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_FOOD), 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_FOOD 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_FOOD and access to food were positively associated with baseline percent overweight, and an enriched home environment was negatively related to baseline percent overweight. RRV_FOOD and an enriched home environment interacted to predict change in percent overweight. Children with a high relative RRV_FOOD 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.