Under the direction of Hollie Raynor, the Healthy Eating and Activity Laboratory (HEAL) conducts research on factors that impact on eating regulation and energy balance that can be used to improve lifestyle interventions that assist with achieving a healthy weight in children and adults, and how evidence-based lifestyle interventions can be implemented into community and practice-based settings.
The primary objectives of HEAL, through our program of scientific research, are the following:
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- Explore the relationship between eating, activity, and sedentary behaviors to better understand factors that impact on energy balance.
- Develop innovative and effective treatments for children and adults that lead to eating and activity habits that meet current recommendations.
- Improve the effect of state-of-the-art lifestyle interventions on weight gain prevention, weight loss, and weight loss maintenance in children and adults.
- Translate evidence-based lifestyle interventions into community and practice-based settings.
- Provide training to students interested in applied obesity research.
- a. Develop client-centered counseling skills.
- b. Implement behavior modification strategies to assist with changing energy-balance behaviors.
- c. Refine dietary, physical activity, and sedentary behaviors assessment skills.
- d. Acquire skills, such as the ability to manage and statistically analyze data, important for conducting evaluations.
- e. Understand how evidence-based guidelines are developed and implemented in practice-based settings.
- f. Improve writing skills for developing materials, and proposal/grant and manuscript submissions.
