Dr. Jennifer Savage Williams, Dr. Katie Balantekin, and Samantha Kling recently attended the IOM workshop entitled, “Obesity in the Early Childhood Years: State of the Science and Implementation of Promising Solutions” in Washington, DC. This workshop included four sessions that featured obesity research that ranged from clearly identified factors that promote or prevent obesity to the outcomes of implemented interventions. This was a great opportunity to learn about the recent progress and future goals for obesity prevention in early childhood.
The research presented at the workshop took an interdisciplinary approach. Dr. Shari Barkin highlighted a series of studies in rodents demonstrating that providing mothers with nutrients involved in the methylation of DNA effectively reduce obesity in pups demonstrating that obesity risk is not just due to energy balance. In the same session, Dr. Julie Mennella introduced her hypotheses around why fruit consumption is low in the current population, even though eating fruit is has evolutionary benefits. Pre-pregnancy BMI was identified as the most influential predictor of fetal outcomes by Dr. Lisa Bodnar, which suggests that childhood obesity prevention should begin well before pregnancy. Furthermore, Drs. Saavedra, and Birch emphasized that how a child is fed may be as important as what and when the child is fed.
During the next two sessions, successful and promising interventions were discussed. Each of the speakers discussed the successes of various interventions, but all questioned the feasibility of implementing the interventions on a larger scale. Most of the speakers emphasized the importance of interdisciplinary methods that target a wide-range of behaviors. In addition, interventions should prioritize the goals and motivations of the participants rather than the direct goals of the researchers. For example, instead of using reduced risk of diabetes as a reason to treat overweight or obesity, interventionist should focus on what motivates parents or the child, such as reducing teasing at school.
Overall, this day trip provided an overview of a wide range of research and a great networking opportunity!
-Samantha Kling