Lindsey Smith Taillie
Professor, Department of Nutrition at UNC-Chapel Hill's Gillings School of Global Public Health
Lindsey Smith Taillie is a nutrition epidemiologist whose work focuses on designing and evaluating food policies to support healthier and more sustainable diets across the globe. She uses datasets on the food supply, food marketing, food prices, purchases, and dietary intake to evaluate the impact of a variety of laws, including sugary drinks and ultra-processed foods taxes, restrictions on unhealthy food marketing to kids, food assistance programs, and front-of-package food labels. Dr. Taillie is co-director of the Global Food Research Program and also the director the Carolina Health Collective, a cross-campus initiative focused on rebuilding trust in public health through better connections between community, scientists, practitioners, and policymakers.
Dr. Taillie currently co-leads a large multi-country project to inform and evaluate an array of healthy food policies around the world, with a focus in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. For example, one recent project involved evaluating the impact of Chile’s first-of-their kind regulations on warning labels, marketing restrictions, and school sales bans on unhealthy foods. In the US, Dr. Taillie is focused on quantifying and describing ultra-processed foods in the food supply and developing policies and interventions to reduce their consumption. She recently led a national panel of experts to develop an operational definition and policy recommendations to reduce ultra-processed foods.
Dr. Taillie also conducts controlled experiments to inform policy design. She co-created the UNC Mini Mart, an experimental store located at the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention that looks and feels like a real convenience store. She also created Lola’s, an experimental online supermarket, and uses these stores to test the impact of an array of policies on consumer food purchasing behavior. She is currently leading a project to develop and integrate artificial intelligence methods to offer consumers more personalized healthy options when they grocery shop.
A third focus for Dr. Taillie is exploring whether and how climate change and extreme weather disrupt food and water systems, affect diet quality, and increase chronic disease risk. She is currently co-leading along with colleagues from BRAC University in Bangladesh a Wellcome-Trust project to examine these questions in a large cohort study.
Dr. Taillie’s work on food policy has been covered in many major news outlets, including the BBC, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Guardian, Fox News, NPR, Washington Post, and PBS. She is the co-creator and author of the Substack newsletter, Unjunked. Dr. Taillie teaches courses on global food systems, nutrition epidemiology, and food policy. In addition to working with graduate students, she leads several experiential research internships for undergraduate students, including the Fellowship for Engaged Research in Nutrition (FERN) and the Food Labeling and Marketing Evaluation (FLAME) lab.
My “go to” comfort food is… a buttery, perfectly browned grilled cheese sandwich.
My family’s holiday favorite is… homemade pumpkin cinnamon rolls. They take all day to make but are so worth it. We also love stuffed baked French toast…clearly sweet, bread-y breakfast foods are a favorite!
My favorite food for fall is… I love orange foods in the fall: stuffed sweet potatoes, butternut squash soup, pumpkin “pie” smoothies, apple cider…and, much to my own chagrin, I also love candy corn. I don’t want to like them, but I do!
My favorite condiment or topping is… Marie Sharp’s hot sauce, by the gallon.
GFRP Publications
Peru’s front-of-package warning label policy and changes in the healthfulness of the food supply: a pre-post observational study
Authors: Jonathan Lara-Arevalo, Lorena Saavedra-Garcia, Francisco Diez-Canseco, Natalia Rebolledo, Donna Miles, Bridget Hollingsworth, Jaime Miranda, Lindsey Smith Taillie
Published in: BMJ Global Health, August 5, 2026
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Integrating Policies that Enable Minimally Processed Foods with Policies that Restrict Ultra-Processed Foods for Obesity and Noncommunicable Disease Prevention
Authors: Jonathan Lara-Arevalo, Shu Wen Ng, Melissa L. Jensen, Isabel Barbosa, Valentina Castagnari, Fernanda Mediano Stoltze, Elizabeth Orlan, Nadia Flexner, Lindsey Smith Taillie
Published in: Current Obesity Reports, July 11 2026 view full text
Adoption and Acceptability of a Fruit and Vegetable Subsidy in Low-Income Households in Urban Chile: The Bolsillo Saludable Pilot Feasibility Study
Authors: Isabel Pemjean, Daniela Montes de Oca, Jonathan Lara-Arevalo, Shu Wen Ng, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Camila Corvalan
Published in: Current Developments in Nutrition, June 13, 2026 view full text
Changes in Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Intake From Before to After Nutrition Labeling Policy Implementation: A Comparison of Mexico and the United States
