Partner Feature: Dr. Lindsey Smith Taillie
Partner Feature:
Dr. Lindsey Smith Taillie
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Pictured above: Nutrition Epidemiologist Dr. Lindsey Smith Taillie
For nearly 15 years, nutrition epidemiologist Dr. Lindsey Smith Taillie has been taking on nutrition labeling, sugary beverage taxes and worldwide front-of-packaging warning labels to inform policies that promote healthier, more sustainable and more equitable diets. Her work spans the U.S. and internationally, and is dedicated to evaluating healthy food policies and studying their impact on people’s diets, food, environment and health.
Dr. Taillie obtained her Bachelor of Arts in sociology with honors at Northwestern University in 2007, Master of public health at the Yale School of Public Health in 2011 and doctoral degree in nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2014. She serves as Associate Chair of Academics of the Department of Nutrition at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, co-directs the UNC Global Food Research program, oversees undergraduate and graduate academic programs and teaches courses on food studies, global food systems and policies, and nutrition epidemiology.
Internationally, Dr. Taillie has informed real-world policies and marketing restrictions in Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and Peru, and evaluated both the impact and benefits of these policies for the food supply, food purchases, dietary intake and food retail environments. She has also conducted several studies on the nutrition transition in China, including fieldwork on diet behaviors and diet assessment technology.
Dr. Taillie conducts research in the U.S. on marketing and labeling unhealthy foods and beverages, including how marketing and labeling may lead to differences in the nutritional content of food purchases and differences between food purchased by some communities versus others. For example, the UNC Mini-Mart is a grocery store lab designed to test various policy options on parents’ sugary drink purchases and intake. A 2022 UNC Mini-Mart study showed a 17 percent decrease in parents’ purchases of sugary drinks that displayed visual warnings labels about type 2 diabetes and heart damage. These results support the idea that front-of-packaging warning labels could reduce sugary drink purchasing and consumption in the U.S.
More recently in Spring 2023, Dr. Taillie received a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to help decrease food waste among households and families with limited income, investigate the root causes of food waste and better understand how food waste is changing our environmental systems.
How did you first get connected with the Center for Nutrition and Health Impact (formerly the Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition)?
I met Amy many years ago during one of the annual Nutrition and Obesity Policy Research and Evaluation Network (NOPREN) and Healthy Eating Research (HER) meetings. However, I started talking to her much more when interviewing for a position at the Center last year. Although I ultimately ended up staying at UNC, I discovered that Amy and I have several shared research interests and areas for potential collaboration. We really hit it off talking about everything from global food policy to issues around sustainability. Amy also came to visit UNC along with Dr. Betsy Anderson Steeves, which was a fun opportunity to hear even more about the exciting work the Center is doing.
Which project(s) have you felt most proud to be a part of? Which project(s) do you feel have had the most impact?
I am most proud of our work evaluating Chile's Food Labeling and Marketing laws. Chile is a country very similar to the U.S. in terms of high levels of sugary drink and ultra-processed food intake as well as non-communicable diseases. In 2016, they implemented a set of landmark regulations that have changed the global food policy landscape, including a mandatory system of front-of-package warning labels and strict bans on advertising unhealthy foods to children and selling these products in schools. We have been working with researchers at the University of Chile to evaluate the impact of these policies and their benefits for the food supply, food purchases, dietary intake and food retail environment. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that these policies have transformed the Chilean food environment. It only takes going into a supermarket there to see how different things look compared to the U.S. Our evaluation data have been used to inform similar policies in many other countries. For example, nearly a dozen countries have implemented Chilean-style warning labels since Chile's implementation. It's so gratifying to know that our work has had a real impact on people's lives.
Are there any upcoming projects you feel excited about?
In terms of what comes next, we also learned through this experience that it's not enough to try to simply reduce or limit exposure to unhealthy foods. First, the food industry will always find a way to circumvent laws or create new (but still unhealthy products) to avoid regulation. Secondly, people need to be able to afford and access healthy foods. Since COVID-19 and global food price inflation, it has become even clearer that we need to do more to help promote healthy foods, not just discourage unhealthy foods. The Chilean government is currently exploring an option to provide financial assistance to households with limited income to purchase produce and other minimally processed foods at local farmers markets. We are just beginning formative work with Chilean collaborators to develop a pilot program, which hopefully will inform a future policy. Given Chile's track record in Latin America and globally, I'm hopeful that this could be the start of a longer trajectory on research and policy to support healthy food access across the globe.
