Pennington’s Dr. Tiffany Stewart in Spotlight for Innovative Health Programs

Clinical Psychologist and Pennington Biomedical research scientist, Dr.  Tiffany Stewart, is applying her innovations for a community health program at the Knock Knock Children’s Museum, located at 1900 Dalyrmple Drive, Baton Rouge.

The program is a collaborative effort between the Baton Rouge Mayor’s Healthy BR Initiative, the Museum, Pennington, and other community organizations, noted a release in January.

Dr. Stewart, who directs the Pennington Biomedical Behavior Technology Laboratory, and her team will provide the program called “Sisu & You: Healthy Kids and Healthy Family Workshop.” Sisu is the Finnish word for resilience.

The workshop will be held on the fourth Thursday of each month through May and is free for children ages five to 15.

Parents are encouraged to join their children in “connecting ideas with actions for a lifetime of health and happiness.”

“How we view our bodies is a key component of successful health behaviors and significantly affects our quality of life,” said the developers. “This workshop series teaches children and adults to keep their bodies healthy through nutrition, fitness, sleep, and body image.”

The Behavior Technology Laboratory at Pennington is dedicated to Translational Research: Dr. Stewart and her team focus on taking health behavior change programs and technologies from the workbench of science and craft them into programs everyone and anyone can use.

She and her team investigate the novel assessment, prevention, and intervention approaches for eating disorders, obesity, and body image disturbance on health behaviors and chronic disease outcomes.

Dr. Stewart’s work has attracted multimillion dollar funding from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense. She develops programs and technologies to improve nutrition, fitness, and sleep of U.S. Army Soldiers and their family members.

Recently her work with the US Army was showcased in an article by Stephanie Riegel for the Baton Rouge Business Report.

Stewart’s Healthy Eating, Activity, and Lifestyle Training Headquarters or H.E.A.L.T.H., is part of the Weight Measurements and Standards for Soldiers Project.

H.E.A.L.T.H. is an ongoing, fifteen-year collaborative effort between Pennington and the Department of Defense, designed to aid Soldiers in maintaining healthy weight status, fitness status, combat readiness, and Warfighter performance.

H.E.A.L.T.H. includes programs to aid soldiers’ family members in reaching overall health and fitness goals and incorporates cutting edge interactive technology such as with the Internet and Smartphones, so soldiers and their family members can use it wherever they are in the world.

H.E.A.L.T.H. is considered a population health program, used and tested in two pilot projects, at Ft. Bragg, NC, and New England Reserves, and is being tested in the Louisiana Army National Guard.

The program is currently being disseminated Army-wide as part of the U.S. Army Surgeon General’s Performance Triad Initiative to improve nutrition, fitness, sleep, overall health, and resilience for our technologically advanced fighting force and their families. Approximately 15,000 individuals have used the H.E.A.L.T.H. program.

Stewart explained, “The mission of the H.E.A.L.T.H. program is to translate evidenced–based concepts into a nutrition and fitness tool that Soldiers can use to not only improve Warfighter health and performance, but the overall health well-being of their family members.”

Another of Stewart’s programs has been to improve body image, nutrition, and eating disorders in female collegiate athletes. “Female Athlete Body Project: A Randomized Controlled Trial”, is a partnership with Louisiana State University Athletics, American University in Washington, D.C., and Trinity University in San Antonio, TX.

Research suggests that disordered eating among female athletes is prevalent, and is especially dangerous in female athletes because it increases risk for the Female Athlete Triad (i.e., low energy availability/disordered eating, menstrual disorders, and decreased bone mineral density/ osteoporosis and subsequent injury).

Research supports the use of a program targeting small lifestyle modifications in the prevention of ED onset and in reducing ED and obesity risk factors.

Dr. Stewart is also an inventor and entrepreneur, and named 2015 Woman of Excellence by the Louisiana Legislative Women’s Caucus Foundation. She was also commended by the Louisiana Legislature in a House Concurrent Resolution for her work and research, and for “spearheading unique, large, multi-site prevention studies that have included the development and deployment of novel approaches for health behavior change, …”.

In the private sector, Stewart is Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Body Evolution Technologies Inc., a venture capital-funded entrepreneurial project dedicated to taking e-health assessment, prevention, and treatment programs and technologies from the lab to those who would benefit most, “… especially among young women as they face enormous pressures concerning body-image, weight, eating behavior, and selfesteem.”

Body Evolution Technologies was designed to commercialize evidencebased health behavior technology and is an entrepreneurial venture, formed as a result of scientific discovery at Pennington, and funded by angel and venture capital investors. The programs and assessment tools are integrated within a social network environment to reinforce learning and promote adherence. See programs at http://www.emergebodyimage.com/, an e-health, online platform.

 

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