Nutrition Science & Dietetics News
Falk College Welcomes New Faculty
As we begin the Fall 2014 semester, Syracuse University’s Falk College is pleased to announce the appointment of five new outstanding faculty members: Beth Dixon, Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern, Margaret Voss, Patrick Walsh, and Jennifer Wilkins. We also welcome Mine Göl-Güven as visiting assistant professor of child and family studies. Their exceptional wealth of academic and practical experience in their respective fields is complemented by their passion for teaching, research, scholarship and service. Each of them will offer students tremendous opportunities for learning inside and outside of the classroom. We invite you to read more about their accomplishments, and areas for potential collaboration
Falk Nutrition students consider Fresh Apples vs. Apple Fritters at the Great New York State Fair
The Great New York State Fair has come and gone and we hope everyone who attended the Fair had a blast. Our Falk Nutrition students had fun. They asked questions, tasted Tzatziki sauce, crunched fresh apples and proved anyone can eat healthy at the Great New York State Fair.
Armed with appetites and an agenda, Falk nutrition students Rachel Johnson ‘15 and Mary Briggman ‘15 set out to dispel the myth that it’s impossible to eat healthy at the Fair. Did the students pass up the Fried Chicken Fingers, Heart-Attack Burgers, and Apple Fritters for Fruits and Veggies? You just might be surprised.
Nutrition faculty Named Fellows of the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics
In recognition of professional contributions, Falk College nutrition faculty members Drs. Kay Stearns Bruening, Sudha Raj and Sarah Short, along with long-standing, part-time instructor, Donna Acox, were named Fellows of the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics. The Fellow of the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics recognizes Academy members who have distinguished themselves among their colleagues, as well as in their communities, by their service to the dietetics profession and by optimizing the nation’s health through food and nutrition. Fellows demonstrate the Academy’s core values of customer focus, integrity, innovation, and social responsibility. Fellows provide outreach to their communities and grow public trust for Academy members.
The Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics was founded in 1917, and is the world’s largest organization of food and nutrition professionals. The Academy is committed to promoting the organization of food and nutrition professionals and improving the nation’s health and advancing the profession of dietetics through research, education and advocacy. The academy provides evidence-based information for the public, awards credentials to individuals to practice in the dietetics profession advocates public policy and is responsible for accrediting undergraduate and graduate programs
Nutrition alumna Skylar Griggs ’08 addresses healthy school lunches on FOX News Boston
Providing healthy food options that children not only want to eat but will eat was one of many important messages Falk College alumna, Skylar Griggs, MS, RD, LDN, offered during a recent interview with WFXT-25/FOX News in Boston. Griggs, who graduated from the Falk College’s Nutrition/DPD programs in 2008, is a clinical nutrition specialist at Children’s Hospital in Boston. From providing more fruits and vegetables and 100 percent whole grain options to limiting sodium, Griggs shared her expertise on healthier nutrition requirements for school lunches.
Nutrition major Sam Rodgers ‘15 continues focus on community service, nominated for Allstate AFCA Good Works Team
Senior student-athlete Sam Rodgers has made community service a top priority in his time with the Orange men’s football team and he has been nominated for the Allstate AFCA Good Works Team for his efforts. Rodgers, who was also nominated in 2013, has been active in numerous community service organizations, most recently making his second mission trip to Haiti and working to establish a chapter of Uplifting Athletes at Syracuse. He’s traveled to Haiti in May in each of the last two years with Poverty Resolutions. Rodgers made the trip with his family and Syracuse student-athletes and assisted on a number of projects while there while partnering with the Mission of Grace Orphanage in the country. Earlier this year Sam, who is majoring in nutrition, was named a 2014-15 Remembrance Scholar. He will serve as one of two undergraduate Falk College Marshals for Convocation/Commencement 2015 next May.
Five Falk College Students Named 2013-14 Remembrance Scholars
Each year, 35 Syracuse University Remembrance Scholarships are awarded to undergraduate students on the basis of distinguished academic achievement, citizenship, and service to community. Five Falk College students have been awarded this prestigious honor for the 2014-15 academic year. They include:
- Fergus Barrie, Sport Management
- Miho Hatanaka, Nutrition
- Sara Mileski, Child & Family Studies
- John Rodgers, Nutrition
- Lauren Strand, Sport Management
“To be named a Remembrance Scholar is one of the highest honors at Syracuse University that recognizes students’ outstanding academic achievement and service to others, which is consistent with the Falk College’s priorities for all of its students. We are very proud of Fergus, Miho, Sara, John and Lauren—and all of this year’s scholars,” notes Diane Lyden Murphy, dean, Falk College.
