The INSIGHT responsive parenting intervention reduced infant weight gain and owerweight status: commentary

摘要

The above study provides supportive evidence to empower professionals to encourage parents to respond to their infants by alternative soothing, sleeping methods and not use feeding as a means of pacification. The setting of the satiety centre is key in this critical developing period. Multiple studies support that faster weight gain increases your risk of lifelong obesity and associated co-morbidities such as, cardiovascular disease1. Childhood obesity has reached epidemic levels in developed as well as developing countries. Environmental factors, lifestyle preferences and cultural environment play a pivotal role in rising obesity worldwide. Obesity can profoundly affect the child's physical health, social, and emotional wellbeing as well as self-esteem. It is associated with poor academic performance and a lower quality of life experienced by the child2. Parental factors do have an impact on obesity in children. Children learn by modelling parents' and peers' preferences, intake and willingness to try new foods. Parental feeding style is also significant3. Therefore, behaviour alteration may be a better intervention for healthy infants rather than focusing on calorie content or restrictive eating. Other studies have shown that the risk of obesity is lower in breastfed infants4 but this is not evident in this study. The main result to highlight from this study is that infants in the responsive parenting group at 1 year had 5.5% obesity levels vs 12,7% in the control group. This suggests that an early Public Health initiative focusing on providing behavioural guidance and support for new mothers could have a significant impact on the our evolving obesity crisis. Responsive parenting classes could improve bonding and attachment, patient safety as well as the educational value of soothing, sleeping and feeding. Focusing on this may, over time, decrease childhood obesity and lead to a healthier society as a whole.