Authors: Alejandra Contreras-Manzano, Sultan Alsallum, Rachel Davis, Lana Vanderlee, Alejandra Jauregui, Christine White, Virginie Drolet-Labelle, Edward Frongillo, Laura Lazaro, Simon Barquera, Lindsey Smith Taillie, James Hardin, David Hammond, James Thrasher
Published in: Preventing Chronic Disease, June 11, 2026 view full text
Beyond the body: the ultraprocessed food industry's environmental toll
Authors: Lindsey Smith Taillie, Nicholas Chartres, Kim Anastasiou, Joe Yates
Published in: American Journal of Public Health. June 3, 2026 view full text
Operationally defining and targeting ultraprocessed foods: Insights from US policy proposals
Authors: Aline D'Angelo Campos, James Krieger, Carmen Prestemon, Bridget Hollingsworth,Lindsey Smith Taillie
Published in: American Journal of Public Health, June 3, 2026
Nudging Toward Sustainable and Healthy Diets: A Randomized Trial of Young Adults
Authors: Carmen Prestemon, Anna Grummon, Sarah Frank, Checkna Diawara, Lindsey Smith Taillie
Published in: Current Developments in Nutrition, June 1, 2026
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Firm’s responses to food policies to reduce consumption of ultra-processed food and beverages: lessons from the existing evidence
Authors: Juan Carlos Salgado, Bhairavi Jayaraman, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Shu Wen Ng
Published in: Food Policy, October 31, 2025 view full text
Healthy Food Voucher Programs: Global Evidence on Structure, Implementation, and Nutrition-Related Outcomes
Authors: Jonathan Lara-Arevalo, Camila Corvalan, Isabel Pemjean, Daniela Montes de Oca, Shu Wen Ng, Lindsey Smith Taillie
Published in: Advances in Nutrition, October 1, 2025 view full text
Prevalence of ultra-processed foods and beverages in newly launched products across the Americas: a comparison between the United States and Latin American countries from 2018 to 2023
Authors: Gabriela Vatavuk-Serrati, Katie Meyer, Donna Miles, Lindsey Smith Taillie
Published in: Frontiers in Public Health, September 7, 2025 view full text
Food Waste Among Young Adults: Behaviors, Barriers, and Opportunities for Intervention
Authors: Sara Vandersip, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Anna Grummon, Carmen Prestemon, Alexandria Reimold
Published in: Current Developments in Nutrition, September 3, 2025 view full text
All the Colors of the Rainbow: Synthetic Dyes in US Packaged Foods and Beverages in 2020
Authors: Elizabeth Dunford, Thomas Galligan, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Aviva Musicus
Published in: Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, June, 24, 2025 view full text
The role of water insecurity in influencing water and sugar-sweetened beverage choices: a scoping review
Authors: Laina Ewoldt, Ana Clara Duran, Checkna Diawara, Carolina Batis, Deshira Wallace, Paul Taillie, Joshua Miller, Shuwen Ng, Ryan Cronk, Lindsey Smith Taillie
Published in: PLOS Sustainability and Transformation, May 12, 2025 view full text
The mismatch between biological needs and the modern food industry
Authors: Barry Popkin, Shuwen Ng, Lindsey Smith Taillie
Published in: Nature Food, March 10, 2025 view full text
Indonesian Adolescents’ Perceptions of Front-of-Package Labels on Packaged Food and Drinks
Authors: Wendy Gonzalez, Eny Kurnia Sari, Aang Sutrisna, Zineb Felix, Nabila Ernada, Adhika Dibyareswati, Lindsey Smith Taillie
Published in: Current Developments in Nutrition, March 8, 2025 view full text
Changes in the critical nutrient content of packaged foods and beverages after the full implementation of the Chilean Food Labeling and Advertising Law: a repeated cross-sectional study.
Authors: Natalia Rebolledo, Pedro Ferrer-Rosende, Marcela Reyes, Lindsey Smith Taillie
Published in: BMC Medicine, January 27, 2025 view full text
Perceived healthfulness, nutrient content awareness, consumption, and intention to purchase selected Ultra Processed Products among adults in South Africa
Authors: Makoma Bopape, Jeroen De Man, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Rina Swart
Published in: Advances in Public Health, January 4, 2025 view full text
Defining "high-in" saturated fat, sugar and sodium to help inform front-of-pack labelling efforts for packaged foods and beverages in the United States
Authors: Elizabeth Dunford, Donna Miles, Bridget Hollingsworth, Samantha Heller, Barry Popkin, Shu Wen Ng, and Lindsey Smith Taillie
Published in: Nutrients, December 17, 2024 view full text
Recall, understanding, use, and impact of front-of-package warning labels on ultra-processed foods: A qualitative study with mothers of preschool children in Peru
Authors: Francisco Diez-Canseco, Lizzete Najarro, Victoria Cavero, Lorena Saavedra-Garcia, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Francesca Dillman Carpentier, J. Jaime Miranda
Published in: PLOS Global Public Health, December 12, 2024 view full text
Defining “High-In” Saturated Fat, Sugar, and Sodium to Help Inform Front-of-Pack Labeling Efforts for Packaged Foods and Beverages in the United States
Authors: Elizabeth Dunford, Donna Miles, Bridget Hollingsworth, Samantha Heller, Barry Popkin, Shu Wen Ng, Lindsey Smith Taillie
Published in: Nutrients, December 10, 2024 view full text