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Mary Kay Fox
Senior Fellow
Mary Kay Fox is a senior fellow in Mathematica's Cambridge office and area leader for nutrition policy research.
Fox, who is an expert in nutrition, childhood obesity, and school food environments, is currently directing an evaluation of the Harlem Children’s Zone’s Healthy Living Initiative, an obesity prevention and treatment program being implemented in childcare centers, schools, and afterschool programs. She also directs the fourth School Nutrition Dietary Assessment study, a national study of school meal programs that is collecting data from more than 900 schools, and the FNS WIC-Medicaid II project, which is assessing the impact of participation in the WIC program on birth outcomes and Medicaid costs.
Widely published in peer-reviewed journals, Fox served on an Institute of Medicine (IOM) committee to Review National School Lunch and School Breakfast Program Meal Patterns and Nutrition Standards as well as a similar IOM committee that completed comparable work for the Child and Adult Care Food Program. Fox will soon begin work on an IOM panel that will evaluate the consequences of sodium reduction in populations. In addition, she was recently named to participate in a working group on “The B-24 Project,” which aims to evaluate the evidence base to support inclusion of infants and children under the age of 2 in The Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Fox holds a master’s of education with a concentration in nutrition from Tufts University.
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- Areas of Expertise
- Key Projects
- Professional Activities
- Publications
- Nutrition
- Dietary intakes of infants, children, and low-income populations
- Childhood obesity
- School and child care food environments
- School Nutrition Dietary Assessment Study-IV
- Evaluation of the Harlem Children’s Zone’s Healthy Living Initiative
- FNS WIC-Medicaid II Study
- Committee to review National School Lunch and School Breakfast Program Meal Patterns and Nutrition Standards, Institute of Medicine
- Committee to review Child and Adult Care Food Program Meal Requirements, Institute of Medicine
- Committee to assess the consequences of sodium reduction in populations, Institute of Medicine
- Peer Reviewer, Journal of Nutrition and Journal of the American Dietetic Association
- "Characteristics and Dietary Patterns of Healthy and Less-Healthy Eaters in the Low-Income Population" (February 2012)
- "The Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study 2008: Study Design and Methods." Journal of the American Dietetic Association (December 2010)
- "Food Expenditures and Diet Quality Among Low-Income Households and Individuals" (July 2010)
- "Improving Food Environments in Schools: Tracking Progress." Journal of the American Dietetic Association (July 2010)