Prospective associations of infant food exposures and appetitive traits with early childhood diet quality.

Background: Early-life food exposures may influence food preferences and receptivity, thereby impacting long-term diet quality. Infant exposure to discretionary foods may be more detrimental for infants with high food approach traits; conversely, early exposure to fruits and vegetables may be more important for those with high food avoidance traits. This study investigated associations of infant food exposures with early childhood diet quality and whether these associations are modified by infant appetitive traits.

Associations Between Sociodemographic Factors and Adolescent Food Consumption During Independent Eating Occasions.

Associations were examined between sociodemographic characteristics of a US online survey sample of caregiver/adolescent dyads ( = 533) and food intake during independent eating occasions. Caregivers reported sociodemographic characteristics for dyads. Adolescents reported daily intake frequency of sugar-sweetened beverages, junk foods, sugary foods, fast food, and fruits and vegetables during independent eating occasions.

Association of stress on eating competence in mothers during pregnancy and six months postpartum.

Background: Perceived stress is related to poor diet quality and unhealthy dietary patterns in women of reproductive age. Eating competence represents a variety of contextual skills reflecting a comfortable and flexible approach to eating and is associated with diet quality and health related behavior. In non-pregnant samples, perceived stress is negatively associated with eating competence.

The Interaction of Glycemia with Anxiety and Depression Is Related to Altered Cerebellar and Cerebral Functional Correlations.

Depression, type 2 diabetes (T2D), and obesity are comorbid, and prevention and treatment of all three diseases are needed. We hypothesized an inverse relationship between the connectivity of the cingulo-opercular task control network with the somatosensory mouth network and the interaction between HbA1c and depression. Three-hundred and twenty-five participants (BMI: 26.

The Effects of a Western Diet vs. a High-Fiber Unprocessed Diet on Health Outcomes in Mice Offspring.

Diet influences critical periods of growth, including gestation and early development. We hypothesized that a maternal/early life diet reflecting unprocessed dietary components would positively affect offspring metabolic and anthropometric parameters. Using 9 C57BL-6 dams, we simulated exposure to a Western diet, a high-fiber unprocessed diet (HFUD), or a control diet.

Using food network analysis to understand meal patterns in pregnant women with high and low diet quality.

Background: Little is known about how meal-specific food intake contributes to overall diet quality during pregnancy, which is related to numerous maternal and child health outcomes. Food networks are probabilistic graphs using partial correlations to identify relationships among food groups in dietary intake data, and can be analyzed at the meal level. This study investigated food networks across meals in pregnant women and explored differences by overall diet quality classification.

Correlates of neural adaptation to food cues and taste: the role of obesity risk factors.

Identifying correlates of brain response to food cues and taste provides critical information on individual differences that may influence variability in eating behavior. However, a few studies examine how brain response changes over repeated exposures and the individual factors that are associated with these changes. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined how brain response to a palatable taste and proceeding cues changed over repeated exposures and how individual differences in weight, familial obesity risk, dietary restraint and reward responsiveness correlate with these changes.

Longitudinal Associations Between Taste Sensitivity, Taste Liking, Dietary Intake and BMI in Adolescents.

Taste sensitivity and liking drive food choices and ingestive behaviors from childhood to adulthood, yet their longitudinal association with dietary intake and BMI is largely understudied. Here, we examined the longitudinal relationship between sugar and fat sensitivity, sugar and fat liking, habitual dietary intake, and BMI percentiles in a sample of 105 healthy-weight adolescents (baseline: BMI %tile 57.0 ± 24.

Eating in the Absence of Hunger Is Related to Worse Diet Quality throughout Pregnancy.

Background: Scant research has examined whether laboratory assessments of eating in the absence of hunger (EAH) relates to long-term diet quality.

Objective: This study investigates the association of EAH with diet quality during pregnancy.

Design: Pregnancy diet quality was assessed using 24-hour diet recalls collected in each pregnancy trimester.

Pregnant Women Consume a Similar Proportion of Highly vs Minimally Processed Foods in the Absence of Hunger, Leading to Large Differences in Energy Intake.

Background: The eating in the absence of hunger (EAH) experimental paradigm measures intake of highly palatable, highly processed foods when sated. However, no studies have examined EAH in pregnant women.

Objective: The objectives were to investigate whether EAH in pregnant women differs by level of food processing and to examine relationships of EAH with hedonic hunger, addictive-like eating, and impulsivity.

Earlier onset of menstruation is related to increased body mass index in adulthood and altered functional correlations between visual, task control and somatosensory brain networks.

Later onset of puberty has been associated with lower body mass index (BMI) in adulthood independent of childhood BMI. However, how the relationship between time of onset of puberty and BMI in adulthood is associated with neurocognitive outcomes is largely unstudied. In the present study, women were sampled from the Human Connectome Project 1200 parcellation, timeseries and netmats1 release (PTN) release.

Behavioral and physiological characteristics associated with learning performance on an appetitive probabilistic selection task.

Individuals show meaningful variability in food choices. Choices are affected by individual differences in sensitivity to food reward and punishment, so understanding correlates of response to food reinforcement can help characterize food choices. Here, we examined behavioral and physiological correlates of individual differences in how individuals learn from food reward and punishment, as measured by performance on an appetitive probabilistic selection task that used sweet and bitter tastes as reinforcement.

