesity prevention is essential as children who are overweight by age 5 are at increased risk for later obesity. Dietary intake is inextricably linked to weight status, and the majority of young children fail to meet intake recommendations, with socioeconomically disadvantaged and racial/ethnic minority children at increased risk of poor diet quality. However, children's liking of healthier foods predicts their intake, and children can learn to like healthier foods via experience. The current study brings together evidence from the parenting and learning literatures to: 1) examine effects of a novel learning strategy leveraging positive parent-child interactions on 3-5-year-old children's vegetable acceptance and dietary intake, as well as to explore 2) individual differences in learning strategy effects.

Full description

Repeated exposure, in which children taste a target food across several occasions, is an effective strategy for increasing children's acceptance and intake of healthier foods. An alternative strategy that may be preferable for those less likely to try unfamiliar or disliked foods is associative conditioning. This refers to changes in one's response to a target food after it is repeatedly, concurrently paired with an unconditioned stimulus - typically another food - that already has a positive valence. While evidence-based, this approach has the disadvantage of adding extra calories and exposure to less healthy foods.

Pilot data provided support for the hypothesis that non-food stimuli could be leveraged in conditioning strategies to promote healthier food acceptance. After pairing positive peer interactions (via group games) with tasting a target vegetable across 11 sessions, 6-8-year-old children's preferences for target vegetables increased at post-test. In considering application of this approach for younger children, positive parent-child interactions may be an appropriate non-food stimulus as parents are a primary social influence for this age group. Despite this, no studies to date have leveraged this positive stimulus in the context of associative conditioning paradigms designed to promote vegetable acceptance. Additionally, although other food preference learning approaches, like repeated exposure, are well-established in the experimental literature, less is known regarding individual differences impacting intervention effectiveness.

The current study seeks to examine effects of a novel learning strategy leveraging positive parent-child interactions on 3-5-year-old children's vegetable acceptance and dietary intake, as well as to explore individual differences in learning strategy effects. Findings will inform future intervention work, as well as offer insight into potential behavioral factors influencing young children's diet and health.

Enrollment: 50 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 3 to 5 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Child is 3-5 years old
• Parent/ guardian is 18 years of age or older
• Child is not diagnosed with a serious physical or mental health condition that precludes safe participation
• Parent and child are English speaking

Exclusion criteria

• The child is outside the age range of 3-5 years
• Child is diagnosed with a serious physical or mental health condition that precludes participation
• Parent/ guardian is less than 18 years of age

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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50 participants in 2 patient groups

Group 1 - Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will attend two laboratory visits and complete a 3-week intervention, which consists of interactive parent-child activities (\~45 min of interactive activities/week) that pair tasting an assigned target vegetable with positive parent-child interactions. Positive interactions will be promoted via positive parenting prompts embedded in the activity instructions (e.g., prompts promoting child-directed play).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Associative Conditioning

Group 2 - Control

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will attend the same two laboratory visits and complete a 3-week intervention, which consists of only individual taste exposures to their target vegetable.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Repeated Exposure