The societal costs and health impacts on obesity of BMI report cards in US schools.
Poole MK, Gortmaker SL, Barrett JL, McCulloch SM, Rimm EB, Emmons KM, Ward ZJ, Kenney EL.
Obesity (Silver Spring). 2023 Aug. 31(8):2110-2118. PMID: 37395361
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.
Poole MK, Gortmaker SL, Barrett JL, McCulloch SM, Rimm EB, Emmons KM, Ward ZJ, Kenney EL.
Obesity (Silver Spring). 2023 Aug. 31(8):2110-2118. PMID: 37395361
Hua SV, Petimar J, Mitra N, Roberto CA, Kenney EL, Thorndike AN, Rimm EB, Volpp KG, Gibson LA.
JAMA Netw Open. 2023 Jul 03. 6(7):e2323200. PMID: 37440231
Gordon AR, Egan KA, Wang ML, Ziyadeh NJ, Kenney EL, Rosario M, Austin SB.
Int J Eat Disord. 2023 Jun 21. PMID: 37345224
Poole MK, Lee RM, Kinderknecht KL, Kenney EL.
Implement Sci Commun. 2023 Jun 09. 4(1):63. PMID: 37296487
Mozaffarian RS, Carter S, Bovenzi MC, Kenney EL.
Public Health Nutr. 2023 Sep. 26(9):1862-1870. PMID: 37288521
Bleich SN, Fiechtner L, Kenney EL.
JAMA Health Forum. 2023 04 07. 4(4):e231472. PMID: 37079316
Kenney EL, Tucker K, Plummer RS, Mita C, Andreyeva T.
Nutr Rev. 2023 Mar 07. PMID: 36882043
Hua SV, Kenney EL, Miller JM, Musicus AA, Roberto CA, Thorndike AN, Rimm EB.
Am J Prev Med. 2023 06. 64(6):805-813. PMID: 36792450
Dupuis R, Feuerstein-Simon R, Brown-Whitehorn TF, Spergel JM, Volpp KG, Marti XL, Troxel AB, Meisel ZF, Mollen CJ, Kenney EL, Block J, Gortmaker SL, Cannuscio CC.
Pediatrics. 2023 02 01. 151(2). PMID: 36683454
Gago C, Aftosmes-Tobio A, Beckerman-Hsu JP, Oddleifson C, Garcia EA, Lansburg K, Figueroa R, Yu X, Kitos N, Torrico M, Leonard J, Jurkowski JK, Mattei J, Kenney EL, Haneuse S, Davison KK.
Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2023 01 11. 20(1):4. PMID: 36631869
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.
Among Massachusetts adults with low incomes, those experiencing food insecurity reported greater disruptions in their diets during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic than those not experiencing food insecurity.
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…