Aaron Fobian, Ph.D.Aaron Fobian, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology and researcher at the UAB School of Health Professions’ Nutrition Obesity Research Center, has been elected Councilor for The Obesity Society — Pediatric Obesity Section. Her term began Nov. 1, and she will serve for the next two years.
Fobian is one of only three councilors serving on the prestigious TOS-Pediatric Obesity Section board. TOS-POS is a leader in pediatric obesity research, education and advocacy.
“My goal is to advocate for pediatric obesity research and encourage collaborations among researchers in order to increase our understanding of the causes and consequences of pediatric obesity,” Fobian said.
A clinical psychologist, Fobian is interested in reducing childhood and adolescent obesity by assessing new and innovative factors that may be successful in obesity interventions. Her current research — funded by the NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and the American Heart Association Foundation — aims to identify the causal mechanism between sleep and obesity by evaluating the metabolic effects of an adolescent sleep intervention.
“Over the last 30 years, the obesity rate has tripled in children,” Fobian said. “Obesity has significant long-term negative effects on children’s health, so it is important to promote scientific efforts for prevention and treatment of this issue.”
At this year’s ObesityWeek 2017, Fobian was part of the “Wake Up! The Importance of Sleep in the Pathogenesis and Treatment of Obesity” session. Her lecture led off the series and was titled “The Effects of Sleep and Media Use Intervention on Adolescents’ Metabolism and Body Composition.”
The UAB NORC — one of only 12 in the nation — fosters a multidisciplinary approach to research examining the biological, behavioral and environmental bases for nutrition/obesity-related disorders, the consequences of these disorders, and methods for treatment and prevention.