Jiwoo Lee
University of Minnesota, MN·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
When school ends for the summer, many children from low-income families lose access to school meals, and food insecurity rises. These children are also more affected by childhood obesity.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
Summer Food Service Program
child nutrition
nutrition assistance programs
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Dec 2026
What they work on
- Describe the sites and participating families of the USDA Summer Food Service Program in the Twin Cities to evaluate how the program is currently delivered, using surveys of children and parents recruited at program sites.
- Test whether site and participant characteristics predict how often children attend the program, using weekly parent reports of program use over the summer.
- Measure changes in children's food insecurity, diet quality and weight from spring to late summer, using surveys, three 24-hour dietary recalls, and height, weight and body fat measurements, and relate them to program use.
More about the research
The Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), run by the US Department of Agriculture since 1975, provides meals at community sites to close this gap. However, its nutrition guidelines are less thorough than those of other assistance programs, sites differ in how long they operate and whether they offer healthy activities, and little is known about who uses it or how it affects children's diet and weight.
Why it matters
Children in low-income households face more food insecurity in summer and are disproportionately affected by obesity. Showing how the USDA Summer Food Service Program affects their diet quality, food security and weight could guide improvements to the program. It could also shape new summertime obesity-prevention programs that reduce weight-related health gaps.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Matthew Haemer
University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus, CO·Public Health & Epidemiology
Compare BMI reduction between the family-inclusive Healthy Living Program and a recommended primary care counseling control in low-income Hispanic children with obesity across three age groups, 2-6, 7-12 and 13-16 years, in a randomized controlled trial.
Susan Schembre
Georgetown University, DC·Public Health & Epidemiology
Identify the foods that contribute the majority of saturated fat and added sugars in the American diet using recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data.
Tanja Kral
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Test whether a heightened drive to eat (food reward value, rapid eating and eating without hunger) predicts 1-year changes in weight and body fat in children ages 5 to 7 independently of a genetic risk score or in addition to it.
The school
University of Minnesota: 88 labs on PI Pages, $1.4B a year on research, 722 research doctorates a year.
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