Project Grow-2-Gether: a study of the genetic and environmental influences on child eating and obesity. |
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| Authors: | Myles S Faith Kathleen L Keller Patty Matz Susan L Johnson Rebecca Lewis Marie Alexandra Jorge Clare Ridley Helen Han Shoshanna Must Moonseong Heo Angelo Pietrobelli Steven B Heymsfield David B Allison |
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| Institution: | Weight and Eating Disorders Program, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia 19104, USA. faith@mail.med.upenn.edu |
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| Abstract: | "Project Grow-2-Gether" is a child nutrition study of same-sex, 3- to 7-year-old monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs. The study attempts to bridge two bodies of literature that have rarely interfaced with respect to obesity and ingestive behavior: the first being behavioral genetic approaches to obesity-related traits, and the second being developmental approaches focusing on parent-child relationships. The overarching aim of Project Grow-2-Gether is to disentangle genetic from potential home-environmental influences on child eating behavior and body fat. This paper reviews the rationale for Project Grow-2-Gether, its procedures, and core phenotypic measurement battery. A focus of the study is acquisition of controlled food intake measurements obtained in the laboratory, measurement of specific home environmental variables, and multi-method evaluation of parent-child feeding relations. Future directions may involve longitudinal assessment of child growth and molecular analyses for specific genes that influence child eating behavior. |
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