Reducing Infant Food Reinforcement Through Music
Tuesday, April 12, 2016Even infants know to pick one reward over the other – but obviously, as in adults, the one they pick depends on the choices available to them.
Given the highly rewarding nature of food, picking a favourite food over. almost anything else appears the natural choice. Thus food reinforcement is generally established at an early age and tends to continue throughout life.
Now, Kai Ling Kong and colleagues, in a paper published in OBESITY, test the hypothesis that conditioning infants as young as 9-16 months to an cognitively stimulating alternative reinforcer may reduce the appeal of food as the default goto reward.
The researchers studied 27 infants, who were found to have rather high food reinforcing ratios at baseline, half of who were randomised to 6 weeks of a program that provided them with a rich variety of music and playful activities, which encouraged infants and parents to participate at their own level in singing, moving, listening, or exploring musical instruments. Participating parents and infants attended weekly, 45-min classes as a group for 6 weeks and parents were encouraged to listen and sing together with their infants at home during everyday home activities such as bath time, meal time, and bed time using the CD and instructional song book provided by the program.
“Our findings provide initial evidence that alternatives to food may be cultivated at a young age to alter the reinforcing value of food in children who are strongly motivated to eat…..Interventions targeting non-food behavior may be a new and promising avenue for the prevention of obesity in infants.“
Edmonton, AB