Strengthening Communities Where We Live, Work, and Play | Page 12

Professor
Mildred Horodynski,
PhD, RN, FAAN
Experience and Inspiration
As a Women's Health Nurse
Practitioner, she began her
lifelong pursuit to give children the
opportunity to achieve their full
potential and live a healthy life.

Ten million U.S. children under the age
of 18 are overweight or obese.
• That translates into
one out of every
three children.
• Obese babies
are likely to be
overweight or obese
as adults.
• Poor child feeding
practices contribute
to obesity risk.

• Even at an early age,
diets low in fruits
and vegetables pose
increased risks for
chronic illness later
in life.
• Obesity-related
illness is estimated
to cost $190.2 billion,
of which childhood
obesity is responsible
for $14 billion in direct
medical costs.

HELPING MOMS PREVENT
OBESITY ONE CHILD AT A TIME
Childhood Obesity—It’s an Epidemic

Giving At-Risk Children the Best Start in Life
Professor Mildred Horodynski, PhD, RN,
FAAN, has devoted more than 30 years and
reached more than 10,000 participants in her
research on child and maternal health. This work
has developed programs to improve nutrition
and health, and promote healthy eating habits
among vulnerable low-income and underserved
populations, especially infants, toddlers,
preschoolers, and their families.

Parents Provide, Children Decide
Parents provide the family’s food. What
and how much mothers eat is directly related
to what is offered to the child. But it’s the
children who decide if they are hungry and
what they want to eat. Many mothers need help
understanding their baby’s cues about hunger
and satiation. This dynamic is at the center of
obesity prevention from the beginning stages of
life. Years of research resulted in the nationallydisseminated Healthy Babies Curriculum which
helps educate low-income mothers about
infant-centered feeding.
As an extension of this pivotal work,
two federally-funded intervention studies
are underway.

appropriate responsiveness, feeding style,
and practices targeted to economically
and educationally disadvantaged, first time
teen mothers.
• An evidence-based obesity prevention
behavior intervention provides preschoolaged children and parents with appropriate,
empirically validated, and coordinated obesity
prevention messages.

Working with the Knowledge that
Most Moms Want to Do the Best for
Their Children
Results show positive impacts on maternal
behaviors, beliefs, and knowledge. Mothers
apply what they learn by:
• becoming increasingly responsive to baby
feeding cues,
• promoting breast feeding,
• waiting to introduce complementary food
consistent with pediatric guidelines,
• turning off the TV,
• introducing a variety of fruits and veggies
into their baby’s diet, and
• giving their children water, not sugar
sweetened beverages.

Research
Horodynski has received national
funding from the U.S. Department
of Agriculture (USDA), Department
of Health and Human Services, and
NIH. She was recently awarded an
R21 grant from the NIH-National
Institute of Child Health and Human
Development. She is also Principal
Investigator on a $1.5 million grant
from the USDA-National Institute of
Food and Agriculture.
Community Health Impact
Obesity prevention educational
materials are disseminated through
a variety of national and state
organizations to help vulnerable
populations improve nutrition. The
Healthy Babies Curriculum, and
the Healthy Toddlers Curriculum
promote healthy feeding practices
in both English and Spanish. The
Growing Healthy: Prevention of
Obesity in Preschoolers curriculum
provides resources to parents,
teachers, and preschoolers.

• A six-week intervention provides social media
content on infant-centered feeding through

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