Featured Presenters

Angela Alberga

PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Health, Kinesiology, and Applied Physiology, Concordia University; Adjunct Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, QC

Helping Without Harming: Unintended Consequences of Addressing Obesity in Youth

Dr. Angela Alberga is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health, Kinesiology and Applied Physiology at Concordia University and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Pediatrics in the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec.She is an exercise physiologist by training having worked with children and adolescents living with obesity in clinical health research settings. It is through these experiences that she learned how prevalent and harmful weight-based stigma is and has since been devoted to research, teaching and knowledge translation efforts to reduce weight bias in society. She currently leads an interdisciplinary research program that focuses on better understanding how societal, school and other broader institutional factors, influence weight-related issues including obesity, eating disorders, physical inactivity and weight stigma.

Timothy Caulfield

BSc, LLB, LLM, Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy; Professor, Faculty of Law and School of Public Health; Research Director, Health Law Institute, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB

Fighting for Science in the Age of Misinformation

Timothy Caulfield is a Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy, a Professor in the Faculty of Law and the School of Public Health, and Research Director of the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta. His interdisciplinary research on topics like stem cells, genetics, research ethics, the public representations of science and public health policy has allowed him to publish over 350 academic articles. He has won numerous academic and writing awards and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. He contributes frequently to the popular press and is the author of two national bestsellers: The Cure for Everything: Untangling the Twisted Messages about Health, Fitness and Happiness (Penguin 2012) and Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything?: When Celebrity Culture and Science Clash (Penguin 2015). His most recent book is Relax, Dammit!: A User’s Guide to the Age of Anxiety  (Penguin Random House, 2020). Caulfield is also the host and co-producer of the award winning documentary TV show, A User’s Guide to Cheating Death, which has been shown in over 60 countries, including streaming on Netflix in North America.

Arlene Cristall

Theme II: Do no Harm
More session information coming soon!

Jill Hamilton

Jill Hamilton, MD, FRCPC, Division Head, Endocrinology, The Hospital for Sick Children; Senior Associate Scientist,  Translational Medicine, Research Institute; Professor, Department of Paediatrics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON

Pediatric Project ECHO: Building a Virtual Community

Jill Hamilton, MD, FRCPC is Head of the Division of Endocrinology at the Hospital for Sick Children, Senior Associate Scientist at the Research Institute, and Professor of Paediatrics at University of Toronto.  Her clinical work is in endocrinology and diabetes with a particular focus in the areas of complex obesity (including hypothalamic obesity and bariatric surgery patients). She is the medical director of the SickKids Team Obesity Management Program (STOMP).   Her research focuses on (i) the metabolic complications of obesity in childhood, (ii) biologic and psychosocial determinants of obesity, and (iii) obesity treatment outcomes and interventions.  She has over 150 peer-reviewed publications and has received research funding from agencies including Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), National Institute of Health (NIH), Heart and Stroke Foundation and Diabetes Canada.

Sam Liu

PhD, MSc, BPHE, Assistant Professor, School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC

Evaluation and Measurement Challenges in eHealth Intervention

My research interest is to promote health and physical activity using innovative digital technology (e.g. Internet, mobile phones, social media). Specifically, the first area of my research focuses on developing and evaluating the effectiveness of digital communication technology to help individuals prevent chronic diseases and improve their health. The second area of my research focuses on finding innovative ways to monitor and predict lifestyle behaviours and health outcomes using big data (i.e. social media data) in order to better target and personalize digital health interventions.

Leslie A. Lytle

PhD, Professor, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA

Tackling Childhood Obesity: Using a Multi-level Intervention Approach

Leslie Lytle, PhD, is a professor in the Departments of Health Behavior and Nutrition at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Lytle’s research focuses on the health promotion of youth and young adults, particularly preventing obesity and promoting healthful diet and physical activity through school, family, and environmental approaches. She has been the principal investigator on several large National Institutes of Health (NIH) studies, including CATCH (NHLBI), TEENS (NCI), TAAG (NHLBI), IDEA (NCI), ECHO (NHLBI) and CHOICES (NHLBI). She has published over 240 articles in the peer-reviewed literature and has taught courses in theories of health behavior change, creating and evaluating multi-level community interventions, and behavioral and social aspects of health.

