The close of summer also marks the end of GFRP’s third year of the Fellowship for Exploring Research in Nutrition (FERN), a 9-week research internship for undergraduate students interested in food policy research. Over the course of the summer, the fellows built foundational research skills, attended professional development workshops, participated in GFRP team activities, assisted on ongoing research projects, and learned about current topics and methods in nutrition policy research. They also collaborated on a project to research and create a fact sheet on policies and programs for minimally processed foods. The whole team thanks Amienata, Juan, and Ridha for their work and contributions this summer and wishes them all the best this school year and in their future endeavors!

Read more about the 2024 FERN fellows and their summer experiences below:

Carlos Roberto Soto Díaz wants to improve food environments and health equity through effective public policy, particularly in his home country of Puerto Rico, but also in other Latin American countries. He is one of three new doctoral students who joined the Global Food Research Program (GFRP) this fall, where he will be researching under the advisership of GFRP faculty Lindsey Smith Taillie.  

“Being a colony of the United States,” says Carlos, “There are a lot of inequities in Puerto Rico in terms of food access, food prices, and a high proportion of chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes. That’s something that has motivated me to study public health in hopes of contributing towards reducing the inequities that Puerto Ricans face.”

Carlos moved to North Carolina with his family in 2017 and currently lives in Wake Forest, NC. He has fond memories of Puerto Rico’s beaches and delicious food. 

“The thing I enjoy the most is mofongo. It’s fried mashed plantains with garlic and oil, and it’s so good.”  

While pursuing his Masters of Public Health in Applied Epidemiology at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, Carlos worked with GFRP alum Emily Duffy on a research project seeking to understand the experiences of Latina women using the WIC program during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a doctoral student, Carlos’s first project will be researching sugar-sweetened beverage consumption in Colombia prior to the implementation of Colombia’s new food policies  

In addition to his work at GFRP, Carlos is also a part of the Global Cardiometabolic Research Program, which connects him with an in-country mentor in Colombia and will fund research visits to the country to assist with evaluating Colombia’s new front-of-package labeling and tax policies. 

“I truly believe that these policies have the potential to address the food environment and contribute to better health outcomes.” 

Carlos also looks forward to traveling and exploring the Colombian country and seaside. In his spare time, Carlos enjoys a variety of music genres and playing the electric guitar, which he picked up during the pandemic.  

Laina Ewoldt is looking for new solutions to combat climate change and nutritional access. Laina is one of three new doctoral students who joined the Global Food Research Program (GFRP) this fall under the advisership of GFRP faculty Lindsey Smith Taillie. 

Originally from the Dallas, Texas area, Laina moved to North Carolina this summer and has enjoyed finding new places to go kayaking and looking for the perfect salsa. At home, Laina enjoys playing online chess and baking — specifically her grandmother’s apple pie recipe.  

“I love baking pies. That was something I got from my grandma, since it was one of the first things she taught me how to make,” said Laina. “That’s a little tradition that I kept going. Whenever we have a holiday, I make her apple pie, and it’s always a fun experience.” 

Laina earned a Master of Science in Public Health and completed her registered dietitian training at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she was exposed to environmental health and climate change work.  

“During my master’s program, I completed a public health practicum with an organization called PATH. While there, I worked with their climate change working group and started to see that a lot of issues with people’s nutrition aren’t necessarily tied to knowledge or the direct choices they’re making. I started to see that climate change is this broad issue that’s having wide ranging effects on not just nutrition, but also on the drivers of poor nutrition.” 

After completing her master’s degree, Laina worked as a clinical registered dietitian for a year, but her interests led her to pursue a career in research.  

“You can see all these problems, but you don’t necessarily have all the tools to change them when you’re in that area because you are waiting for some of those evidence-based practices to come out,” she said. “You aren’t necessarily able to say ‘Oh, I see this problem, let me come up with an idea for how to fix it and then test it out.” 

As a PhD student at GFRP, Laina is excited to begin contributing to a new evidence base and identifying methods to improve nutritional access. She sees GFRP as a great fit due to the team’s international research collaborations.  

“I really loved the fact that GFRP has global collaborators, since climate change isn’t something just localized in one area. I knew that if I was going to direct my work in that area in the future, I would need to form those strong connections and have collaboration across different countries.” 

Laina’s current research focuses on how climate change impacts the availability of safe and acceptable water and how that, in turn, impacts nutritional status through the beverages people choose and the foods they can prepare.  

