New Center Targets How You Eat, Not What You Eat

 Diet and exercise.

The Cornell Center for Behavior Intervention Development aims to study behavioral interventions to reduce obesity and related morbidity.
For the obese and overweight, that's the traditional route to slimming down and heading off certain medical ailments — hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease — that are typically associated with carrying extra weight.

And while those methods remain reliable and safe avenues for sustainable weight loss, doctors at Weill Cornell Medical College have begun looking at other ways to combat the obesity epidemic in the U.S.

Dr. Mary Charlson, professor of integrative medicine, and the William T. Foley Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, was recently awarded a five-year, $6 million grant to create the Cornell Center for Behavior Intervention Development. The Center will focus on translating basic behavioral and social science discoveries into effective behavioral interventions that reduce obesity and obesity-related morbidity in black and Latino communities.

"The focus is changing eating behaviors, not dieting," Dr. Charlson said. "Stress, certain visual cues, even the right mindset and mood — these can all have a substantial impact on behavior and eating. By affecting changes in these areas we think people will be able to achieve sustainable weight loss."

The Center will incorporate an interdisciplinary approach to behavioral modification, with psychologists, medical sociologists, nutritionists and other experts working directly with the participants to tailor personalized programs that are more likely to be successful than a blanket approach.

The team has more than 15 years of experience in developing health behavior interventions from basic social science theories. The primary aim is to establish an infrastructure in Harlem and the South Bronx for translating basic and social science discoveries to behavioral interventions. Doctors hope to develop mindful eating strategies aimed at reducing weight through small, sustained changes in eating behavior coupled with sustained increases in lifestyle physical activity.

"Stress, certain visual cues, even the right mindset and mood can all have a substantial impact on behavior and eating. By affecting changes in these areas we think people will be able to achieve sustainable weight loss."

– Dr. Mary Charlson
"What's exciting about this program is that we are going directly into communities that are most severely affected by obesity and high blood pressure, and we are creating interventions to be used at home, not in a hospital or clinical setting," said Dr. Erica Phillips-Caesar, assistant professor of integrative medicine at Weill Cornell. "We are partnering with community and faith-based organizations right from the beginning, giving them an active role in how this program will be shaped."

Dr. Phillips-Caesar will serve as the project director for the Cornell Center for Behavior Intervention Development.

Dr. Brian Wansink, the John Dyson Professor of Consumer Behavior at Cornell University, has been brought in to show how passive and active interventions — from the way you stock your cupboards to how food is arranged on a table — can be strong determinants in what and how much we eat.

"Even eating in front of the television is something you can change," Dr. Wansink said. "When we eat in front of the TV we aren't paying attention to our food and we will eat until whatever we're watching is over, rather than stopping when we are full."

Dr. Charlson and her team are partnering with Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, as well as Renaissance Healthcare Network, which runs several clinics in Harlem and its neighboring communities.

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