Food for Thought: Executive Functioning Around Eating Among Children

Eating Behavior Clinical Trial

Official title:

Characterizing Top-down Dimensions of Appetite Self-regulation Among Preschoolers

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT06108128
• Other study ID #: R21HD109362
• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: October 5, 2023
• Est. completion date: May 31, 2025

Study information

• Verified date: March 2024
• Source: Temple University
• Contact: Christina Croce, MS
• Phone: 215-707-8672
• Email: christina.croce[@]temple.edu
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

Scientific knowledge of the cognitive-developmental processes that serve to support children's appetite self-regulation are surprisingly limited. This investigation will provide new scientific directions for obesity prevention by elucidating cognitive-developmental influences on young children's ability to make healthy food choices and eat in moderation.

Description:

Appetite self-regulation (ASR) has been described as involving children's use of eating-specific, "top-down" cognitive processes to moderate "bottom-up" biological drives to eat. Much of the research to date on ASR has focused on the role of bottom-up drives in shaping children's behavioral susceptibility to obesity. Alternatively, little is known about the cognitive-developmental processes that shape children's ability to make healthy food choices and eat in moderation during early childhood. The goal of this exploratory investigation is to produce rigorous evidence of cognitive developmental influences on healthy eating behaviors and weight status during preschool through the development of new measures of top-down ASR. Participants will be 125 preschoolers and their primary caregiver. Existing measures of executive functioning in children will be adapted to create new measures of eating-specific, top-down ASR. Associations with children's eating behaviors, body mass index z-scores, food parenting will be assessed.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Recruiting
• Enrollment: 125
• Est. completion date: May 31, 2025
• Est. primary completion date: May 31, 2025
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 4 Years to 6 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

1. Child ages 4 to 6 years of age

2. Caregiver reporting primary responsibility for child feeding outside of childcare

3. Caregiver legal guardian

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Caregiver <18 years of age

2. Child major food allergies

3. Child medication use, developmental disability, or medical conditions known to affect food intake and/or growth; color blindness

4. Child in foster care

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Appetitive Behavior
• Child Obesity
• Eating Behavior
• Pediatric Obesity
• Self-regulation

Intervention

Other:
• Executive functioning observational tasks
Interventions take place solely at the measurement level, where children will be seen in observational tasks of general executive functioning and executive functioning around eating in which various food and non-food stimuli are presented and children's responses to task instructions are recorded.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	Temple University	Philadelphia	Pennsylvania

Sponsors (3)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Temple University	Baylor College of Medicine, University of Nevada, Reno

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

References & Publications (1)

Russell CG, Russell A. "Food" and "non-food" self-regulation in childhood: a review and reciprocal analysis. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2020 Mar 10;17(1):33. doi: 10.1186/s12966-020-00928-5. — View Citation

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Food choice	Children's forced-choice selection of fruits, vegetables, and water over alternatives at a meal	Assessed at 1 of 2 study visits over 2 weeks
Primary	Eating in the absence of hunger	Children's intake of palatable foods following a standard meal	Assessed at 1 of 2 study visits over 2 weeks
Primary	Body mass index z-score	Age and sex specific z-score using CDC reference data	Assessed at 1 of 2 study visits over 2 weeks