The Remembrance Scholarships were established by Syracuse University to honor and remember the 35 students studying abroad with Syracuse University who were among the 270 men, women, and children killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988.
Falk College honored with 2014 Chancellor’s Awards for Public Engagement & Scholarship
The Falk College is pleased to announce that its students representing 21 courses, student organizations, field placements/internships and community efforts, and their faculty-staff advisors, were recognized with 2014 Chancellor’s Awards for Public Engagement and Scholarship (CAPES) during a ceremony April 23. The Chancellor’s Awards for Public Engagement and Scholarship are given each year to Syracuse University students and groups who exemplify the highest ideal of sustained, quality engagement with citizens in our community.
Social work student, Joshua Berman ’14, received a Chancellor’s Citation. He is an active leader serving as a Falk College peer advisor, teaching assistant for the first-year social work gateway course, and co-executive director and board member of Orange Seeds first-year leadership program. He is also active with SU Collegiate Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Mary Ann Shaw Center for Public and Community Service, and Elmcrest Children’s Center.
Over the years, many students indicated the desire to honor special faculty, staff or community partners who have been motivating to them as they made their way into the community. A 2014 Inspiration Award was presented to Bette Brown Thoreck, B.S.S.W. program director.
FST 402—Feeding the City received an honorable mention in the category of Innovation in Academic Achievement. This course investigates the relationship between food systems and cities, including a deliverable item for a community partner. The Falk College received several honors in the category of Legacy Award for Academic Achievement for meaningful and sustained engagement:
Students enrolled in the Department of Child and Family Studies’ internship courses (CFS 433, 493, and 494) were recognized for their service to the community. CFS internships place seniors in social service agencies, schools, and early childhood education facilities throughout Central New York.
Legacy awards were presented to the Department of Public Health, Food Studies and Nutrition for: HTW 307—Culturally Competent Healthcare; HTW 227—Healthy You; HTW 304—Public Health: Community Health Education; HTW 311—Health Literacy and the Genesis Health Project Network; NSD 511—Nutrition Education; NSD 513—Nutrition Education Experience: Orange Wrap, and; NSD 658—Participatory Program Planning. These groups were selected for their on-going, outstanding work in improving the health of others in the University and greater Syracuse community.
Second-year students in the Department of Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) were recognized for the more than 7,500 hours of individual, couple and family therapy provided. TheMFT Transgender Team, one of the largest transgender programs in upstate New York, was honored for providing access to care many clients might not otherwise be able to afford. School of Social Work students enrolled in field placement courses in the BSSW and MSW programs (SWK 435, 445, 671, 672, 771, 772) and SWK 301—Foundations of Social Work Practice received awards for their on-going, outstanding work in improving the quality of life in the greater Syracuse community.
Falk College Nutrition Professor, Tanya Horacek, Part of Team Awarded $4.9 Million USDA Grant for Childhood Obesity Prevention
Falk College associate professor of nutrition, Tanya Horacek, R.D., Ph.D., and Syracuse University are part of a 14-university team that has received a $4.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to empower college students to create obesity prevention programs for their peers as well as students in elementary and high schools.
The campaign, which will launch in August, is entitled, “Get Fruved.” It will harness the peer-to-peer interactions of more than 1,000 students who will work together to create interventions so students become more physically active. “Fruved” is a term that refers to fruits and vegetables. The behaviors students will address include healthy eating and physical activity as well as managing stress, emotional well-being, and the importance of positive social support systems. The students will also be advocates for environmental change on their campuses to support positive health behaviors. This project purposefully uses a non-diet approach to weight management and instead focuses on promoting healthy behavior and positive healthy body images.
The grant, which is led by University of Tennessee (UT), Knoxville assistant professor of nutrition, Sarah Colby, R.D., Ph.D., was funded by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). Multiple student organizations from different universities with specialty interests that include nutrition, media arts, dance, media, kinesiology, public health and business will partner with researchers to develop and implement the project. Collegiate 4-H students from different states will work together to develop and lead creative, exciting, and interactive social marketing campaigns that will include fruit- and vegetable- costumed characters, social media, special campus events, a study website (www.fruved.com), and online education.
Dr. Horacek and her team will lead the environmental audit and analysis for this USDA grant. “Over the past five years, we have been working to refine our tools to evaluate how supportive the environment is for obesity prevention. The audit evaluates policies, walkability/bikeability, the food, vending and dining environment, recreation facilities and programs. The results of these audits will help each campus to advocate for the changes they need and desire in their environment to enhance their obesity prevention efforts,” says Horacek.
