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CURRENT RESEARCH: FOOD

Research on food at the School ranges from looking at how food production and distribution impacts health to how eating disorder diagnoses differ across populations.

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ANALYZING ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF FOOD SUPPLY CHAINS

Xiaobo Xue Romeiko, assistant professor of Environmental Health Sciences, focuses on sustainable solutions capable of conserving natural resources and minimizing negative environmental health damages. Her team develops innovative models to evaluate resource consumption and climate resiliency of water and waste infrastructure and to analyze environmental health impacts of food and energy supply chains. Recently, Romeiko studied preserved plum production to see which production methods led to higher fossil fuel depletion, ozone depletion, eco-toxicity, respiratory impacts and more.

Studies like this one, published in Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy, can help to showcase methods to reduce environmental and health impacts of our food systems.

Tomoko Udo, associate professor of Health Policy, Management and Behavior, has studied disparities in eating disorder diagnoses, finding that sexual minorities have higher prevalence rates than heterosexual respondents for all eating disorders.

Her work, published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, showed that prevalence rates for anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder were higher among sexual minorities than heterosexual respondents, and the odds of lifetime diagnosis were significantly greater.

“Eating disorder research has overwhelmingly focused on cisgender, heterosexual females,” says Udo. “Our results showcase the importance of diversifying eating disorder research in order to create responses and interventions tailored to individual needs. This approach may help to reduce disparities and promote better health among sexual minorities.”

Previous work from Udo in BMC Medicine found that adults with eating disorders have a heightened risk of suicide attempts. This came from studying a nationally representative sample of 36,309 adults alongside their information on eating disorders and medical history such as suicide attempts.

Results showed that those with eating disorders had a five-to-six-fold higher risk of suicide attempts compared to those without eating disorders and those who had anorexia nervosa with a binge/purge subtype had an especially high risk of suicide attempt.

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