Nutrition Interventions in Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, and Food Insecurity
Obesity and its related chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cause significant disease burden, which can be reduced through nutrition interventions and behavior change. Poor dietary choices and lack of physical activity due to food insecurity and unhealthy built environment are the major drivers of the “diabesity” epidemic. Nutrition interventions are particularly important in addressing the issue of unhealthy dietary choices to improve dietary quality and address the nutrition health disparities observed particularly among underserved populations including ethnic and racial minorities, rural populations, and low-income communities. The goal of this research is to develop nutrition education, and precision nutrition interventions to examine how these two programs will address food insecurity and support weight loss and reduction of type 2 diabetes risk factors among minorities who are overweight, obese, or have prediabetes.