Ultimately the project will continue with high school students working with middle school students to develop and implement the project on middle school campuses and then middle school students working with elementary students to develop and implement the project in elementary schools.
This project is a community-based participatory research project (CBPR). In CBPR the students are equal partners with faculty researchers in defining the problem, collecting information, interpreting data, and developing solutions in pursuit of socially relevant outcomes. The students are recognized as experts in their own right and their knowledge is equally valued as is academic expertise. This approach will result in more acceptable, culturally-relevant, and effective approaches that can produce long-lasting, real-world, obesity prevention solutions.
This research builds on more than 20 years of collaborative multi-state research addressing eating behaviors. The project is in collaboration with Extension and 4-H partners from UT, West Virginia University, South Dakota State University, and the University of Florida. The other universities that Syracuse University and UT will partner with are University of Florida, South Dakota State University, West Virginia University, Kansas State University, Auburn University, New Mexico State University, University of Maine, Rutgers University, University of Nebraska, University of Rhode Island, University of New Hampshire and Tuskegee University.
Horacek’s research interests also include evaluating theory-based nutrition education/counseling interventions, explaining the mediating factors influencing dietary intake and intervention effectiveness, conducting collaborative ecological program development, and evaluating dietetics education effectiveness. Over the past 17 years, she has worked with this multi-state research group to understand young adults’ stages of change for fruit and vegetable intake and conducted a USDA-IFAFS-funded intervention to improve low-income young adults’ fruit and vegetable intake using a stage-based intervention. Recently, they finished two USDA-NRI funded research projects to prevent obesity using a web-based non-diet approach among college students. A member of the SU faculty since 2004, Horacek’s Ph.D. dissertation from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln was entitled, “The Effect of Nutrition Education & the Differences in Dietary Intake & Factors Influencing Intake According to Personality Preferences for a Sample of College Students.”
Nutrition Alums to Help Students Build Professional Social Media Presence During Jan. 31 Presentation
The importance of a professional presence in social media for dietitians and other nutrition professionals will be the focus of an interactive presentation by Falk College nutrition alumni and registered dietitians, Lauren Carey, RD, CLT, and Allison Marco, MS, RD, LDN, Friday, Jan. 31, 12:45-1:45 p.m. in Newhouse III, Room 141. Open to the campus community, the presentation entitled, “Using Technology and Social Media to Leverage Your Career in Dietetics,” will explore the growing use of social media in dietetics practice and why it is one of the most important elements in the professional toolkit of today’s dietitians. The presentation will offer nutrition students, educators and practitioners best practices for leveraging social media while offering the general healthcare consumer useful insights on how social media can benefit personal health and wellness.
The use of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other social media tools to disseminate nutritionrelated information continues to trend upward. Consequently, registered dietitians and other nutrition professionals can leverage social media to expand reach, foster engagement and increase access to timely, accurate and credible messages about what and how to eat to maintain health. Carey is a registered dietitian at a private practice in East Brunswick, NJ and is the co-founder of Baritrack, an app that offers support and tools for patients who have undergone bariatric surgery. She is a Certified LEAP Specialist for Food Sensitivity Testing for IBS, Migraines, and Fibromyalgia, with additional certification in Adult Weight Management. As the food services registered dietitian at Georgetown University, Marco manages electronic nutrition tools for dining services including its online menus, Facebook presence, nutrition blog and menu app. She provides nutrition counseling for students, faculty and staff at Georgetown University and employee training and wellness programs.
For more information about the presentation, contact the Falk College’s Department of Public Health, Food Studies and Nutrition at (315) 443-5573.
NEPA hosts Brian Wansink Feb. 26
The Nutrition Education Promotion Association (NEPA) will host Brian Wansink, Ph.D., to speak on the topic of mindless eating Feb. 26, 2014 in the Life Science Building, Room 001 at 7:00 p.m. The community is invited to attend this lecture. Dr. Wansink is the John Dyson Endowed Chair in the Applied Economics and Management Department at Cornell University, directing the Cornell Food and Brand Lab. He has been the Executive Director of USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, which is the federal agency charged in creating the 2010 Dietary Guidelines. He has authored numerous research articles and books, including Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think. As a consumer psychologist, Dr. Wansink studies food psychology and eating behaviors. His work focuses on understanding how the environment influences our decisions to eat food. His research guides individuals to understand how they can change eating behaviors, and why these changes are so successful.” NEPA is a student organization in the Falk College’s Department of Public Health, Food Studies and Nutrition that promotes health and nutrition education to the SU and the Syracuse communities.
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