# Executive Control and Adolescent Weight Trajectories

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA LINCOLN · 2021 · $514,127

## Abstract

Project Summary
Deficits in executive control (EC), a critical set of cognitive abilities for directing attention and behavior, have
been proposed as an important and modifiable contributor to obesity risk; however, the role of such deficits in
the development of clinical weight problems is not well-understood. Existing research on EC and obesity lacks
critical developmental and environmental context, precluding an understanding of when and how poor EC
impacts obesity risk and limiting the ability to design developmentally-sensitive and targeted interventions
addressing EC to prevent and treat clinical weight problems. Given that preschool and adolescence are both
critical periods in the development of EC, and that adolescence is a time of increasing independence and
obesity risk, a longitudinal study spanning preschool and adolescence is needed to explicate the impact of EC
on weight trajectories within a rich developmental context. Further, the obesogenic environment that surrounds
an adolescent is critical to understanding the EC-obesity relationship, yet studies exploring the role of EC in
this broader environmental context are lacking. The long-term goal is to inform interventions targeting EC as a
novel and modifiable risk factor for obesity at critical points in development. The objective of the proposed
research is to explicate the impact of EC on weight trajectories and obesity-relevant behaviors in adolescence,
in the context of a longitudinal study leveraging earlier EC data from the critical period of preschool. The
proposed study also seeks to understand this relationship in the context of environmental risk by examining
how the obesogenic environment interacts with EC to affect weight trajectories. The central hypothesis is that
poor EC, at various points in development, will contribute to subsequent obesity risk and obesogenic behaviors
in adolescence, and that this effect will be particularly pronounced for youth living in more obesogenic
environments. The rationale is that a longitudinal study of EC and weight trajectories, within developmental and
environmental contexts, would richly inform the timing and targets of potential interventions focusing on EC to
prevent and treat obesity. The specific aims are to: (1) Determine the impact of EC development on weight
trajectories in a longitudinal study spanning preschool to adolescence; (2) Determine the impact of EC
development on adolescent obesity-relevant behaviors in this longitudinal study; and (3) Explore the role of the
obesogenic environment as a moderator of the relationship between EC development and adolescent weight
trajectories/obesogenic behaviors. The project is innovative in its unique leveraging of existing EC data from
the sample and its combination of cognitive neuroscience and systems science to explore brain-environment
interactions and their influence on health. The significance of this research is that it will yield an unprecedented
understanding of the EC-obe...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10134331
- **Project number:** 5R01DK116693-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA LINCOLN
- **Principal Investigator:** Timothy David Nelson
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $514,127
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-07-05 → 2023-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10134331

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10134331, Executive Control and Adolescent Weight Trajectories (5R01DK116693-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-21 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10134331. Licensed CC0.

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