Sari harrar biography for kids

By Sari Harrar

(This article first appeared in the Spring/Summer issue of Haverford magazine.)

As deputy director for Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, Marlene Schwartz '88 looks at how kids' food choices are shaped by the world around them.

School, home, neighborhoods, TV and social media, she says, play powerful yet often-overlooked roles in the childhood obesity epidemic. They can also be part of the solution. In studies focused on school cafeterias in Connecticut, for example, she found that when unhealthy drinks and snacks are removed, students are more likely to eat a nutritionally balanced lunch and do not make up for the missing junk by eating more of it at home—proving skeptics wrong.

Schwartz, who received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Yale, has received numerous research grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health.

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