Much of your work focuses on evaluating, designing and informing healthy food policies – both nationally and internationally. How has working on projects in different countries and cultures shaped your views on health equity, sustainability and nutrition security in the U.S.?
It has been really interesting and useful to understand in more detail how nutrition equity issues play out in other countries, and where there are similarities and differences.
Pictured above: Dr. Lindsey Smith Taillie with her daughters Greta (6) and Margo (3) on a recent camping trip around the Norwegian fjords.
One major difference between the U.S. and some other countries is that they have constitutional rights, such as the right to access healthy food or the right for children to be free from exploitation. These rights provide legal and philosophical frameworks and protections for policies to promote access for populations which have historically been marginalized. In these countries, this makes it at least theoretically easier to pass policies that would help promote healthy food access in populations with low food security and limited income (e.g., universal feeding programs). Other differences are more subtle; for example, corporate free speech is less protected than in the U.S. This makes it easier to pass other policies such as reducing unhealthy food marketing to children, implementing mandatory warning labels on unhealthy foods or banning the sales of junk food in schools.
Another difference is that many national dietary guidelines include elements that are critical for creating an equitable and sustainable food system. For example, the Mexican, Chilean, Brazilian and Israeli dietary guidelines all include sustainability as a core consideration in their dietary recommendations. These guidelines also incorporate social and cultural elements, such as recognizing the importance of eating in social settings together with family or friends versus in front of a TV screen. They recognize the multifaceted role food plays in our lives and the structural changes that are necessary to facilitate healthy eating habits. In other words, there is more of a general recognition that diets are more than just nutrients and even foods. I would love to see the U.S. adopt more of these principles in a formal way (for example, in the dietary guidelines) so that we could create policies that are more holistic and more sustainable.
Of course, at the same time, there are cross-cutting similarities. All the countries I have worked with have struggled with addressing fundamental inequalities both related to income as well as to systemic racism, particularly in the context of food policy. In all countries, when thinking about designing and implementing policies, it is critical to understand who the policy is most likely to affect and who it is not, and what might be the unintended consequences. With food labeling, there is mixed evidence regarding whether it is more likely to be beneficial and used by households with higher education and income versus those with lower education and limited income. We need a much better understanding of this and how it plays out in the real world to design policies that promote healthy diets for all.
In Spring 2023, you received a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop solutions to decrease food waste. Could you please share more about this study and how you’re hoping it will contribute to the field? Why do food waste and sustainability matter?
I was really surprised to learn that food waste is a major driver of food-related greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., and that household-level food waste accounts for nearly half of this. I thought this was an important issue to tackle in part because there has been more policy momentum in this space than in others. Several states and large U.S. cities, such as New York City, are beginning free curbside composting programs while others are requiring that restaurants and retailers donate all edible surplus food to food banks. I also think this issue is compelling because of the opportunity to potentially create co-benefits for the environment, health and the economy. For example, households with limited income could save money by preventing food waste. In our new grant, we are going to develop and test an intervention that can be used to prevent household food waste while, ideally, improving nutrition quality. We’re also going to be digging into the root causes of food waste through design-thinking workshops with families and households with limited income. My goal is that some of the data we gather can also be used beyond individual-level interventions to inform future policies - for example, reform on date labeling.
Do you have any food rituals, habits or philosophies for your personal life that you would like to share?
I recently learned this quote from a Canadian colleague: T’ley.kutay.samqwan, or Be. Like. Water. Credit for the translation belongs to Robert Bernard of We’koqma’q First Nation. I like this quote because water is fundamental to nutrition and food systems. It also plays a large role in many issues I am interested in, such as the impact of climate change on nutrition and health.
But also, on a personal level, being like water includes moving powerfully yet with ease, sometimes making changes very quickly and sometimes over many years, carving new paths when you encounter a boulder and recognizing that water is always changing. Its forces change with the seasons and over time. Working in the nutrition policy space, these are important reminders that even when change is slow, we should be patient, persistent and give ourselves and others grace to carve out new paths to pressing forward. Policy can be slow and sometimes it is one step forward and two steps back. Similarly, academia can also be full of roadblocks, so persistence and flexibility are key. As someone who also loves canoeing, rafting and paddle boarding, the water quote is also a nice reminder to take breaks, unplug and enjoy the natural world, so that we can ultimately continue working towards the goal of a healthier, more sustainable food system.