Lindsey Smith Taillie
Associate Professor, Department of Nutrition at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health
Lindsey Smith Taillie is an Associate Professor in the Department of Nutrition at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. Lindsey is a nutrition epidemiologist whose work focuses on evaluating food policy efforts in the US and globally, and how these influence disparities in diet and obesity. Current projects focus on evaluating sugary beverage taxes, front-of-package warning labels, and marketing restrictions in a number of Latin American countries, including Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, and Peru. She has also conducted a number of studies on the nutrition transition in China, including fieldwork on diet behaviors and diet assessment technology.
In the US, her research focuses on changes in marketing and labeling of unhealthy foods and beverages, their association with the nutritional profile of food purchases and disparities in food purchases, and whether marketing and labeling policies can help consumers make healthier choices, especially in vulnerable populations such as Latino and low-income parents. She also conducts nutrition epidemiology studies on food behaviors, diet intake, and obesity using large population-level datasets such as the National Health and Nutrition Survey and American Time Use Study.
Currently, Dr. Taillie is leading a RWJF-funded project to examine “nudges” to promote healthier online food purchases, such as swaps and product placement. Along with colleagues in Health Behavior, she is also leading additional studies to develop and test the impact of pictorial warning labels and taxes on sugary beverage purchases and intake among Latino parents in North Carolina. Dr. Taillie is also leading a new Wellcome Trust-funded project to examine the impact of policies to reduce red and processed meat intake as a strategy to prevent climate change and reduce non-communicable disease.
As part of these projects, Dr. Taillie has developed two experimental grocery stores. First, the UNC Mini-Mart, located at the UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, is designed to provide a real food store experience where people can buy and take home food and drinks for their families. The goal of the Mini-Mart is to be able to design and test which types of food retail policies and interventions will encourage parents to make healthier choices. Second, Dr. Taillie and colleagues from NYU and the University of Edinburgh developed an online experimental supermarket called “Lola’s Grocery,” designed to resemble one of the largest online grocery stores in the USA and includes more than 13,000 food and beverage products. Lola’s Grocery gives researchers the ability to quickly modify conditions (i.e., look at many policies) and recruit large, representative sample sizes. Dr. Taillie and colleagues are currently designing a validation study to compare Lola’s to real online store purchases and adapting Lola’s for use in Brazil, with the plan to launch an RCT in early 2022 to test the impact of Brazil’s proposed warning label on food purchases.
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
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
Designing Front-of-Package labels to inform consumers and encourage healthier food choices in Bangladesh: A qualitative study
Authors: Lindsey Smith Taillie, Ahmad Khairul Abrar, Ummay Afroza, Jubaida Akhtar, Violet Noe, Nicole Ide, Nora Abdel-Gawad, Sohel Reza Choudhury
Published in: Nutrients, November 21, 2024 view full text
Trends in availability and nutritional profile of meat-based vs meat-free menu items in 75 large chain restaurants in the United States
Authors: Anna Tucker, Megan Mueller, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Jason Block, Cindy Leung
Published in: American Journal of Preventative Medicine, October 24, 2024 view full text
“Warning: ultra-processed”: an online experiment examining the impact of ultra-processed warning labels on consumers’ product perceptions and behavioral intentions
Authors: Aline D'Angelo Campos, Shu Wen Ng, Ana Clara Duran, Neha Khandpur, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Fernanda Christon, Marissa Hall
Published in: International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, October 9, 2024 view full text
The case for mandatory – not voluntary – front-of-package nutrition labels
Authors: Lindsey Smith Taillie, Ana Clara Duran
Published in: Bulletin World Health Organization, October 1, 2024 view full text
Decreases in purchases of energy, sodium, sugar, and saturated fat 3 years after implementation of the Chilean food labeling and marketing law: An interrupted time series analysis
Authors: Lindsey Smith Taillie, Maxime Bercholz, Barry Popkin, Natalia Rebolledo, Marcela Reyes, Camila Corvalan
Published in: PLOS Medicine, September 27, 2024 view full text
Food Industry Compliance With the Display of Front-of-Package Warning Labels at the Final Phase (2020) of Chile's Labeling and Advertising Law
Authors: Natalia Rebolledo, Pedro Ferrer-Rosende, Marcela Reyes, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Camila Corvalan
Published in: American Journal of Public Health, September 26, 2024 view full text
National policies to limit nutrients, ingredients, or categories of concern in school meals: a global scoping review
Authors: Emily Busey, Grace Chamberlin, Kayla Mardin, Michelle Perry, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Francesca Dillman Carpentier, Barry Popkin
Published in: Current Developments in Nutrition, September 17, 2024 view full text
“The dollar store got it going on”: Understanding Food Shopping Patterns and Policy Preferences Among Dollar Store Shoppers with Low Incomes
Authors: Alexandria Reimold, Marissa Hall, Shuwen Ng, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Kurt Ribisl, Emile Charles, Shelley Golden
Published in: Current Developments in Nutrition, September 13, 2024 view full text
The consumption of ultra-processed foods was associated with adiposity, but not with metabolic indicators in a prospective cohort study of Chilean preschool children
Authors: Camila Zancheta, Natalia Rebolledo, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Marcela Reyes, Camila Corvalán
Published in: BMC Medicine, August 26, 2024 view full text
Estimated effects of reductions in processed meat consumption and unprocessed red meat consumption on occurrences of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, colorectal cancer, and mortality in the USA: a microsimulation study
Authors: Joe Kennedy, Peter Alexander, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Lindsay Jaacks
Published in: The Lancet Planetary Health, July 1, 2024 view full text
The impact of an eco-score label on US consumers' perceptions of environmental sustainability and intentions to purchase food: a randomized experiment
Authors: Lindsey Smith Taillie, Julia Wolfson, Carmen Prestemon, Maxime Bercholz, Laina Ewoldt, Phoebe Ruggles, Marissa Hall
Published in: PLOS One, June 27, 2024 view full text
Examining the effects of brand and licensed characters on parents' perceptions of children's breakfast cereals
Authors: Phoebe Ruggles, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Cristina Lee, Carmen Prestemon, Emily Duffy, Carlos Rojas, Marissa Hall
Published in: Appetite, June 14, 2024 view full text
National policies to limit food marketing and competitive food sales in schools: a global scoping review
Authors: Michelle Perry, Kayla Mardin, Grace Chamberlin, Emily Busey, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Francesca Dillman Carpentier, Barry Popkin
Published in: Advances in Nutrition, June 12, 2024 view full text