Childhood Obesity Prevention Training (COPT) A pre-doctoral training fellowship program at Penn State

We had a great representation of COPT fellows at The Obesity Society (TOS) annual conference in Oxon Hill, Maryland from Oct 30 – Nov 2, 2017. Check out our recaps of each presentation! 

Elizabeth Adams

What was the title of your poster/talk?

• “Applying Multiphase Optimization Strategy to Manage Children’s Intake of Candy: A Feasibility Study” (Oral presentation)
• “Patterns of Gestational Weight Gain and Large-for-Gestational Age Across Consecutive Pregnancies” (Poster presentation)

What were the main points of your presentation?

• We demonstrated the feasibility of a family-based intervention to provide parents with alternatives to restrictive feeding practices (e.g. shared decision making, establishing expectations and routines) for managing children’s intake of candy. This study used a novel design called Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST), which allowed us to test the effectiveness of each individual intervention component, rather than just the intervention as a whole.
• We quantified gestational weight gain (GWG) longitudinally across women’s 1st and 2nd pregnancies to find that women who exceeded the Institute of Medicine GWG guidelines in their 1st pregnancy had increased odds of exceeding guidelines in their 2nd pregnancy, independent of postpartum weight retention and inter-pregnancy interval (i.e. duration between women’s 1st and 2nd pregnancies). Further, exceeding GWG guidelines increased the odds of infants born large-for-gestational age in women’s first but not second-born infants, independent of pre-pregnancy body mass index.

What was something you learned while at TOS?

• One of the most valuable sessions I attended was the Early Career Pre-Conference Networking event. During the break-out sessions, I learned more about Career Development (K) Awards from a NIH program officer, which was really beneficial to planning my future career goals. I also thought the keynote speaker of this event had great insight. Dr. Elizabeth Mayer-Davis from UNC Chapel Hill advised that during the day-to-day challenges of academia, we always keep the big picture in mind that we are make a difference in helping people to improve their health.

Travis Masterson

What was the title of your poster/talk?

• “Brain reactivity to visual food stimuli after food commercial exposure in children” 

•  We shared results from our study showing that exposure to food commercials can interfere with brain response to food cues in the environment. In particular, regions associated with visual processing, control, and decision making were affected. Interference in these regions may help explain the intake promoting effect of food commercials in children.  

• One of the symposiums this year was focused around the food environment, public policy, and food marketing. During this symposium we were able to hear from both research scientists and marketing consultants. They spoke about the need to involve the general public in conversations around food marketing and try to garner public support for policy change. They also made the point that health promotion campaigns to inform and motivate the public about obesity prevention and treatment can be more effective if they are focused around positive emotions and community involvement. 

Allison Hepworth

What was the title of your poster/talk?

• I presented two posters at Obesity Week 2017:
  • “A new conceptual model of information seeking and use can inform obesity prevention and treatment:
  • “Food marketing through social media influencers: Sponsorship on food blogs focused on child feeding”

•  In my first poster, I presented a new conceptual model that aims to explain the entire information seeking and use process. The Information Seeking and Use (ISU) model combines information theories with theories of behavior change that can be broadly applied across health behaviors, including those related to obesity. This model includes a series of testable predictions about how person-level and information-level factors interact to predict whether someone is likely to access an information source at all, and whether someone will go on to apply the information they receive after they have obtained it. This model, if validated, has important implications for the development and revision of intervention delivery techniques. This poster abstract received a top poster award from the Health Services Research section.
• In my second poster, I presented results from my Master’s thesis research on food blogs written by mothers of preschool-aged children (N = 13 blogs; 325 posts). I examined the frequency of brand sponsorship on blogs and the types of brands that were represented. I found that 35% of sampled blog posts  (n = 115) were sponsored in some way, either the entire post creation was sponsored or a brand funded a give away or product review. Sponsorship of any kind varied across the 13 blogs and ranged from 0% to 20% (M = 7.7%; SD = 7.2). There were 85 unique sponsors: 64% food brands (n = 54), 36% non-food brands (n = 31). Brands that market healthier (e.g., The Blueberry Council) and
less healthy (e.g., Blue Bunny Ice Cream) foods were present. Brands that market non-food items were also present (e.g., cooking tools, lunch boxes, vacation destinations). I hope to conduct future work that examines how food marketing through social media influencers impacts the child feeding behaviors of blog readers.

What was something you learned while at TOS?

