# Childhood Obesity among Impoverished Mexican Americans: Longitudinal Growth Patterns and Cultural-Bioecological Predictors from Birth to Pre-Puberty.

> **NIH NIH R01** · ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY-TEMPE CAMPUS · 2020 · $386,452

## Abstract

Project Summary
Although childhood obesity is a national health problem reaching epidemic proportions, Hispanic children are
nearly twice as likely as non-Hispanic white children to be obese, and Mexican Americans have higher risk of
obesity than other Hispanic subgroups. Weight-associated health problems are also increasing at alarming
rates. If contemporary obesity prevalence rates persist, “the current generation of children will be the first
generation in US history to be sicker and die earlier than their parents” (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,
2012). Because the challenges of intervention are multiplied after a child has already reached obesity status, it
is imperative to understand the processes of developing risk in the earliest years of life. The identification of
risk and resiliency predictors of the development of obesity during critical formative years of childhood will
provide specific targets amenable to preventive public health interventions. We propose to capitalize on
longitudinal data collected by an NIMH and NICHD-funded study of very low income Mexican American
mothers and infants (Las Madres Nuevas) that assesses a multitude of cultural and environmental risk and
protective factors from the prenatal period through six years of age. We propose to leverage this existing
longitudinal dataset, and collect physical health and markers of cardiometabolic risk at ages 7.5 and 9. In
combination, we will: 1) Use advanced statistical procedures to chart trajectories of weight gain using objective
measures of weight and growth measured at 13 time points from birth through age 9; 2) Identify critical periods
from birth to age 9 at which children diverge from healthy weight gain trajectories; 3) Evaluate early life
biological susceptibility as a moderator of the impact of environmental influences on child weight gain
trajectories and obesity; 4) Evaluate the consequences of cultural, economic, maternal and child factors, and
weight gain trajectories for emerging physical health and cardiometabolic risk. The proposed longitudinal study,
with data drawn from biological measures, anthropometric measures, parent report, medical records, and
observational sessions, is ideally situated to answer key questions related to weight disparities among low-
income MA children, and delineate mechanistic pathways in the emergence of MA child obesity. Our scientific
approach emphasizes the cultural embeddedness of obesity development, with the view that the reduction of
child obesity disparities can best be accomplished by understanding sociocultural and economic forces that
shape eating behavior and weight gain. This project holds great potential to address central questions about
early life contributors to weight gain and obesity risk in a high risk ethnic group, and enhance opportunities
for prevention of obesity and associated health problems.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9899753
- **Project number:** 5R01MD011599-04
- **Recipient organization:** ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY-TEMPE CAMPUS
- **Principal Investigator:** LINDA J LUECKEN
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $386,452
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-08-07 → 2022-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9899753

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9899753, Childhood Obesity among Impoverished Mexican Americans: Longitudinal Growth Patterns and Cultural-Bioecological Predictors from Birth to Pre-Puberty. (5R01MD011599-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9899753. Licensed CC0.

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