The NICHD is a major funder of childhood obesity research through both investigator-initiated projects and program-led initiatives. In broad terms, NICHD-funded research on childhood obesity can be categorized as follows:
Primary Care Interventions: Pediatric obesity prevention or treatment studies in the primary care setting
Parenting/Feeding Interventions: Prevention or treatment studies in the home setting or with parents, focusing specifically on modifications of parenting behavior and/or child feeding practices
School-based Interventions: Prevention or treatment studies in the school setting, with varied intervention modalities that impact the diet, physical activity, and/or sedentary behavior of school-aged children and adolescents
Other Interventions: Obesity interventions not encompassed by the previous categories of primary care, parenting/feeding, or school-based interventions; includes interventions at academic research centers, summer camps, recreational facilities, work sites, or other community settings
Behavioral and Psychosocial Observational Research: Mainly observational studies that examine social and psychological antecedents, consequences, or correlates of diet, physical activity, sedentary behavior, and/or obesity in children and adolescents and that employ a wide range of epidemiological designs
Basic Sciences Research: Human in vitro or animal studies that focus primarily on the genetic, molecular, cellular, or organ-system factors related to diet, physical activity, development of adiposity, or other aspects of energy metabolism
Clinical Physiology: Human studies that focus on clinical cohorts of either normal weight or overweight children and adolescents; generally includes observational studies and examines a wide range of biomarkers for body composition, nutrition, metabolism, energy expenditure, and/or clinical precursors of disease