We provide trainees with research opportunities that help them develop content expertise in prevention of eating disorders and dangerous weight and shape control behaviors and the methodological expertise needed to conduct rigorous scientific research. Trainees are linked with opportunities to take part in research projects, provided with funding so they can devote the time needed to carry out the projects, and mentored by experts in the field.
Current Research Projects
Effects of Social Media Platform Practices on Adolescent Mental Health
STRIPED, as part of a team of scientists and legal scholars, is investigating evidence on the effect of social media platform practices on adolescent mental health and viable legal avenues to strengthen regulation of social media platforms to protect young people.
Science summary on whether social media can negatively affect the health and wellbeing of teens
A Critical Eye on the Weight-Loss and Beauty Industries
Global Policy Scan Study
STRIPED launched a recent initiative to create a database of federal policies towards weight-loss supplements. This global policy scan will identify how federal governments around the world regulate dietary supplements sold for weight-loss. The initial conclusion revealed that despite the health risks, these products are loosely regulated throughout the world. There are no major limitations on their availability, and often regulators don’t fully assess the supplement’s safety before they are allowed on the market. In order to expand the database and overcome language barriers, we will also launch an online survey for regulators, industry leaders and academics around the world. STRIPED’s global policy scan will be a comprehensive and comparative tool to serve in advocating for stronger regulation for weight-loss supplements. Check back soon for more updates on this exciting project.
Body Image Insights From Asia
STRIPED Visiting Scholar Sook Ning Chua is leading our Asia-based study of the myriad challenges to positive body image in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Hong Kong. With the help of experts across Asia, we are investigating how people of all ages are navigating the pervasive toxic pressures that worsen eat- ing disorders, skin shade dissatisfaction, and the use of dangerous predatory products in response.
Economic Value of Implementing Proposed Legislation Restricting Ban on Sales of Over-the-Counter Diet Pills and Muscle-Building Supplements to Children in Massachusetts
Several states’ legislatures are evaluating banning the sale of over-the-counter diet pills and muscle-building supplements to individuals under 18 years of age to reduce eating disorders and illicit steroid use by youth. Our economic study estimated the value of implementing this legislation in Massachusetts by approximating the time-per-task of key start-up activities by state employees. A best value estimate of USD $44,529 (95% CI: $34,390-$54,037) was computed from 10,000 Monte Carlo simulations. Although the bill has no attached funding, this opportunity cost is reasonable given current Administration expenditures. This study, led by Health Economist Dr. Cynthia Tschampl, at the Heller School of Social Policy and Management, and STRIPED Trainee, Mary Lee offers new insights into the economic impact of this policy and similar policies.
Abuse of Over-the-Counter Products for Weight Control and Muscle-Building
Our team conducted a two-pronged investigation of abuse of products such as laxatives and diet pills through a legal study led by public health law expert Jennifer Pomeranz, JD, MPH and a medical claims study led by health policy expert Robert Penfold, PhD, of the Seattle-based Group Health Research Institute, and STRIPED Expert Advisory Panel member Jess Haines, PhD. Recent trainees Meredith Chace, Jenna Kruger, MPH, and Lisa Taylor, JD, were all instrumental on this research project.
Past Research Projects
Cost Effectiveness of Eating Disorder Screening
Through our cost-effectiveness evaluation of school-based screening for eating disorders and with the expert guidance of STRIPED Collaborating Mentor Davene Wright, PhD, Yushan Jiang, MS, and Harvard Chan School master’s degree student Hyungi LeAnn Noh learned volumes about these essential public health methods as applied to eating disorders. Dr. Wright, a 2012 PhD graduate in health policy from Harvard University and now an Assistant Professor at University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Research Institute, is an expert in cost-effectiveness and decision analysis research. She joined forces with us to carry out what may be the first-ever U.S. cost-effectiveness study of eating disorders screening.
Abuse of Over-the-Counter Products for Weight Control and Muscle-Building
Our team conducted a two-pronged investigation of abuse of products such as laxatives and diet pills through a legal study led by public health law expert Jennifer Pomeranz, JD, MPH and a medical claims study led by health policy expert Robert Penfold, PhD, of the Seattle-based Group Health Research Institute, and STRIPED Expert Advisory Panel member Jess Haines, PhD. Recent trainees Meredith Chace, Jenna Kruger, MPH, and Lisa Taylor, JD, were all instrumental on this research project.
