A Narrative Review of Public Health Interventions for Childhood Obesity.
Heerman WJ, Kenney E, Block JP, Fiechtner L, McMahon E, Kruse L, Sharifi M, Edmondson EK, Virudachalam S.
Curr Obes Rep. 2024 Mar. 13(1):87-97. PMID: 38172483
Faculty Affiliate in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Director, PhD Program in Public Health Nutrition
Nutrition
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Trained in social epidemiology and planned behavior change, my research focuses on identifying successful, efficient, and cost-effective strategies to modify children's environments to make the healthiest choice the easiest choice and to help children form healthy habits for life. I do this through conducting both intervention studies and epidemiological studies. My work is grounded in social ecological theory and the investigation of how children's environments can be feasibly changed to promote healthy eating habits and less screen time. This has resulted in work on developing valid, easy-to-use measures of dietary intake, feeding behaviors, nutrition policies, and the nutrition environment in child care and school settings; conducting and evaluating randomized, controlled trials of school- and afterschool-based interventions; and analyzing national datasets to identify important determinants of nutrition behaviors and obesity risk for children. At the Prevention Research Center, I collaborate with colleagues and community partners to identify and evaluate usable strategies for increasing drinking water access and reducing intake of sugary drinks in school, afterschool, and child care settings. With the Childhood Obesity Intervention Cost Effectiveness Study (CHOICES) team, I also study the cost-effectiveness of different policy strategies to prevent childhood obesity in early care and education settings. As a a faculty member with the Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders (STRIPED), I work with STRIPED trainees to investigate a different dimension of childhood obesity - weight-related discrimination and stigma, and how to ensure that public health efforts to promote healthy eating, physical activity, and healthy weight do not have unintended harmful consequences.
Current projects include a natural experimental evaluation of recent changes to the Child and Adult Care Food Program meal patterns in family child care settings; an implementation science investigation into how policies to promote healthy eating in child care settings nationwide are actually translated; a qualitative investigation of weight discrimination in school settings; and developing measures of exposure to food advertising on mobile devices.
Heerman WJ, Kenney E, Block JP, Fiechtner L, McMahon E, Kruse L, Sharifi M, Edmondson EK, Virudachalam S.
Curr Obes Rep. 2024 Mar. 13(1):87-97. PMID: 38172483
Kenney EL, Lee MM, Barrett JL, Ward ZJ, Long MW, Cradock AL, Williams DR, Gortmaker SL.
Pediatrics. 2024 Jan 01. 153(2). PMID: 38258385
Andreyeva T, McCann M, Prager J, Kenney EL.
J Nutr Educ Behav. 2024 Jan. 56(1):66-74. PMID: 37999696
Kenney EL, Poole MK, Frost N, Kinderknecht K, Mozaffarian RS, Andreyeva T.
Front Health Serv. 2023. 3:1286050. PMID: 38028947
Kenney EL, Tucker K, Plummer RS, Mita C, Andreyeva T.
Nutr Rev. 2023 Oct 10. 81(11):1402-1413. PMID: 36882043
Lee MM, Gibson LA, Hua SV, Lowery CM, Paul M, Roberto CA, Lawman HG, Bleich SN, Mitra N, Kenney EL.
Am J Prev Med. 2024 Mar. 66(3):408-417. PMID: 37774991
Andreyeva T, Moore TE, Godoy LDC, Kenney EL.
Am J Prev Med. 2024 Jan. 66(1):18-26. PMID: 37709155
Dupuis R, Block JP, Barrett JL, Long MW, Petimar J, Ward ZJ, Kenney EL, Musicus AA, Cannuscio CC, Williams DR, Bleich SN, Gortmaker SL.
Am J Prev Med. 2024 Jan. 66(1):128-137. PMID: 37586572
Lee MM, Barrett JL, Kenney EL, Gouck J, Whetstone LM, McCulloch SM, Cradock AL, Long MW, Ward ZJ, Rohrer B, Williams DR, Gortmaker SL.
Am J Prev Med. 2024 Jan. 66(1):94-103. PMID: 37553037
Poole MK, Gortmaker SL, Barrett JL, McCulloch SM, Rimm EB, Emmons KM, Ward ZJ, Kenney EL.
Obesity (Silver Spring). 2023 08. 31(8):2110-2118. PMID: 37395361
A sandwich may seem like a healthy choice for lunch, but experts say that they can hide high amounts of sodium and saturated fat.
Childhood obesity rates tripled in the U.S. over the past 30 years, and further surged during theCOVID-19 pandemic.
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With schools and child care centers shuttered across the U.S. because of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of children who rely on school meals may face food insecurity, according to a March 30, 2020 Perspective piece in the New…