Food, Nutrition, Diet
Sharing expertise on ways kids can be healthier
Karen Feldscher
July 9, 2026
Two experts from Harvard T.H. Chan School of <a href="https://healthylife7.com/cherokee-nation-distributes-1-87-million-to-2026-public-health-grant-awardees/” title=”Cherokee Nation distributes $1.87 million to 2026 public health grant awardees”>Public Health—Christina Marie Dieli-Conwright and Erica Kenney—discussed ways kids can get more exercise and eat healthier in a new video and podcast series from the Acton, Mass.-based Discovery Museum
Dieli-Conwright, whose research focuses on exercise to improve cancer outcomes, and Kenney, who studies how kids can develop healthy habits, each appeared in a series called Discovery Soundbites, which features experts talking about topics of importance to kids and families
In a segment titled “Exercise is medicine,” Dieli-Conwright, associate professor in the Department of Nutrition, encouraged families to stay active all year round—to bike and sail in the summer, for instance, and to participate in winter sports—and to try to minimize time spent using technology such as cellphones and tablets. She also advised adults to lead by example, noting that research has shown that when parents, teachers, physicians, healthcare providers, or others model healthy behavior, young people are more likely to follow suit.
She suggested trying simple ways to encourage kids to get moving, such as including them in gardening or going to a park. “Taking advantage of our green space, putting down technology, and leading by example really goes a long way,” she said
Kenney, associate professor of public health nutrition, was featured in a segment titled “Nutrition, healthy eating habits, and kids.” She said she’d like to see greater efforts to make it easier for families to access and afford healthy foods—a tall order in today’s U.S. and global food environments, which aren’t conducive to building healthy habits from childhood
“We have all these really hard-to resist, plentiful products that have been engineered to hit all of our pleasure centers and make it really difficult to stop eating,” she said. “And they’re just everywhere we go, and everywhere kids go in particular.”
She recommended that parents support healthy meals at their local school; support efforts in their community, such as food pantries, to help those with fewer reccess to phones and social media because of “the overwhelming amount of marketing for less healthy foods that kids see on these devices.”
Watch the interview with Dieli-Conwright: Discovery Soundbites: Exercise is medicine
Watch the interview with Kenney: Discovery Soundbites: Nutrition, healthy eating, and kids
About The Author
Karen Feldscher
Associate Director for News in the Office of Communications
Related Topics
Food, Nutrition, Diet
Last Updated
July 9, 2026
Featured in this article
Christina Marie Dieli-Conwright
Associate Professor in the Department of Nutrition
Erica Kenney
Associate Professor of Public Health Nutrition
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