Network organization during probabilistic learning via taste outcomes.

Reinforcement learning guides food decisions, yet how the brain learns from taste in humans is not fully understood. Existing research examines reinforcement learning from taste using passive condition paradigms, but response-dependent instrumental conditioning better reflects natural eating behavior. Here, we examined brain response during a taste-motivated reinforcement learning task and how measures of task-based network structure were related to behavioral outcomes.

Estimating individualized treatment regimes from crossover designs.

The field of precision medicine aims to tailor treatment based on patient-specific factors in a reproducible way. To this end, estimating an optimal individualized treatment regime (ITR) that recommends treatment decisions based on patient characteristics to maximize the mean of a prespecified outcome is of particular interest. Several methods have been proposed for estimating an optimal ITR from clinical trial data in the parallel group setting where each subject is randomized to a single intervention.

Association between regional brain volumes and BMI z-score change over one year in children.

Purpose: Associations between brain region volume and weight status have been observed in children cross-sectionally. However, it is unclear if differences in brain region volume precede weight gain.

Methods: Two high-quality structural brain images were obtained approximately one year apart in 53 children aged 9-12 years old.

Alterations in ventral attention network connectivity in individuals with prediabetes.

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is associated with aberrant neural functioning; however, the point at which brain function alterations occur in the progression of T2D is unknown. Here, we tested for differences in functional connectivity in adults with prediabetes and healthy individuals. We hypothesized that prediabetes, defined by glycated hemoglobin (HbA) 5.

The impact of elevated body mass on brain responses during appetitive prediction error in postpartum women.

Repeated exposure to highly palatable foods and elevated weight promote: 1) insensitivity to punishment in striatal regions and, 2) increased willingness to work for food. We hypothesized that BMI would be positively associated with negative prediction error BOLD response in the occipital cortex. Additionally, we postulated that food reinforcement value would be negatively associated with negative prediction error BOLD response in the orbital frontal cortex and amygdala.

Individual differences in appeal of energy dense foods predicts lower body mass change during adolescence.

Highly energy dense foods are often synonymous with high palatability, excess intake and weight gain. However, food preferences show individual differences. Food preferences are closely related to food intake, which can impact weight change over time.

Body mass variability is represented by distinct functional connectivity patterns.

Understanding weight-related differences in functional connectivity provides key insight into neurocognitive factors implicated in obesity. Here, we sampled three groups from human connectome project data: 1) 47 pairs of BMI-discordant twins (n = 94; average BMI-discordancy 6.7 ± 3.

Adolescents at high risk of obesity show greater striatal response to increased sugar content in milkshakes.

Background: Children of overweight or obese parents are at a high risk of developing obesity.

Objective: This study sought to examine the underlying neural factors related to parental obesity risk and the relative impact of sugar and fat when consuming a palatable food, as well as the impact of obesity risk status on brain response to appetizing food images.

Design: With the use of functional MRI, the responses of 108 healthy-weight adolescents [mean ± SD body mass index (kg/m2): 20.

Decreased eating frequency linked to increased visceral adipose tissue, body fat, and BMI in Hispanic college freshmen.

Background: To investigate the relationship between eating frequency and specific adiposity markers in a potentially high-risk and understudied population of Hispanic college freshmen.

Methods: This study included 92 Hispanic college freshmen (18-19 y). The following cross-sectional data were collected: height, weight, waist circumference, body mass index (BMI), dietary intake, body composition, physical activity, hepatic fat, visceral adipose tissue (VAT), and subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT).

Dietary variables associated with substantial postpartum weight retention at 1-year among women with GDM pregnancy.

Background: An understanding of the dietary behaviors linked to substantial postpartum weight retention, particularly in women diagnosed with gestational diabetes (GDM), is warranted to focus intervention efforts to prevent future type 2 diabetes. This study evaluates the relationship between dietary food intake at 6-9 weeks postpartum (baseline) and odds of substantial postpartum weight retention (≥ 5 kg) at 1-year in women with GDM.

Methods: The Study of Women, Infant Feeding and Type 2 Diabetes after GDM pregnancy (SWIFT) is a prospective multi-ethnic cohort (75% minority) of 1035 women (aged 20-45 years) with recent GDM who delivered a singleton, live birth (≥35 weeks gestation) and underwent 2-h 75 g OGTTs, anthropometric measurements and other assessments at 6-9 weeks postpartum (baseline) and annually thereafter.

Fat Imaging via Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) in Young Children (Ages 1-4 Years) without Sedation.

Introduction: This pilot study developed techniques to perform Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of specific fat deposition in 18 children (age 18 months to 4 years).

Methods: The children engaged in a series of practice tests to become acclimated to the scanner noises, reduce claustrophobia, and rehearse holding still for a set time. The practice tests assessed if the child could remain still for two minutes while watching a video, first while lying on a blanket, second, on the blanket with headphones, and third, in the mock scanner.

The impact of sugar sweetened beverage intake on hunger and satiety in minority adolescents.

Limited research has examined the effects of habitual SSB consumption on hunger/fullness ratings and gut hormones. This study hypothesized that high versus low intakes of habitual SSBs would result in greater hunger, decreased fullness, and a blunted gut hormone response, however the high versus low fiber group would exhibit decreased hunger and increased fullness. This was a randomized crossover feeding trial with 47 African American and Hispanic adolescents.