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

Several COPT fellows attended Obesity Week 2016, the Annual Meeting of the Obesity Society, in New Orleans, Louisiana from October 31 – November 4, 2016. Each student gave us a recap and reflection on their experience. We will be featuring one student per post as part of this series.

Faris, center, with fellow lab mates and fellow COPT trainees Brittany and Alissa at Obesity Week.

Faris Zuraikat

Q: What was the title of your poster/talk?

• The title of my poster was “An offer you can’t refuse: serving larger portions leads to increased intake despite a year of portion-control training.”

Q: What were the main points of your presentation about?

• On four occasions, we served a lunch consisting of 7 foods varying in ED to 39 women who had participated in the Portion-Control Strategies Trial and to 63 controls. We hypothesized that the effect of increasing portion size on meal intake would be attenuated in women who had received a year of portion-control training. Across all meals, all foods were varied in portion size. Despite receiving a year of training in portion-control strategies, trial participants responded to increases in portion size by consuming more food and energy. However, trained participants did moderate their energy intake compared to controls by eating a lower-ED meal. Strategies to moderate intake in the presence of large portions are needed, and choosing lower-energy-dense foods should be a focal point of such approaches.

Q:What was something you learned while at Obesity Week?

• I learned a lot at obesity week! Marion (Hetherington) gave a really great seminar on mastication and how oral exposure to foods, flavors, etc can influence SSS and food intake. I think one of the most interesting things that I learned was that SSS can occur without actually ingesting the food (Hetherington talk – similar decreases in pleasantness following eating and MSF). However, MSF does not lead to decreased food intake at a subsequent meal, unfortunately.
• *Networking tip: Hang around Barbara!

Several COPT fellows attended Obesity Week 2016, the Annual Meeting of the Obesity Society, in New Orleans, Louisiana from October 31 – November 4, 2016. Each student gave us a recap and reflection on their experience. We will be featuring one student per post as part of this series.

Brittany, on the left, with Dr. Katherine Balantekin at the Obesity Week Welcome Reception at Mardi Gras World.

Brittany James

Q: What was the title of your poster/talk?

• My poster was titled “A concise alternative to the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire relates to weight change over 1 year”.

Q: What were the main points of your presentation about?

• My poster focused on comparing the efficacy of two eating behavior questionnaires in identifying eating behaviors that relate to long-term weight change. Primarily, we found that both the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire and the newer, more concise Weight-Related Eating Questionnaire measure facets of dietary restraint and disinhibition that are associated with weight change over time. Frequent repeat measurement allowed these associations to be studied.

Q:What was something you learned while at Obesity Week?

• My biggest takeaway from TOS was learning how our current research findings fit within the issues at the forefront of discussion this year at Obesity Week. It was great to see how well the research questions we’ve been working on contribute to hot topic questions in the field, such as understanding more about what predicts how well someone will do in obesity treatment.
• Obesity Week is also always a great networking opportunity, though it takes a good amount of preparation beforehand to make it work successfully. It’s such a big conference that if 1-on-1 meeting plans aren’t made ahead of time, it’s possible to miss someone completely. So while it is a good conference that I recommend, it will be an even more rewarding time if it’s planned for ahead of time.

Several COPT fellows attended Obesity Week 2016, the Annual Meeting of the Obesity Society, in New Orleans, Louisiana from October 31 – November 4, 2016. Each student gave us a recap and reflection on their experience. We will be featuring one student per post as part of this series.

Sally Eagleton

Q: What was the title of your poster/talk?

• Title of talk – Timing of return to work is associated with rapid infant weight gain

Q:What were the main points of your presentation about?

• In this secondary data analysis of an intervention aimed to prevent rapid infant weight gain and early childhood obesity, we found that infants of mothers who returned to work by the time their child was 12 weeks of age experienced more rapid weight gain from 0-6 months compared to infants of mothers who returned to work after 12 weeks or not at all. The effect of return to work on rapid weight gain was not moderated by study group (participation in a responsive parenting intervention versus safety control group) or feeding mode at 16 weeks (primarily breastfed versus not) suggesting that the intervention was effective in preventing rapid weight gain regardless of return to work status and that differences in feeding mode do not explain the effect timing of return to work on rapid infant weight.