•  One poster that really caught my eye discussed how rural residents view their place-based eating and physical activity opportunities. Dr. Michelle White and colleagues (UNC – Chapel Hill) found that rural residents frame their existing environmental conditions through a nostalgic lens, primarily one of loss. The authors suggest this nostalgic lens could prevent residents from engaging with new services that are available in their communities that could actually help them get back some of the things they are nostalgic for (e.g., farm fresh produce). I think this is fascinating research because of its implications for how to engage rural residents in obesity prevention and treatment. I would be interested in further exploring how nostalgia might impact information seeking and use based on the factors I include in the ISU model.

Sally Eagleton

•  “Bottle feeding but not milk type impacts infant weight gain and weight status across the first year”

What were the main points of your presentation?

• We conducted a secondary data analysis of mother-infant dyads who participated in the INSIGHT study, a randomized controlled trial designed to prevent early childhood obesity. The purpose of our analysis was to examine whether how infants are fed (i.e. at the breast or by bottle) and/or what infants are fed (i.e. breastmilk or formula) is associated with infant weight weight outcomes across the first year. Controlling for the effect of study group, we found that a higher percentage of daily milk feedings from a bottle was associated with more rapid infant weight gain from 0-6 months and higher weight-for-length z-scores at 1 year. The percentage of daily milk feedings as breastmilk was not associated with infant weight outcomes. Our results suggest that regardless of milk type (breastmilk of formula), bottle feeding may be a unique risk factor for early childhood obesity.

Alissa Smethers

What was the title of your poster/talk?

• “Can we identify children who are most responsive to large portions?”

What were the main points of your presentation?

• We had previously shows that serving larger portions of food and milk over 5 days to preschool children led to sustained increases in food and energy intake. Using analysis of covariance, we could that increased intake from larger portions related to children’s body size and their responsiveness to food and satiety cues.  Caregivers should recognize that children with greater body size for their age or greater responsiveness to food may be more likely to overeat when larger portions are served. In contract, children with greater responsiveness to satiety cues may be less likely to overeat form large portions.

What was something you learned while at TOS?

• One of my favorite sessions during Obesity Week was the TOS Opening Session- Awards & Early Career Grant Challenge Competition. I found the five-minute grant talks to be intriguing, and I found the talks displayed how hard it can be to present your proposed research in a limited time frame. I also thought the talk by Diana Thomas, who was the winner of the 2017 George A. Bray Founders Award, to be very engaging. She seems to be doing cutting edge modeling looking at energy balance and weight at West Point. This was a great session to start off Obesity Week 2017.

Faris Zuraikat

What was the title of your poster/talk?

• “Strategies used by women of differing weight status to moderate energy intake from large portions”

What were the main points of your presentation?

•  Following the year-long Portion-Control Strategies Trial, we served trial participants and untrained controls of differing weight status a meal that was varied in portion size over 4 weeks. All subjects consumed a similar weight of food across portions, regardless of training or weight status. Trial participants, however, moderated their energy intake compared to untrained controls, whose energy intake did not differ by weight status. This was achieved not by limiting the amount of food eaten, but by consuming a meal lower in energy density (ED). Trial participants consumed a greater proportion of lower-ED foods than controls. For all groups, ratings of the healthfulness of the foods were correlated with the ED of the foods, but only in trained participants were higher ratings of the influence of healthfulness on food choice related to lower energy intake at meals.

What was something you learned while at TOS?

• I thoroughly enjoyed Rena Wing’s symposium on maintenance of weight loss trials. She provided some really interesting data and provocative insights on the role of weight regain. In particular, she demonstrated that weight loss is beneficial regardless of whether or not individuals keep off all of the weight they lost.

Alyssa Spaw

What was the title of your poster/talk?

• “What strategies help dieters to manage problem foods and facilitate weight loss?”

What were the main points of your presentation?

• During a year long weight loss trial focused on portion control, we wanted to examine the strategies female dieters used to deal with foods they consider “problem foods” (those they cannot resist and find it hard to stop eating once they have started). After analyzing 8 proposed strategies, the only strategy related to weight loss from baseline to the end of the trial was “I limit the portion of problem foods that I eat”, though avoidance strategies were also frequently used. We advise dieters to adopt and maintain strategies to manage portions of problem foods, rather than avoid these foods.

What was something you learned while at TOS?

• One compelling talk I attended was given by Diana Thomas, a researcher at the United State Military Academy who won the George A. Bray award. She presented on their up and coming research using machine learning to predict injury and also serve as predictors for long term weight gain. I’m excited to see where this goes in the future.

Tags: ObesityWeek 2017

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