A Critical Eye on the Weight-Loss and Beauty Industries
In several projects, STRIPED trainees and faculty are turning a critical eye on the beauty industry — an industry that is as ubiquitous and pernicious as it is complex and challenging to study. As part of our multidisciplinary team including the unlikely mix of a geographer, an economist, a statistician, and a nutritionist, Harvard Chan School doctoral student Allegra Gordon along with former STRIPED staffer Grace Kennedy helped to pilot new methods to map the onslaught of beauty industry purveyors in young people’s environments. We scaled up the project with the help of Jeff Blossom of the Harvard University Center for Geographic Analysis and others to map hot spots around the country. In a parallel project, STRIPED faculty Jerel Calzo, PhD, worked closely with STRIPED Director Bryn Austin and Co-Director Kendrin Sonneville to carry out a national study of male body image and the masculinization of the cosmetic surgery and procedures industry and dietary products marketed for building muscles and losing weight.
Christina Roberto, PhD, mentored Harvard Chan School master’s student Brigitte Granger and Harvard College undergraduate Kelly Bauer in a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded investigation of deceptive marketing practices used by the weight-loss industry. Kelly and Brigitte gained hands-on research experience documenting the scope of these misleading marketing strategies and worked on to designing follow-up studies to examine how weight-loss industry marketing practices negatively influence young people and — most importantly — what we can do to change these harmful marketing practices.
In another project, Jennifer Pomeranz, JD, MPH, who is STRIPED Affiliated Faculty in Health Law, mentored Harvard Law student Grant Barbosa to investigate promising legal avenues to protect youth from exploitation by the dietary supplements industry and its generally ineffective and sometimes dangerous products sold for weight control and muscle building. Grant gained invaluable experience that he’ll be able to use in his law career after graduation to help craft viable legal strategies to protect those most vulnerable in our society’s unrelenting pursuit of beauty.
Our newest legal research project, led by STRIPED Collaborating Mentor Katherine Record, JD, MPH, MA, investigates ways to bring occupational safety laws to bear on the fashion industry to protect professional models from the industry’s perilous standards of extreme thinness. In a previous STRIPED project, Jennifer Pomeranz, JD, MPH, mentored Harvard Law School graduate Katherine Cohen Cooper, JD, to investigate promising legal avenues to protect youth and other vulnerable groups from abuses and exploitation by the cosmetic surgery industry.
Economic Perspectives on Eating Disorders
STRIPED launched an exciting new collaboration with the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED) and Deloitte Access Economics to conduct the most comprehensive examination to date of the social and economic burden of eating disorders in the United States. The research will estimate the financial implications of eating disorders for the health system, families, and individuals and loss of life and wellbeing due to the devastating impact of eating disorders on physical and mental health. The burden of disease methodology developed by the World Health Organization and World Bank with scholars based at Harvard University will be used with the goal of informing cost-effectiveness analyses of prevention, early detection, and treatment interventions. Check out the press release issued by AED on this exciting collaboration to conduct a comprehensive US economic impact study and read more on this new collaboration from STRIPED Director Bryn Austin in the Academy for Eating Disorders Forum.
In an economics-based project, Harvard Chan School master’s degree student LeAnn Noh worked with Collaborating Mentor Mihail Samnaliev, PhD, to develop new skills in economic analysis focusing on the economic burden of eating disorders. Their work aimed to estimate the economic costs of eating disorders by examining the healthcare cost incurred by individuals suffering from eating disorders as well as additional medical expenditure among individuals with eating disorders and comorbidities. Results of their study will be vitally important for estimating potential cost savings of prevention and early detection.
Fat Talk Free Week Pilot Evaluation Study
Our team, led by STRIPED trainees Bernice Raveche Garnett, ScD, (principal investigator) and Rob Buelow, MS (study coordinator), conducted the first-ever evaluation of the innovative Fat Talk Free Week social marketing campaign on college campuses.
Healthy Choices Study: Eating Disorders Prevention in Adolescents
STRIPED director Dr. Bryn Austin and Harvard Chan School doctoral graduate Monica Wang, ScD, carried out a series of analyses along with Healthy Choices Study principal investigator Karen Peterson, ScD, of University of Michigan School of Public Health and the Healthy Choices Study team to examine potential protective influences in the lives of early adolescent girls and boys and the long-term effects of the Healthy Choices program on disordered weight control behaviors in middle schools across Massachusetts.
