Healthy Eating for My Infant (HEMI)

Obesity disproportionately affects youth from low-income or underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds. Youth who go on to develop severe obesity begin to deviate from their normal-weight peers in their growth trajectories by 4-6 months of age, making infancy and early childhood an ideal time for intervention. In collaboration with a home visiting program, Every Child Succeeds (ECS), and faculty from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, we will be developing an infant obesity prevention program, Healthy Eating for My Infant (HEMI). In order to create an intervention that is culturally and contextually relevant, meaningful, and useful for families, we will be working with families and the community to develop the intervention content. HEMI will target healthy eating among infants who are at risk for health disparities and obesity through behavioral and educational strategies. HEMI will consist of 6 adaptive home visit treatment sessions that promote problem-solving, healthy behaviors, readiness to change, goal setting, and self-monitoring. Families participating in HEMI are able to choose which treatment sessions they wish to receive based on their individual needs, and peer counselors will also be involved in delivery of sessions to help families utilizing their lived experience. We hope this intervention is the first step towards reducing obesity among at-risk youth by promoting development of healthy eating in infancy.

To learn more about research projects being conducted in the Healthy Bearcat Families Lab, please visit the lab website at: https://sites.google.com/view/odarcc-healthy-kids-lab/home

Principal Investigators: Cathy Stough, Ph.D.; Jessica Woo, Ph.D., MHSA, FAHA

Funding Source:

Reducing Health Disparities through an Adaptive Healthy Eating Program for Underserved Infants in a Home Visiting Program (1R21NR019126-01A1)