Food allergies affect 26 million adults and 5.6 million children under 18 in the U.S. Transitioning to college could be challenging for college students, since they are responsible to self-manage their food allergies. The food choice study will: 1) investigate factors that influence the food choice behaviors among college students with food allergies; 2) explore attitudes, behaviors, and dining experiences related to food choice behaviors of college students with food allergies; 3) Identify how quality of life of college students is affected by food allergies. In the second study related to menu design, an eye-trackers will be used to develop a prototype of a restaurant menu, in which food allergens can be identified by consumers with food allergies.

Type 2 diabetes is epidemic in many parts of the world. Most treatments for diabetes either enhance the amount of insulin that is secreted from the pancreas and/or increase the body’s sensitive to the insulin that’s is there. Interestingly, the hormone leptin, acting in the brain appears to normalize blood glucose concentration during diabetes independent of insulin. We are performing experiments to determine the mechanism by which leptin administration normalizes blood glucose concentrations independent of insulin. This potentially could point to new strategies or therapies for the treatment of diabetes.

This study will present a ranking of US hospitality programs based on student-generated teaching evaluations of faculty available in ratemyprofessor.com. Course related variables such as subject and level of offering, faculty related variables such as gender, ethnicity, and international orientation, and program related variables such as type and location (business, education, human sciences, etc.) and university related variables such as type (public or private), location (urban, suburban, or rural) and enrollment will be considered to find patterns of underlying differences in student evaluations. Additionally, a content analysis will be conducted to assess compliments, complaints, and concerns from these student evaluations.

This project will compare the anti-trafficking corporate strategy of major hotel chains with those of peer-to-peer accommodations such as Airbnb, Homeaway and VRBO. The research study will be multi-method consisting of qualitative and quantitative data collection and will entail the collection of publicly available anti-trafficking corporate strategies, policies, or plans as well as lawsuits. The results of the qualitative phase will then be used to design an experimental study to test whether or not hotel staff and peer-to-peer accommodations hosts and employees can identify signals or triggers in a reservation or during a guest stay that would be indicative of trafficking.

Learn and apply methods used in community-based nutrition research in a study to increase nutrition education and cooking skills of young adults living in Lee County Youth Development Center.

Specific aims: 1) To complete a needs assessment to guide the future development of a trauma-informed weight management intervention program for college-aged obese women with a history of trauma who are interested in addressing weight management issues; 2) To collect preliminary data to use for an R21 proposal to develop and test a trauma-informed weight management intervention program for the target population. The long-term goal of this project would be to develop and test a multi-modal weight management program intervention specifically tailored to the target population who may need additional support through the program components.