Alison Field | |
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Academic background | |
Education | BA, Psychology, University of California, Berkeley ScD, Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health |
Academic work | |
Institutions | Brown University Harvard Medical School |
Alison Ellen Field is an American epidemiologist. Field currently serves as professor and chair of epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health and professor of pediatrics at Brown's Alpert Medical School.
Field earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from the University of California,Berkeley,and Doctor of Science in epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. [1] While completing her post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard University in 1996,she helped launch the Growing Up Today Study (GUTS),a long-term study to inform eating disorder and obesity prevention and treatment. [2]
Upon completing her ScD,Field joined the faculty at Boston Children's Hospital from 2002 until 2015 while simultaneously working at Harvard Medical School. [3] While there,she continued to work on GUTS and found that frequent dieting among children ages 9 to 14 was both ineffective and harmful,as they gained weight long term in the future. [4] Later,she found that children in the high normal weight range have an elevated risk of becoming overweight or obese as adults and boys with higher childhood BMI's were at greater risk for hypertension as they grew older. [5] In 2008,Field led a study analyzing data of girls and boys between the ages of 9 and 15 from 1996 to 2003 to examine the association between various risk factors and the development of frequent binge eating,and purging. [6]
As a result of her research into dieting and eating disorders,Field was a part of a working group who revised the eating disorder diagnostic criteria in 2013. She came to her conclusions using data from GUTS and the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) to best identify how eating disorders should be classified. In 2015,Field joined the faculty at Brown University. [7] As a professor of epidemiology and pediatrics,Field led a study finding that children who engage in intense and long hours of activity per week were more likely to be injured. [8]
Binge eating is a pattern of disordered eating which consists of episodes of uncontrollable eating. It is a common symptom of eating disorders such as binge eating disorder and bulimia nervosa. During such binges,a person rapidly consumes an excessive quantity of food. A diagnosis of binge eating is associated with feelings of loss of control. Binge eating disorder is also linked with being overweight and obesity.
A healthy diet is a diet that maintains or improves overall health. A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition:fluid,macronutrients such as protein,micronutrients such as vitamins,and adequate fibre and food energy.
David Ludwig is an American endocrinologist and low-carbohydrate diet advocate in Boston,Massachusetts.
Childhood obesity is a condition where excess body fat negatively affects a child's health or well-being. As methods to determine body fat directly are difficult,the diagnosis of obesity is often based on BMI. Due to the rising prevalence of obesity in children and its many adverse health effects it is being recognized as a serious public health concern. The term 'overweight' rather than 'obese' is often used when discussing childhood obesity,as it is less stigmatizing,although the term 'overweight' can also refer to a different BMI category. The prevalence of childhood obesity is known to differ by sex and gender.
Walter C. Willett is an American physician and nutrition researcher. He is the Fredrick John Stare Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health and was the chair of its department of nutrition from 1991 to 2017. He is also a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
The Growing Up Today Study (GUTS) is an ongoing collaborative research project between researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston,Massachusetts. Established in 1996 in the United States,the study collects data annually from over 26,000 participants in order to evaluate the factors that influence weight change and health throughout the life cycle. The participants are children of the women who enrolled as participants in the second cohort of the Nurses' Health Study. Established in 1976,the Nurses' Health Study has collected data from 238,000 nurse participants,making it one of the largest and longest running investigations of factors that influence women’s health and risk for disease. Combined,the Growing Up Today Study and the Nurses’Health Study can be considered a cross-generational super-study,leading to new insights and landmark findings in the field of public health research.
A sweetened beverage is any beverage with added sugar. It has been described as "liquid candy". Consumption of sweetened beverages has been linked to weight gain,obesity,and associated health risks. According to the CDC,consumption of sweetened beverages is also associated with unhealthy behaviors like smoking,not getting enough sleep and exercise,and eating fast food often and not enough fruits regularly.
Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp is a medical epidemiologist and chief of the developmental disabilities branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,where she has worked since 1981. She is also an adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at Emory University. She is the great-niece of Benjamin Mays,former president of Morehouse College.
Obesity and the environment aims to look at the different environmental factors that researchers worldwide have determined cause and perpetuate obesity. Obesity is a condition in which a person's weight is higher than what is considered healthy for their height,and is the leading cause of preventable death worldwide. Obesity can result from several factors such as poor nutritional choices,overeating,genetics,culture,and metabolism. Many diseases and health complications are associated with obesity. Worldwide,the rates of obesity have nearly tripled since 1975,leading health professionals to label the condition as a modern epidemic in most parts of the world. Current worldwide population estimates of obese adults are near 13%;overweight adults total approximately 39%.
Frank B. Hu is a Chinese American nutrition and diabetes researcher. He is Chair of the Department of Nutrition and the Fredrick J. Stare Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health,and Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School.
Mary Story is Professor of Global Health and Community and Family Medicine,and associate director of Education and Training,Duke Global Health Institute at Duke University. Dr. Story is a leading scholar on child and adolescent nutrition and child obesity prevention.
Dariush Mozaffarian is a cardiologist,Jean Mayer Professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University,Professor of Medicine at Tufts School of Medicine,and an attending physician at Tufts Medical Center. His work aims to create the science and translation for a food system that is nutritious,equitable,and sustainable. Dr. Mozaffarian has authored more than 500 scientific publications on dietary priorities for obesity,diabetes,and cardiovascular diseases,and on evidence-based policy approaches and innovations to reduce diet-related diseases and improve health equity in the US and globally. Some of his areas of interest include healthy diet patterns,nutritional biomarkers,Food is Medicine interventions in healthcare,nutrition innovation and entrepreneurship,and food policy. He is one of the top cited researchers in medicine globally,he has served in numerous advisory roles,and his work has been featured in an array of media outlets.
Rena R. Wing is recognized for her well-established research on behavioral treatments of obesity. Dr. Wing's research examined positive outcomes for long-term weight loss as well as halting weight gain in individuals who are currently overweight. This led to an important development in Wing's research which was the layout of a lifestyle intervention for those with diabetes,particularly type 2.
Penny Gordon-Larsen is an American nutrition scientist. She is the Carla Smith Chamblee Distinguished Professor of Global Nutrition at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,where she served as Associate Dean for Research from 2018 to 2022. In March 2022,she was named interim Vice Chancellor for Research for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is also a Faculty Fellow at the Carolina Population Center. Dr. Gordon-Larsen’s NIH-funded research portfolio focuses on individual-,household-,and community-level susceptibility to obesity and its cardiometabolic consequences,and her work ranges from molecular and genetic to environmental and societal-level factors. She was the 2015 president of The Obesity Society and a member of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases Clinical Obesity Research Panel (CORP).
Dianne Neumark-Sztainer is Division Head and a McKnight Presidential and Mayo Professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health,School of Public Health,University of Minnesota. She is a scholar on adolescent and young adult eating and weight-related health.
Liza Makowski Hayes is an American nutritional biochemist. As a professor at the University of Tennessee,her research focuses on how metabolic stress and inflammation alters the progression of diseases,specifically obesity and cancer.
Julie Carroll Lumeng is an American developmental and behavioural paediatrician. She became the inaugural Thomas P. Borders Family Research Professor of Child Behavior and Development at the University of Michigan in October 2019 and associate dean for research at Michigan Medicine.
Marney Ann White is an American psychologist and epidemiologist.
Eliana Perrin is an American pediatrician,researcher,and Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Primary Care with joint appointments with tenure in the Department of Pediatrics in the School of Medicine and in the School of Nursing at Johns Hopkins University. She was elected a member of the American Pediatric Society in 2021.
Fatima Cody Stanford is an American obesity medicine physician,internist,and pediatrician and an associate professor of medicine and pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. She is one of the most highly cited scientists in the field of obesity.