Early Reward Learning and the Origins of Obesity: Food, Non-Food Reward, and Developing Self-Regulation

This review examines infancy as a sensitive period for the development of reward learning and self-regulation and evaluates how early experiences with food and non-food rewards shape obesity risk. We sought to address three questions: how biological susceptibility influences early reward processing, how caregiving practices use food as a reward, and how non-food reinforcement modifies the relative reinforcing value of food (RRV_food) during early development.

Recent evidence indicates that obesity risk may depend less on absolute food motivation and more on the relative reinforcing value of food (RRV_food), a behavioral economic construct reflecting how motivated one is for food in the context of available non-food alternatives. Studies show that feeding to soothe, instrumental feeding, and restriction can strengthen food-based reward learning, particularly among biologically susceptible infants. Conversely, enriched environments, responsive parenting, and cognitively, socially, and physically engaging non-food activities support self-regulation and lower obesity risk, even in socioeconomically disadvantaged contexts. Early obesity risk reflects an imbalance in reinforcement rather than excessive food motivation alone. Shifting the balance toward non-food rewards represents a promising, strength-based direction for future mechanistic and intervention research.