Our new pub in @ObesitySociety was selected as one of the top 5 papers for the 11th Annual Journal Symposium at @ObesityWeek. In this study, we assessed the behavioral, psychological, & environmental predictors of weight regain among @ww_us Success Registry Participants

🧵below Study Objective: Identify factors that best characterized long-term weight loss maintenance in members of @ww_us Success Registry, an observational study of weight-loss maintainers in WeightWatchers. To qualify for the registry, people had to have lost >20lbs & kept off for >1yr.

Interested in personalized nutrition? Our new pub examining whether weight loss differs between genotype-concordant and genotype-discordant diets was published in @NatureComms and is featured as an Editors’ Highlight.

A thread on findings below.

Link: shorturl.at/JL238
Background: Weight loss differences bw isocaloric high-carb & high-fat diets are small but variability seen within diet groups. Genotype patterns may modify diet effects, w/ carb-responsive genotypes losing more weight on high-carb diets (vice versa in fat responsive genotypes).

Do lactation cookies (LC) actually work? Or are they total bullsh*t preying on women at a vulnerable time when they are consumed with feeding their newborn and society is telling them "breast is best" at every turn?

Our new pub where we tested effectiveness of LC is out.

A🧵: Exclusive breastfeeding is recommended for the first 6 months. ~60% of lactating parents don’t meet their personal breastfeeding goals and between 30%-80% perceive their milk as insufficient to meet their infant’s nutritional needs.

🗣️New pub:
We used machine learning & natural language processing to analyze the words of >6K people experiencing long-term weight-loss maintenance who answered open-ended questions about weight-loss triggers, current motivations, strategies, & experiences. A thread of findings: Methods: We recruited 6,139 @ww_us members who had lost ≥9.1-kg loss with weight-loss maintenance for ≥1yr into the WW Success Registry and asked six open-ended questions about their weight loss experience. On average, members maintained a weight loss of 54 pounds for 3.4 yr.

#AcademicTwitter: I used to be a horrible scientific writer. I was paralyzed by writing anxiety & it took me FOREVER to write papers. Last year I published 14 scientific articles (8 first, 2 second, 2 senior-author) & 2 book chapters.

A thread⬇️on how I became more productive: 1. Figure out when you write best & block out that time on your calendar.

I write best in the morning. Unless unavoidable, I do not take meetings in the morning. Mornings are my time to read, write, & think. I write every single day, Monday-Friday. Even if just 30 minutes.

New pub alert: our qualitative paper identifying perceived barriers & facilitators to a healthy lifestyle & weight loss among a diverse group of teens with overweight & #obesity has been published.

A thread of our findings & lessons learned 👇🏾.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.10… We conducted 10 focus groups with teens medically classified as having overweight or obesity (OW/OB).

Demographics:
41 teens
68% female
53.5% identify as Black, African American, Hispanic/LatinX, multiple races
Socioeconomically Diverse
All w BMI over 85th percentile for sex/age

As a result of #COVID19, academics are working from home, often while simultaneously caring for their children. As clinicians & scientists, @nataliexdean @DrDianaMW & I worry this will lead to a secondary epidemic of lost early career scientists, esp women w children. A thread👇🏾 We published just this paper highlighting the vulnerability early career scientists may face as a result of #COVID19, particularly women w children. We identified strategies academic institutions could implement to attenuate loss of early career faculty: atsjournals.org/doi/abs/10.151…

Today, I finished my 4th @NIH study section (though first one via Zoom). I have learned so much through these experiences on what reviewers want, and more importantly, what they don’t want to see in grant applications.

A thread to improve your grantsmanship👇🏾

#AcademicTwitter Justify, justify, justify. Provide rationale for why you choose the study design that you did. Even if the reviewers don’t necessarily agree with the route you chose, they are less likely to ding you for it if you provide a scientific rationale for *why* you choose it.

In honor of International #WomenInScienceDay
Turning Chutes into Ladders for Women Faculty: A Review and Roadmap for Equity in Academia

A Thread based on our newest publication : liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/jw… (1/16): Institutional interventions can increase awareness of and commitment to establishing gender equity in hiring.

#AcademicTwitter: I see overwhelming discussion on the downsides of academia. I worry what this does to the hope & inspiration of grad students with ambitions to go into academia. Given that I think #academia is the best job ever, my thoughts on life as an academic.

A thread 👇🏽 (1/11) Autonomy: As an academic (even without tenure), I feel like I have so much autonomy to pursue the scientific ideas that I find to be important. For someone who is internally motivated and feels passionate about certain areas of research, this is a priceless benefit.

Academia is full of people “bragging” about working 100 hours/week and not sleeping. Hello, toxic culture! We should strive to improve our work/life balance, not brag about lack thereof. Here are my thoughts on how to improve and celebrate work/life balance.

👇🏽A thread (1/12): Sleep (2/12): This is a key component to health and productivity that is often not prioritized. Our brains do intellectual jumping jacks all day, and we can't do that well if we are chronically tired. Remove electronics from the bedroom and get at least 7 hours or more per night.