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Maternal Behavior and Infant Weight

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Nutrition in Infancy

Part of the book series: Nutrition and Health ((NH))

Abstract

When Charney et al. [1] posed the question, “Do chubby infants become obese adults?” in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1976, few would have anticipated the obesity epidemic we currently face, or the urgent need to examine all possible factors that may be contributing to this serious health problem. With the sobering realization that our youngest are not immune to this epidemic, as alarming rates of overweight and obesity are even apparent in early childhood [2] scientists across a wide array of disciplines are desperately seeking answers and are increasingly looking at the earliest correlates of obesity with an eye toward prediction and prevention. To this end, increasing attention is being paid to weight and weight gain in infancy. While numerous explanations have emerged which serve to identify the risk factors that promote early excess infant weight gain, for example, low birth weight, maternal overweight, or not breastfeeding [3], an intriguing line of recent research has focused on the role of the caregiver (hereafter, mother) from a behavioral perspective. That is, do the behaviors that a mother exhibits in the context of feeding have any bearing on how much her infant ingests, and ultimately, on her infant’s weight trajectory?

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nutritional Sciences, School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, Rutgers University, 26 Nichol Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ, 08901-2882, USA

    John Worobey

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  1. John Worobey
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Correspondence to John Worobey .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Arizona Health Science Center, Mel and Enid Zuckerman, University of Arizona, 1295 N. Martin, Tucson, 85724-5155, Arizona, USA

    Ronald Ross Watson

  2. Centre for Gastroenterology, and Nutrition, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom

    George Grimble

  3. School of Medicine, Diabetes & Nutritional, King's College London, 150 Stamford St., London, SE1 9NH, United Kingdom

    Victor R. Preedy

  4. Division of Health Promotion Sciences, Mel and Enid Zuckerman, University of Arizona, 1295 N. Martin Avenue, Tucson, 85724, Arizona, USA

    Sherma Zibadi

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Worobey, J. (2013). Maternal Behavior and Infant Weight. In: Watson, R., Grimble, G., Preedy, V., Zibadi, S. (eds) Nutrition in Infancy. Nutrition and Health. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-62703-254-4_29

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-62703-254-4_29

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  • Publisher Name: Humana Press, Totowa, NJ

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-62703-253-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-62703-254-4

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