With a new grant of $234,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Cornell will train three nutrition doctoral students to focus on obesity with an ecological perspective.

The new National Needs Graduate Fellowship grant will support the students, who will be enrolled in the community nutrition concentration and will be specifically "prepared to teach at the college/university-level, conduct research and design, implement and evaluate extension/outreach programs that are grounded in an in-depth understanding of the ecology of obesity," said Christine Olson, professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell. An ecological perspective takes a multidisciplinary approach and considers ways to change behavior on multiple levels, including individual, social and cultural, environmental and policy.

"Most undergraduate and graduate programs in nutrition appear to prepare students well in the food and nutrition sciences but fall short in areas of behavioral and educational theory and the design and delivery of nutrition intervention programs, especially in the community," Olson said. Yet evidence is growing that this is the most effective way to curb obesity, she said.

"Thus there is a clear need for the training of future faculty and nutrition scientists in the nation's land-grant universities in ecological perspectives on obesity and related behaviors, including diet," she added.

The new Ecology of Obesity Graduate Training Program will expand the current recruiting strategies of the graduate field of nutrition, especially those designed to attract underrepresented minority applicants.

In addition to selecting faculty on their committees with known interests in obesity and diet, the trainees will participate in a semester-long internship in a community-based obesity prevention program, such as those run by Cornell Cooperative Extension, and an accompanying seminar-type course that provides opportunities for reflection on internship experiences.

Obesity is considered an epidemic health hazard in the United States, Olson said. "Adult obesity has doubled in the past three decades. Currently, two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese," she said, noting that the incidence of obesity in children has almost doubled since the early 1990s and keeps rising. "Obesity is implicated in a host of chronic diseases, from diabetes and heart disease to some types of cancer, stroke and osteoporosis," she said.