Q: What was something you learned while at Obesity Week?

• At Obesity Week I gained insight into what family-based childhood obesity treatment looks like in a clinical setting and learned about the different components that make treatment successful/unsuccessful. I also learned how the level of parental and sibling involvement in treatment varies as a function of child age as well as differences in family characteristics related to family functioning and conflict.

Several COPT fellows attended Obesity Week 2016, the Annual Meeting of the Obesity Society, in New Orleans, Louisiana from October 31 – November 4, 2016. Each student gave us a recap and reflection on their experience. We will be featuring one student per post as part of this series.

Allison Doub Hepworth

Q: What was the title of your poster/talk?

• I presented two posters: 1) Maternal feeding styles and children’s snack food selections: An observational study and 2) #HealthyKids on Instagram: Posts reflect interest in food, family, and personal experience, not children’s weight status.

Q: What were the main points of your presentation about?

• My first poster described an observational study in which parents and 4.5 -year-old children are asked work together to select up to 5 snacks from 9 options (4 healthy, 5 less healthy). We found that in the majority of cases, 4.5-year-old children were given high or complete control over their snack food selections, which resulted in less nutritious snack options available for children’s later consumption.
• In my second poster, I used natural language processing and qualitative content analysis to identify topics associated with the broad concept of ‘healthy kids’ on Instagram. Content shared with #HealthyKids on Instagram reflected existing interest in food and family-related topics. Notably, the words overweight, obese, and obesity did not occur in any captions. The high prevalence of first-person declarative statements may suggest that the content and recruitment strategies for childhood obesity interventions should take an individualized approach to increase personal relevance among caregivers.

Q:What was something you learned while at Obesity Week?

• Dr. Anna Peeters gave a terrific presentation on how childhood obesity interventions may widen rather than reduce disparities in childhood obesity, depending on the mechanism of change. This presentation inspired me to pursue future research on how online interventions for childhood obesity may be differentially impacting individuals from varying socio-economic groups since digitally delivered interventions often target only individual-level components of behavior change.

Several COPT fellows attended Obesity Week 2016, the Annual Meeting of the Obesity Society, in New Orleans, Louisiana from October 31 – November 4, 2016. Each student gave us a recap and reflection on their experience. We will be featuring one student per post as part of this series.

Dr. Nicole Fearnbach with mentor Dr. Kathleen Keller

Nicole Fearnbach, PhD

Special Note: Nicole was a Poster Winner for the Biobehavioral Research Section, The Obesity Society. Congrats!

Q: What was the title of your presentation?

• Impact of imposed exercise on the energy density and macronutrient profile of children’s ad libitum food intake

Q: What were the main points of your presentation?

• Children participated in two 10-hour experimental visits in a randomized crossover design, where the meals were identical but their activity levels were varied. Children either remained sedentary during the experimental session, or participated in 30 minutes of 70% intensity exercise. Imposed exercise did not affect children’s total daily energy intake, but did result in a shift towards greater energy intakes from high-energy-dense foods, fat, and protein on the exercise day compared to the sedentary day. Children may have selectively consumed more palatable, high-energy-dense foods in response to the exercise. Providing children with a range of healthy, lower energy density food choices may be an important step toward improving post-exercise dietary quality, but additional studies are needed to confirm this.

Q: What is something you learned while at Obesity Week 2016?

• One of the most interesting things I learned was that in the United States, overweight and obesity rates in school-aged children tend to increase during the summer months, but remain stable during the school year. This research has implications for current school-based interventions, highlighting a need to also engage children in healthy routines and lifestyles during vacation time.
• Favorite session: Appetite control and energy balance with Prof. Marion Hetherington, Dr. Heather Leidy, and Dr. Jim Hill. It was a great mix of speakers with perspectives from psychology, nutrition, ingestive behavior, and exercise physiology.