The close of summer also marks the end of GFRP’s second year of the Fellowship for Exploring Research in Nutrition (FERN), a 9-week research internship for undergraduate students interested in food policy research. Over the course of the summer, the fellows built foundational research skills, attended professional development workshops, participated in GFRP team activities, assisted on ongoing research projects, and learned about current topics and methods in nutrition policy research. They also collaborated on a project to research and create a fact sheet on healthy checkout ordinances. The whole team thanks Checkna, Te’Aja, and Aaliyah for their work and contributions this summer and wishes them all the best this school year and in their future endeavors!

Read more about the 2023 FERN fellows and their summer experiences below:

The opportunity to make a broad impact on food policy is what drives both Claudia Nieto and Gabriela García, two PhD students from Mexico who are visiting scholars at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Global Food Research Program (GFRP) this year. Both Claudia and Gabriela are students at GFRP’s research partner National Institute of Public Health (INSP, Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública) in Mexico, where reducing high obesity rates among children is a priority.

Claudia, a Vital Strategies Healthy Food Policy Fellow, researches how digital food marketing affects children. She can recall how she, herself, was influenced by marketing growing up — specifically as a Hello Kitty fan. She recalls asking her mother to take her to McDonald’s so she could collect the Hello Kitty figures that came with the Happy Meal.

“I don’t think I finished the food, but I needed to get all of the figures,” says Claudia. “Marketing has the power to influence so much of children’s behavior and what they want to eat. Even children in preschool can remember logos and say the name of the brand.”

Claudia sees an opportunity to address health challenges with policy. In 2021, the Mexican government banned cartoon characters from the front of any food packages that have warning labels for high calorie, sugar, saturated fat, trans fat, or sodium content. Claudia would like to see that ban and other restrictions on marketing placement or tactics extended to include both digital marketing and an expansive time frame on television.

Currently, Mexico has minimal restrictions on advertising unhealthy foods during child-directed broadcasting (in TV and cinema). “If advertisers say that a show is not intended to reach children, they can advertise unhealthy foods or beverages, but children watch other shows like soccer matches and soap operas,” explains Claudia. “It would be good to see our research lead to a broader policy.”

Like Claudia, Gabriela recalls learning about nutrition through food choices she made growing up. In her case, she says her father frightened her out of eating unhealthy food. “I wanted the colorful cereal with the animal on the front of the box. I asked my father for it, but instead he gave me the plain cereal and a bag of sugar on the side,” says Gabriela. She laughs at the memory: “He told me, ‘If you want to die, put this entire bag of sugar on the cereal!’ Of course, he scared me, and I did not put the sugar on the cereal. When I tell my friends this story, they joke that I was born to be a nutritionist.”

Gabriela, who is a Fulbright Scholar, was grateful to find nutrition as a field to study. “I realized I could help people,” she says. She recalls helping her first patient, an elderly woman in a hospital, by giving her nutrition advice. “It was such a good feeling when she said she was feeling much better because of my recommendations.” Gabriela realized if she could help one person, she could go on to help communities and even populations.

Gabriela’s research focuses on evaluating the impact of the Mexican government’s taxes on sugary drinks and non-essential foods. She wants to find out how household purchases have changed with the taxes, implemented nearly a decade ago, and how the tax increase has affected children’s weight over time. “We’ve seen an impact, but people get accustomed to change,” says Gabriela. “The best-case scenario would be to increase the tax again, if we would like to see more change.”

Both students express excitement for their time in North Carolina and with GFRP. And, of course, for the local food scene. “I see a lot of diversity in packaged food choices at the supermarket,” says Claudia. “We have different brands in Mexico, and I like comparing nutrition information of these processed foods.”

Adds Gabriela: “I’m loving our social activities as a group. People bring food to share from their cultures. It makes sense because in the end, we’re studying food and how it impacts us.”

Gabriela and Claudia will be with GFRP through June and October, respectively.

CLAUDIA’S LATEST RESEARCH

The nature and extent of food marketing on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube posts in Mexico, Pediatric Obesity, Mar. 2023

Unhealthy Food: The Beverage Industry’s Digital Media Campaign to Stop the Approval of the Front-of- Package Labelling System in Mexico, ESR Review, Dec. 2022

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GABRIELA’S LATEST RESEARCH

Dietary patterns are associated with obesity in Mexican schoolchildren, European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Mar. 2020

Contribución de los alimentos a la ingesta total de energía en la dieta de los mexicanos mayores de cinco años (Contribution of food to the total energy intake in the diet of Mexicans older than five years), Salud Pública de Mexico, Feb. 2020