Pediatric Obesity Health Services Research
Chair
What I do:
Amanda Staiano, Ph.D., M.P.P., M.S., is associate professor and director of the Pediatric Obesity & Health Behavior Laboratory at LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center. She earned her doctorate in developmental psychology and Master of Public Policy at Georgetown University, followed by a Master of Science in Clinical Research at Tulane University. Her primary interest is developing and testing family-based healthy lifestyle interventions that utilize innovative technology to decrease pediatric obesity and its comorbidities. Her research has involved more than 2,500 children and adolescents, including randomized controlled trials and prospective cohorts, to examine the influence of physical activity and sedentary behavior on body composition and cardiometabolic risk factors. She served as co-author on the clinical practice guidelines committee on child obesity treatment for the American Academy of Pediatrics.