"Nutrition is not a discipline, it is an agenda," said the late Jean Mayer, former Tufts University president and founder of Tufts' School of Nutrition, now the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.
According to its current staff, the school has continuously been active in upholding such a standard. Recently, the school was represented at experimental biology meetings held in San Diego, where three Friedman School students as well as two faculty members were given awards for their work.
The school also sponsored the Stanley Gerghoff Symposium on Nutritional Factors in Health Disparities, which examined vulnerable populations and addressed causes of obesity as well as malnutrition.
Like the Stanley Gerghoff Symposium, some of the Friedman School's research focuses on developing countries. For example, researchers have recently investigated the poor growth of children among populations affected by poverty. It also looks into problems in the U.S., such as the country's high incidence of obesity.
"Epidemic obesity in the U.S., but also in low-income developing countries, is linked to health outcomes including diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke," Friedman Professor and Dean of Academic Affairs Beatrice Rogers said. "In poor countries, obesity can coexist with malnutrition and stunting in the same households."
The Friedman School's ongoing research into a wide range of topics - from the alleviation of famine and crisis situations to basic biomedical research - is influencing the current world of nutrition.
Rogers said that the school's "basic biomedical research is affecting diet and nutrition advice to patients in clinical settings, as well as in the more general literature." This research, she added, has "contributed significantly to our understanding of aging, cardiovascular disease, cancer, bone health and many other areas."
Examples of ongoing research include Senior Scientist Katy Tucker's study of health disparities between Hispanic and non-Hispanic populations. As well, Rogers, along with colleagues from the Friedman School and from Peru, studied the factors causing childhood growth-stunting in Peru and presented the results to the Peruvian government and to the foreign assistance branch of the U.S. State Department.
Other Friedman faculty members' work has focused on nutrition in Bangladesh and Ecuador.
In the U.S., Friedman School faculty members Irwin Rosenberg, Johanna Dwyer, Alice Lichtenstein, Rob Russell and Sue Roberts, among others, have served on the national committees that set dietary guidelines and establish recommendations for dietary intakes.
In addition to its national and world-wide impact, the Friedman School has an impact locally. The school is conducting Shape-Up Somerville, a program of community-based intervention aimed at changes in the environment that promote healthy eating and physical activity, especially among Somerville's children.
Initiatives include encouraging students to walk to school, improving school meals, installing healthy foods in vending machines, promoting exercise, and instituting a program in which restaurants that offer healthy choices and nutrition information on their menus can display a logo in their windows.
The Friedman School is also involved in the upcoming Boston Marathon. 10 members of the Friedman community will be running with approximately 180 other Tufts students, as well as University President Larry Bacow. Other Friedman School students and faculty will be volunteering for the event.
"Funds raised by the marathon will help to support the research programs of the Friedman School, including programs aimed at promoting physical activity and healthy lifestyles," Rogers said.
The Friedman School also keeps itself involved in undergraduate life through the Tufts Longitudinal Health Study. The study, which follows incoming Tufts freshmen during their four years of college and then periodically throughout their lives after college, will explore how lifestyle decisions made in college and earlier affect health and behavior in later life.
Results of this study so far have examined the quality of vegetarian versus non-vegetarian diets and the role of social context on food consumption and exercise behavior.
Freshman Cassandra Valentin, a participant in the study, is glad to be a part of the research. "I'm very happy to be contributing to important research that's essential for us to be a healthy society," she said.
The Friedman School hopes that the activities and studies it conducts and promotes will affect Tufts students, the communities surrounding the University, and the world.
"The study of nutrition and food policy affects all these realms," Rogers said. "It's hard to imagine an aspect of life in which nutrition doesn't make a difference."
