B3509 - Effects of feeding practice on childrens eating behavior and weight growth - 20/04/2020

B number: 
B3509
Principal applicant name: 
Qianling Zhou | Peking University (China)
Co-applicants: 
Meijing An
Title of project: 
Effects of feeding practice on children’s eating behavior and weight growth
Proposal summary: 

Children born with the ability of self-regulated cues of hunger and satiety. During early life, this ability is developed in a good way will facilitate healthy eating behaviours, which may be associated appropriate weight gain. In the first two years, milk feeding and complementary feeding are main feeding aspects,which could have impact on children’s self-regulation of hunger and satiety cues. Previous studies showed that breastfeeding duration and timing of solid food introduction were associated with children’s eating behaviours(eg. enjoyment of food, food fussiness, picky eating, eating slowly, overeating and so on) and weight growth. For example, Samantha L. Rogers found that breastfeeding duration was related to slower weight gain during 1 to 6 month and 1 to 12 month, and that breastfeeding duration was associated with slowness in eating at 12 m. Wang jing found that introducing complementary foods before 4 months of age compared to at 4~6 months was associated with and increased risk of being overweight and obesity during children. These findings indicated that infant feeding practice may exert an important role on development of children’s weight health However, the evidence about the relationship between concrete feeding mode such as bottle feeding, breast feeding, feeding on demand and children’s eating behaviors and weight growth were limited. Whether children’s eating behaviors and related gene variant play a mediated role on the relationship between feeding practices and weight gain also deserves exploring from a longitudinal perspective.

Impact of research: 
The finding will help researchers to understand the associations between infant feeding practices and children’s eating behaviors and growth. The results will be used to guide professional worker to propagate scientific feeding practices to parents, which will help parents nurture children’s healthy eating behaviors and promote children to grow normally.
Date proposal received: 
Friday, 17 April, 2020
Date proposal approved: 
Monday, 20 April, 2020
Keywords: 
Epidemiology, Eating disorders - anorexia, bulimia, Statistical methods, Growth