2012 Hansen Award
Mary Story, PhD, RD
The University of Iowa College of Public Health named Mary Story, PhD, RD, the recipient of the 2012 Richard and Barbara Hansen Leadership Award and Distinguished Lectureship. During her visit to the University of Iowa campus Sept. 12-13, Dr. Story met with students, faculty, and community members to discuss community-based obesity prevention strategies and best practices for youth-oriented health and wellness. Her lecture title was “Child Obesity Prevention: Environmental and Policy Changes to Improve Healthy Eating and Reduce Excess Weight Gain.”
The state of Iowa and the United States confront an epidemic of obesity that threatens to reverse health advances realized over the past century. Overweight children today have a projected life expectancy that is years less than their parents due to increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and arthritis.
To address the multiple dimensions of this public health crisis, the Iowa Childhood Obesity Conference, a half-day conference held Sept. 13 at the University of Iowa College of Public Health in Iowa City, brought together state and national experts, along with community leaders, to focus on best practices for youth-oriented health and wellness strategies. Dr. Story’s Hansen Lecture served as the keynote for the conference
The goal was to support Iowa’s Healthiest State Initiative by highlighting successful evidence-based community-level projects in Iowa and around the country. This interactive information sharing will increase the understanding of community leaders throughout the state of Iowa about the childhood obesity epidemic and provide demonstrations of what is being done locally and nationally to improve wellness in communities.
Sponsors for the conference were Hy-Vee, Iowa Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Iowa Department of Public Health, Midwest Dairy Council, the University of Iowa College of Public Health, the University of Iowa Obesity Initiative, the University of Iowa Provost’s Office, and Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
Biographical Information
Mary Story, PhD, RD, is a professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health and senior associate dean for academic and student affairs in the School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, and an adjunct professor in the Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine. She is director of the National Program Office for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Healthy Eating Research Program that supports research on environmental and policy strategies to promote healthy eating among children to prevent childhood obesity. Story’s PhD is in nutrition, and her interests are in the area of child and adolescent nutrition and childhood obesity prevention.
Story has conducted several school and community-based obesity prevention studies for children, adolescents, and families and environmental interventions. Her research has focused primarily on nutrition issues of low-income and minority youth. She has been the principal investigator on several NIH obesity prevention trials, including Pathways study, a multi-site school-based obesity intervention for American Indian youth; the Girls Health Enrichment Multi-Site Studies (GEMS), an after-school obesity prevention trial for African American girls; and Bright Start, a school and family-based obesity prevention trial on the Pine Ridge Reservation with Kindergarten and first-grade children.
She has published more than 400 scientific publications on child nutrition and obesity prevention. Story was a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) committees on Food Marketing and the Diets of Children and Youth; Nutrition Standards for Foods in Schools; Obesity Prevention Actions for Local Governments; the Committee on Examination of Front-of-Package Nutrition Rating Systems and Symbols; and the standing committee for childhood obesity prevention. She was elected to the IOM in 2011.
Story has been actively involved in professional associations, serving as chair of the Food and Nutrition Section of the American Public Health Association and chair of the Public Health Nutrition Practice group of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly the American Dietetic Association). She has received several awards for her research and work in the field of child and adolescent nutrition.