SPROUTS STUDY PREPARATION AND START UP

The Division of Intramural Population Health Research (DIPHR) at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development designs and conducts original epidemiological, behavioral, and biostatistical research encompassing several research domains such as human reproduction and development, pregnancy and related complications, pediatric and adolescent health and behaviors, and methodologic research relevant for our mission. The Division comprises three intramural research branches, Epidemiology, BioStatistics & Bioinformatics, and Health Behavior, and its mission is to design and implement original research with the potential for high impact findings for public health and its special populations. The interaction of environmental and individual factors is believed to underlie the rapid rise in excess weight in the United States over the last generation. Here, as in other developed countries, the obesogenic food environment is dominated by highly processed, energy-dense, palatable, accessible, affordable and marketed food products of minimal nutritional value (i.e., discretionary foods), which readily encourage intake in excess of energetic needs. Food reward sensitivity, the neurologic reward response to food stimuli, has emerged as an individual trait that may impact susceptibility to environmental influences on dietary intake and body weight. Food reward sensitivity is purported to drive hedonic eating, which is motivated by the pleasurable experience of eating independent of energy requirements. However, critical knowledge gaps remain regarding the development of food reward sensitivity in early childhood and the roles of parental food reward sensitivity, the degree of exposure to highly rewarding foods, and other modifiable family feeding practices that shape the child's food environment. Better understanding of the influences on child food reward sensitivity and its impact on child diet and growth will elucidate the relative importance of individual and environmental factors on eating behaviors and related health indicators, and provide critical knowledge to guide future intervention to advance the development of healthful eating habits. Therefore, the government has a need to establish a cohort study, leveraging on existing historical data from the PEAS ongoing study, to recruit mother-child dyads and collect baseline information. The establishing of this framework is critical to successful recruitment of participants and data collection