Preventing Obesity through Intervention during Infancy

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT This competitive renewal application seeks to continue the longitudinal evaluation of children participating in the Intervention Nurses Start Infants Growing on Healthy Trajectories (INSIGHT) study, an ongoing, prospective, randomized, controlled trial testing a responsive parenting (RP) intervention designed for the primary prevention of obesity versus a home safety control. In the US, 23% of 2-5 year olds are already overweight and 9% are already obese. By ages 6-11 years, 34% of US children are overweight and 17% are obese, highlighting the need for early life preventive interventions with sustained effects. With virtually no effective prevention approaches to date, we began INSIGHT by recruiting a birth cohort of 279 infants and parents who received four home visits during the first year after birth followed by annual clinic visits through age 3 years. The INSIGHT curriculum includes RP messages through age 2 years about infant feeding, sleep, interactive play, emotion regulation, and normal growth patterns; these areas were selected based on evidence linking them to obesity risk and their potential to be modified. Thus far, results from INSIGHT have been very positive: RP infants had lower mean weight-for-length at 1 year than controls and were less likely to be overweight at age 1 year (p