# Self-Regulation Among Parent Dyads as a Facilitator of Effective Parenting for Early Childhood Obesity Prevention

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR · 2022 · $296,193

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
Changing parent behavior is one of the most potent mechanisms to prevent and treat obesity among
young children. However, many early childhood obesity prevention and treatment interventions that
target parent behavior have been unsuccessful. Self-regulation, or one’s ability to control emotions,
cognitions, and behavior, is a fundamental mechanism of action underlying behavior change,
maintenance, and adherence. Motivated by this evidence, the parent grant, R01HL150848 (Maternal
Self-Regulation and Early Childhood Obesity (aka, the SPROUT study)), aims to elucidate how
mothers’ self-regulation supports or inhibits engagement in parenting behaviors that promote young
children’s healthy weight. In response to NOT-OD-22-140, this supplement will allow for the addition of
an assessment of mothers’ co-parents’ self-regulation to the SPROUT study. This new complementary
data, along with the parent projects’ existing data, will be used in analyses to achieve the following
specific aims: Aim 1. Characterize self-regulation among parenting dyads, Aim 2. Examine concurrent
associations between parenting dyads’ self-regulation, mothers’ weight-related parenting behaviors,
and families’ weight-related home environments, and Aim 3. Explore how parenting dyads’ self-
regulation predicts changes in mothers’ weight-related parenting behaviors and families’ weight-related
home environments over time. These aims will illuminate how self-regulation within parenting dyads,
not just mothers’ self-regulation alone, facilitates or impedes mothers’ use of recommended weight-
related parenting behaviors and development of health-promoting home environments. Understanding
how self-regulation among parenting dyads may influence parent behavior and the home environment
will provide novel, critical insight into the value and specificity of targeting self-regulation as a
mechanism of action to improve early childhood obesity prevention and treatment intervention
effectiveness. Further, by being one of the few studies to examine self-regulation within
spousal/romantic partner/parenting dyads, versus only among individuals, the knowledge gained has
transdiagnostic implications and contributes to OBSSR’s priority of facilitating cumulative, integrated,
and synergistic behavioral and social sciences that can be optimized and translated across conditions.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10664544
- **Project number:** 3R01HL150848-03S2
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR
- **Principal Investigator:** Katherine W. Bauer
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $296,193
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2020-01-01 → 2024-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10664544

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10664544, Self-Regulation Among Parent Dyads as a Facilitator of Effective Parenting for Early Childhood Obesity Prevention (3R01HL150848-03S2). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-14 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10664544. Licensed CC0.

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