Angela Alberga, associate professor in the Department of Health, Kinesiology and Applied Physiology at Concordia, has been awarded $1.3 million in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). The funding is designed to support Alberga's research, which seeks to transform how we support children and families affected by obesity in Canada.
The award includes a $1 million CIHR Implementation Science Chair in Youth Health and a $267,000 CIHR Project Grant to study the unintended psychosocial impacts of obesity treatment interventions in children and teens.
Together, these two major federal investments will help Alberga and her collaborators build more inclusive, equitable and youth-centered approaches to health care for children affected by obesity and their families.
Rethinking approaches to pediatric obesity
Over the past three decades, advances in research and clinical practice have deepened understanding of pediatric obesity. Yet Alberga says those in the field have also learned difficult lessons.
"While there have been many positive research and clinical practice advances in our understanding and management of pediatric obesity, we also got a lot of things wrong," she explains. "Unfortunately, some research, public health and policy campaigns aimed to reduce the prevalence of pediatric obesity have contributed to harm - albeit unintentionally."
These harms include body dissatisfaction, eating disorders and experiences of weight-based teasing - outcomes linked in part to society's preoccupation with body weight and thinness.
Alberga's project brings together provincial, national and international partners, including youth, caregivers, clinicians, scientific networks and organizations, to study the positive and negative effects of interventions aimed to address pediatric obesity. The researchers also plan to ensure that future programs promote overall well-being without perpetuating stigma.
"We must undo a lot of harm before we implement new evidence-based guidelines that support the health and wellbeing of children and teens - especially in equity-denied groups," she says.
Youth advisory board to guide research
A core feature of Alberga's new research chair is its emphasis on working directly with youth and families.
"Nothing about them, without them. Children and teens are not little adults - they have unique experiences and perspectives that need to be heard if we are designing research projects that ultimately affect the health care that they receive," she says.
Alberga's team will bring together a youth advisory board of teens affected by obesity who face barriers related to where they live, their resources, or their access to care, and whose perspectives are often missing from decision-making. They will guide all aspects of the research.
"About 30 per cent of children and teens have higher weights in Canada, but this percentage is not equally distributed across the country," she says. "Children from communities that have faced long-standing barriers and unfair treatment - including children living in low socio-economic conditions and children who are Black, Indigenous, or from historically marginalized and equity-denied groups - are disproportionally affected."
By engaging youth, caregivers, clinicians and community partners across the country, Alberga's work seeks to shift the national conversation toward health equity and build systems of care that empower every child and their family to thrive.
