1. Louise Giovannone, Patty Flanagan, Elizabeth Haver-Browne

2. Childhood obesity presents a significant public health problem Current research efforts have focused on the difference between formula feeding and breastfeeding very little research has focused on how the feeding technique (feeding to satiety) may impact childhood obesity

3. reviews suggest that breastfeeding provides modest protection against later overweight much research has been done comparing the breast feeding to bottle feeding and risk of obesity without regards to the mechanisms (technique) of feeding. Future research is needed to evaluate the effects of infant led (breast feeding) vs. care giver led (bottle feeding) and risk of obesity.

4. Bottle fed infants, fed to satiety will track closer in weight to breastfed infants

5. The health belief model is a conceptual framework that helps predict and explain health outcomes by focusing on the attitudes and beliefs of individuals. It assumes individuals will modify their behavior if they can avoid a negative health consequence, feel confident that if they do make a behavioral change that they will avoid a negative health condition and that they can make necessary change successful.

6. This study assumes that obesity can be prevented by infant feeding technique (feeding to satiety) by maternal behavioral modification through education on appropriate feeding technique (feeding to satiety).

7. self -stratification RCT

8. Sampling Design: A sample of 400 WIC participants 200 participants from two different WIC Clinics 100 of the breast feeding maternal/child dyad 100 of the bottle feeding maternal/child dyad

9. Sampling Criteria 1. Inclusion Criteria: 2. Exclusion Criteria:

10. Independent Variables:

11. Dependent variables

12. Mediating variables

13. Confounding or Extraneous variables with potential control strategies: different formulas have different calories – WIC contracts to particular formula companies, babies on special formulas will be excluded

14. Sample Size: To detect a medium effect with a power of 0.8 p<0.05 significance with 95% CI a total of ----------------------participants are needed.

15. Approach to analyses: Fisher exact test will be used to test for significant associations