“Feed the world” might be an over-simplified pop-song lyric, but Dr. Elizabeth Fox, Cornell ’09, ’16, is working hard to explore the complexities of the concept. Dr. Fox joined the MPH Program in 2019, with a focus in food systems and health.

More specifically, Fox’s research tackles the real-world issues of making effective nutrition a reality for everyone: how to best implement nutrition policies and interventions; how priorities and preferences affect people’s nutrition decisions, and how to support equitable and sustainable food systems that are accessible and appealing to all.

Recently, she served as an editor on a special issue of the Journal of Global Food Security, coauthoring three of the papers appearing in that issue, which stemmed from a UNICEF meeting focused on the need for global and national food systems for children. Fox had been recommended to help lead the effort thanks to her background in maternal and child nutrition and food systems.

The papers Fox co-authored examine children’s and adolescents’ interactions with the food system, the conceptual framework of food systems for children and adolescents, and how to reorient food systems towards healthy diets for children and adolescents. The papers took a deep dive into the importance and nuance of nutrition for these age groups. “Good nutrition during these periods supports physical growth, cognitive development, learning outcomes, economic productivity, and health throughout life,” Fox says. “Good nutrition during these time periods is critical to healthy communities.”

Fox was drawn to Cornell’s MPH Program because of its focus on equity, sustainability, and engagement. “The Program’s values align with my own values and experiences, and it supports the ability to develop thoughtful public health leaders who can leverage systems-thinking to address current and future public health needs,” says Fox. Sustainability is prime within these values, as Fox notes how human diets and the environment are inextricably linked, each one impacting the other.

Fox notes that her past experiences have demonstrated that a food systems lens is integral to answering the world’s toughest problems around safe, sustainable nutrition for all communities. “Despite engaging with services in very different contexts, the influences of social support, access to resources, access to healthy foods, decision-making power, and time, all played important roles in what foods were provided to children. At their base, these issues can often be linked to food systems, including food environments. Food systems are not only important for dietary outcomes, but also because of their social, economic, and environmental impacts.”

Moving forward in her role with the MPH Program, Fox will be collaborating with a colleague at Rutgers University to develop a toolbox to measure food environments in low- and middle-income settings to enable comparisons across countries, examine how food environments relate to nutrition and health outcomes, and explore how food environments are changing over time. “I’m looking forward to expanding and deepening my work in supporting healthy and sustainable food systems,” says Fox. “And Cornell is a great place to do that.”

Adapted from an article by Lauren Cahoon Roberts, originally published
in the Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine News, 3/29/2021