Britni Belcher
University of Southern California, CA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Children who sit for long stretches face higher risks of obesity, high blood sugar, weaker thinking skills and low mood. These risks can lead to type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), a disease in which the body stops responding well to insulin.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Physiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
sedentary behavior
type 2 diabetes
pediatric obesity
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Determine whether interrupting sitting with short bouts of moderate exercise over several days improves glucose homeostasis (blood sugar control) in 7–11-year-olds with overweight or obesity, measured by continuous glucose monitors and oral glucose tolerance tests.
- Test whether multiple days of sitting interruptions improve cognitive function in children with overweight or obesity, compared with a single sustained exercise bout or prolonged sitting.
- Determine whether multi-day sitting interruptions reduce negative affect and anxiety in at-risk children, and how these mood changes track with daily glucose responses.
More about the research
Exercise helps, but fewer than half of US children get enough of it, and activity drops further in the teen years. So a practical question matters: can short activity breaks during sitting protect children's health as well as a longer workout?
Why it matters
Rates of type 2 diabetes in children are rising, and so are the healthcare costs that come with it, while past obesity-prevention programs have had little success. If brief activity breaks improve blood sugar, thinking and mood over several days, they could give schools and families an easier prevention strategy for children with overweight or obesity than sustained exercise.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Talia Hitt
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Test whether timing an oral glucose tolerance test to match each person's chronotype changes measured glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity, in a randomized crossover study of late and non-late chronotype youth aged 17–23.
Kendra Vehik
University of South Florida, FL·Public Health & Epidemiology
Identify early-life plasma microRNA signatures that predict future type 1 diabetes, using longitudinal blood samples from the TEDDY cohort of genetically at-risk children.
Raphael Fraser
University at Buffalo, NY·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether combining continuous glucose monitoring, values clarification and weekly remote coaching improves patient activation, shared decision-making and treatment satisfaction, in a randomized trial of 300 adults aged 65+ with HbA1c of 9% or higher.
The school
University of Southern California: 47 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 882 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.