I am working with Pediatrician Dr. Megan Pesch, MD to discover more about the ways that mothers feed their child in their early years affects childhood obesity rates. This includes the choices of foods that are given to children, conversations about food, attitudes towards food of both the mother and child, restrictions of foods or certain types of foods, mealtime structure, hunger cues vs. satiety, and more. The project includes observations and interviews from as early as infancy to upper-elementary aged children. The goal is to be able to provide more insight into how families can be more proactive in preventing childhood obesity. Ideally, some data will be revealed to show that certain practices and approaches to feeding a child, whether it be from a bottle or a plate, can greatly prevent the occurrence of childhood obesity.<\/p>\n
This research could be greatly useful to people who have a genetic vulnerability to obesity and obesity-related diseases. In theory, this research could give pediatricians the opportunity to provide stronger and more reliable recommendations to parents when a child’s weight is of concern. This could be useful for families of many backgrounds, but most particularly of families who are disadvantaged or who live in areas of low food security.\u00a0 Hispanics and non-Hispanic blacks account for the greatest prevalence rates of obesity and could be greatest benefactors from this research. Obviously, families who have access to more resources would likely be impacted least as they can provide their children with a wider range of good-for-you food choices with less burden, but families who do not have that advantage could curb obesity if there was common knowledge about to recognize satiety or prevent over-eating, at the least.<\/p>\n
In regards to research ethics, I think generally observing the privacy of an individual while they are a participant of the study is always a factor. We have to diligent about making sure the identities of the individuals being studied is always concealed. Part of the project requires going on home visits to conduct interviews, and that requires making sure every person who attends the visit on behalf of the project has a background check, particularly to provide that they are safe to be in the presence of children. Making sure that we respect the space of a person’s home while there and that we treat their data with confidentiality.<\/p>\n
Another place where research ethics could play a role is in making sure that questions being asked during interviews are unbiased and universally applicable. It would be unethical to ask questions that may imply a certain attitude or preference towards a particular weight of the child, behavior of mother, or idea otherwise.<\/p>\n
I’ve been finding it sort of difficult to find areas where research ethics applies specifically to this project rather than to research in general. Maybe I just haven’t come across something that seems “inherently ethical” yet, but I am always on the lookout!<\/p>\n
I hope I can get to see some great data come from this project by the end of the 10 weeks here. I am truly passionate about encouraging healthy families while understanding that every family has different needs when it comes to nutrition. I hope that this project proves to be a fantastic reference for reducing America’s astounding obesity rates!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am working with Pediatrician Dr. Megan Pesch, MD to discover more about the ways that mothers feed their child in their early years affects childhood obesity rates. This includes the choices of foods that are given to children, conversations about food, attitudes towards food of both the mother and child, restrictions of foods or… Continue reading “Early Feeding Practices and Development of Childhood Obesity”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1631,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-researchimpact","category-jamie","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/wagsfp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/wagsfp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/wagsfp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/wagsfp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1631"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/wagsfp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1939"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/wagsfp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3045,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/wagsfp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939\/revisions\/3045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/wagsfp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/wagsfp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/wagsfp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}