UR Nursing Professor Receives $500K Award to Fund Childhood Obesity Research

Ying Meng, PhD, RN, ACNP, an assistant professor at the University of Rochester School of Nursing, was recently awarded a nearly $500,000 K23 Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research.  

Totaling $462,808 over the course of three years, this career development grant supports Meng’s research project “Delineation of the biopsychosocial risks of obesogenic eating behaviors.”

The study will observe three-year-old children and delineate the psychosocial and genetic risks of obesogenic eating behaviors in young children to determine the effect these behaviors have on the development of childhood obesity. Insight into obesogenic eating behaviors, such as a preference for high-calorie foods, in young children could provide new avenues of preventing and treating childhood obesity.

The grant will also allow Meng, who received her master’s degree and PhD from the University of Rochester and served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Clinical and Translational Science Institute, to advance her research into the identification of genetic contributions to obesity and ultimately the development of personalized lifestyle interventions.