Mothers And careGivers Investing in Children

The incidence of childhood obesity in the United States has steadily increased over the past 30 years but has begun to level off in recent years. Epidemiological evidence indicates that obesity may transmitted across multiple generations. The current study seeks to: 1) evaluate the extent to which mothers and other important caregivers affect their mothers' parenting; 2) examine whether an intervention aimed at improving diet quality and enhancing responsive feeding to improves parental responsivity and feeding behavior and infants' weight trajectories over time; 3) examine the effects of early life feeding and caregiver sensitivity on health and development; and 4) examine feasibility of food distribution along with the feeding intervention.