Louise Mâsse

PhD, Professor, School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia; Scientist, BC Children’s Hospital Research  Institute, Vancouver, BC

Aim2Be: A Canadian App for Youth and Their Families that Supports the Adoption of Healthy Behaviours – Findings from the Evaluations

Dr. Louise Mâsse is a Professor in the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia and a level 3 scientist at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute. Her current studies, which is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Public Health Agency of Canada include: 1) Evaluating policies and capacity building interventions to influence children’s health behaviours, specifically physical activity (PA), sedentary and dietary behaviours in multiple settings including childcare, recreation centres, and schools; 2) Developing and evaluating gamified lifestyle modification interventions targeting children and their families; and 3) Understanding how transitional periods, specifically the transition from elementary to secondary schools, influence children’s PA, sedentary and dietary behaviours as well as weight outcomes.

 

Katherine Morrison

MD, FRCPC, Professor, Department of Pediatrics and Medical Director, Metabolism and Childhood Obesity Clinical Programs, McMaster Children’s Hospital; Co-Director, Metabolism, Obesity and Diabetes Research Centre, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON

Does Virtual Care Change the Health Outcomes We Are Interested in Measuring in Children Enrolled in Weight Management Programs?

Dr. Katherine Morrison is a pediatric endocrinologist, Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Co-Director of the Centre for Metabolism, Obesity and Diabetes Research at McMaster University. She is a clinician researcher, active clinically in the Pediatric Weight Management and Pediatric Lipid Clinics at McMaster Children’s Hospital. Her research is centered around the etiology, consequences and treatment of obesity and lipid disorders in children. Dr. Morrison’s work is supported by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, HAHSO and the Ontario Ministry of Health.

Patti Jean Naylor

PhD, Emeritus Professor; Scientist, School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC

Maximizing Our Impact on Childhood and Adolescent Obesity Through Implementation and Scale-Up Science

Dianne Neumark-Sztainer

PhD, MPH, RD, Division Head and Professor, Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Body Image in Adolescence and Beyond: A Public Health Perspective on Why It Matters and What We Can Do About It

Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, PhD, MPH, RD, is Mayo Professor and Division Head in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota. Dr. Neumark-Sztainer’s research focuses on a broad spectrum of eating and weight-related outcomes including eating disorders, unhealthy weight control behaviors, body image, dietary intake, weight stigmatization, and obesity. She is dedicated to ensuring that her research has a positive impact on the health of the public, particularly our most vulnerable populations. She leads an active program of research and recently received an Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Institutes of Health to fund her work. Dr. Neumark-Sztainer has published over 500 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Her research has been recognized with awards from the Academy for Eating Disorders, the National Eating Disorders Association, and the Eating Disorders Coalition.


Ryan E. Rhodes

PhD, Director, Behavioural Medicine Laboratory; Associate Director, Institute on Aging and Lifelong Health, School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC

Promoting Child and Youth Health Behaviours in the Family System: The Role of Different Parent Supports and Their Antecedents

Ryan E. Rhodes is a Professor in the School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education, Director of the Behavioral Medicine Laboratory, cross-appointed in the Department of Psychology, and Associate Director of the Institute on Aging and Lifelong Health at the University of Victoria, Canada. His primary area of research is on the psychology of physical activity with an applied focus of physical activity promotion during critical life transitions such as parenthood and early family development. Dr. Rhodes is also one of the world experts on the intention-behavior gap, made popular by New Years resolutions that people struggle to enact every year. He has held over 90 grants for this research and he has contributed over 350 publications, 25 book chapters and two books. Dr. Rhodes is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, Society of Behavioral Medicine, Academy of Behavioral Medicine, American Psychological Association (Distinguished Affiliate), and a College Member of the Royal Society of Canada. He received the UVic REACH award for outstanding academic of 2018. Dr. Rhodes is the Editor-in-Chief of Psychology and Health, and Associate Editor of Health Psychology, and Exercise and Sports Sciences Reviews as well as the Co-Chair of the Society of Behavioral Medicine’s Theory and Behavior Change Techniques Special Interest Group.

Amy Robinson

MD, FRCPC, Assistant Professor, Pediatrics and Adolescent Health Physician, Division of Adolescent Medicine, Education; Co-Director, Adolescent Health Rotation, CHEO, Ottawa, ON

Atypical Anorexia Nervosa: A Diagnosis Worth the “Weight”?

Dr. Amy Robinson received her medical degree from Queen’s University and completed her core pediatric residency training at the University of Ottawa. She went on to complete a clinical fellowship in Adolescent Medicine at the Montreal Children’s Hospital. Dr. Robinson joined the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa as a clinician and medical educator in the Division of Adolescent Health, Department of Pediatrics in 2014. Her primary clinical interests are varied, including pediatric eating disorders, vulnerable and high-risk youth, and sexual health/contraception. She is active in research and has presented at a variety of national and international clinical conferences and meetings on her research interests, which include adolescent eating disorders, sexual health, and physician wellness.