Reinforcing value of food, enriched home environment, and changes in percent overweight in children.

OBJECTIVE

The decision to eat is often a choice made in the context of food and non-food alternatives. However, no research, to the authors' knowledge, has assessed the combination of the motivation to eat, as indexed by the relative reinforcing value of food (RRV ), and the enriched home environment, i.e., access to activities that can serve as alternatives to eating on weight gain.

METHODS

This study used a cross-sectional design to study how RRV and the enriched home environment predict percent overweight change over 2 years in 291 children aged 6 to 9 years and of varying socioeconomic status.

RESULTS

Results showed that RRV and access to food were positively associated with baseline percent overweight, and an enriched home environment was negatively related to baseline percent overweight. RRV and an enriched home environment interacted to predict change in percent overweight. Children with a high relative RRV and a relatively non-enriched environment showed the greatest relative weight gain.

CONCLUSIONS

These results suggest that providing an enriched home environment may reduce the effects of food reinforcement and being motivated to eat on weight gain in childhood, and this represents a novel approach to intervention that can be used to strengthen current behavioral approaches to prevent obesity in children.