Jaimie Davis

Jaimie N. Davis, PhD is a Full Professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Davis received her BS in Nutritional Sciences from UT-Austin, where she then become a practicing Registered Dietitian. She later went back and got her PhD in Nutritional Sciences from UT-Austin, and then moved to Los Angeles where she did her postdoctoral fellowship and then transitioned to faculty at The University of Southern California specializing in prevention and treatment of Childhood Obesity. Over the past 20 years, Dr. Davis’s research has focused on designing and implementing dietary and exercise interventions to reduce obesity, metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes risk factors in youth and adults. She has conducted numerous clinical, community and school-based randomized controlled trials with high-risk populations. She has over 100 peer-reviewed articles that address the effects of behaviors (both dietary and physical activity behaviors) and how changes in these behaviors impact and mediate changes in adiposity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiometabolic disease risk factors. She has served as Principal Investigator on numerous federal and foundation grants.  

Dr. Davis's research focuses on designing and disseminating nutrition, physical activity, and behavioral interventions to reduce obesity and related metabolic disorders in overweight youth, primarily for low-income minority populations.

I currently work in collaboration with my colleague Dr. Erica Gunderson at Kaiser Permanente Northern California, analyzing data from the Study of Women, Infant Feeding and Type 2 Diabetes (SWIFT). The SWIFT study is a prospective multi-ethnic cohort of 1,000 women (20-45 years) with recent GDM and screened annually for diabetes at three in-person research exams from 6-9 weeks postpartum up to two years. We showed that GDM women who reported never drinking soda at 6-9 weeks postpartum lost significantly more weight postpartum compared to GDM women who reported drinking soda 2-4 serv/wk (Davis et al. BMC Obesity 2017). Using the SWIFT study, we also showed that exclusive breastfeeding and low intake of SSBs and 100% fruit juice during the first year of life was linked to lower risk of obesity in GDM offspring at 2-5 years of age (Sarvenaz, Gunderson, & Davis, Diabetologia 2020). This preliminary data was instrumental in the renewal of our NIH R01 (2020-2025), on which I am a Co-investigator. In this R01 grant, we are collecting extensive behavioral data (i.e., dietary intake, physical activity, and sleep), anthropometric and body composition data, and cardiometabolic data, including 2-hour OGTT and metabolomic data, on the GDM mothers and their offspring at 10-year follow-up. 

We recently evaluated the effects of TX Sprouts, a one-school year gardening, nutrition, and cooking intervention, on child dietary intake and obesity parameters, using a large school-based cluster randomized controlled trial with 16 elementary schools in the Austin area (R01HL123865). We developed 18 TX Sprouts lessons; every lesson includes a taste test or cooking activity. Approximately 46% of the children had overweight or obesity, and 26% were prediabetic. Participants in TX Sprouts compared to control increased vegetable intake, reduced HbA1c, reduced LDL cholesterol, increased academic performance, improved components of the Healthy Eating Index-2015 (increased vegetables and decreased added sugar), and increased availability of healthy foods in the home. Reductions in food insecurity over one school year were correlated to reductions in triglyceride levels. This research highlights my expertise in conducting large school-based cluster RCTs, and my ability to recruit, enroll, and collect clinical and metabolic data, including blood samples and 24-hour dietary recalls, in large samples of youth. My research showcases how gardening programs can have profound effects on improving health in minority children. 

While TX Sprouts 1.0 and other garden-based school programs have been effective at improving dietary intake and health outcomes, few studies have evaluated barriers and strategies to sustaining school gardening programs. We evaluated school garden strategies that most strongly contribute to garden use and sustainability in 700 school stakeholders from 109 schools across Texas. Thriving school gardens were 3-fold more likely to have community partners, 4-fold more likely to have active garden committees, available garden curriculum, teacher training, and 12 times more likely to have adequate district and administrator support (all p values < 0.05). Qualitative research also suggests that providing stipends to teachers to serve as garden coordinators may be helpful in sustaining school garden programs; however this strategy has not been tested in an experimental design. To help schools implement and sustain gardening programs, over the past six years with substantial and ongoing funding from non-profit organizations (such as Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundation, Big Green, and Whole Kids Foundation,) Dr. Davis formed the EdEN (Educate, Evaluate, and Nutrition) Lab. The EdEN lab has developed a series of school garden-based trainings (delivered in person and virtually) to over 450 teachers, 75 administrators, and 40 GLCs from 75 elementary and middle schools across 28 school districts in Central Texas. Our preliminary data show that self-efficacy and confidence to teach in the garden increased 87% over one school year and students visited the garden an average of eight times per year after these trainings. We plan to expand and scale these school gardening trainings across Texas and the nation. I am dedicated to ensuring that schools across Texas and the Nation have the resources, training, and support needed to successfully start and sustain their school gardening programs.  

My goal is to continue to conduct nutrition and gardening research and interventions to reduce health disparities, particularly among high-risk food insecure populations. I am equally passionate about scaling and sustaining these evidence-based interventions in school and community settings across the Nation, exemplifying the translational impact of my work.