U.S. Nutrition Assistance Program Participation and Childhood Obesity: The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study 2011.
Lee MM, Kinsey EW, Kenney EL.
Am J Prev Med. 2022 Apr 07. PMID: 35400557
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.
Lee MM, Kinsey EW, Kenney EL.
Am J Prev Med. 2022 Apr 07. PMID: 35400557
Hua SV, Musicus AA, Thorndike AN, Kenney EL, Rimm EB.
Am J Prev Med. 2022 Apr 04. PMID: 35393144
Vercammen KA, Dowling EA, Sharkey AL, Johnson Curtis C, Wang J, Kenney EL, Micha R, Mozaffarian D, Moran AJ.
J Acad Nutr Diet. 2022 Feb 16. PMID: 35182788
Gago CM, Wynne JO, Moore MJ, Cantu-Aldana A, Vercammen K, Zatz LY, May K, Andrade T, Mendoza T, Stone SL, Mattei J, Davison KK, Rimm EB, Colchamiro R, Kenney EL.
Pediatrics. 2022 02 01. 149(2). PMID: 35039867
Gago CM, Jurkowski J, Beckerman-Hsu JP, Aftosmes-Tobio A, Figueroa R, Oddleifson C, Mattei J, Kenney EL, Haneuse S, Davison KK.
Soc Sci Med. 2022 03. 296:114761. PMID: 35123371
Andreyeva T, Sun X, Cannon M, Kenney EL.
J Nutr Educ Behav. 2022 Apr. 54(4):327-334. PMID: 34865970
Kolli A, Mozaffarian RS, Kenney EL.
Am J Ophthalmol. 2022 04. 236:69-78. PMID: 34653357
Kenney EL, Dunn CG, Mozaffarian RS, Dai J, Wilson K, West J, Shen Y, Fleischhacker S, Bleich SN.
Nutrients. 2021 Aug 03. 13(8). PMID: 34444851
Andreyeva T, Sun X, Cannon M, Kenney EL.
J Acad Nutr Diet. 2021 12. 121(12):2454-2463. PMID: 34215563
Kenney EL, Mozaffarian RS, Long MW, Barrett JL, Cradock AL, Giles CM, Ward ZJ, Gortmaker SL.
Child Obes. 2021 10. 17(7):442-448. PMID: 33970695
Ajay Kolli, MPH ’21, hopes to boost overall health by improving eyesight.
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…
Childhood obesity rates continue to rise in the U.S., despite some modest progress toward getting kids to eat healthier school lunches and consume fewer sugary drinks.