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
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
A policy approach to identifying food and beverage products that are ultra-processed and high in added salt, sugar and saturated fat.
Authors: Barry Popkin, Donna Miles, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Elizabeth Dunford
Published in: The Lancet Regional Health - Americas, March 8, 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
Impact of nutrient warning labels on Colombian consumers’ selection and identification of food and drinks high in sugar, sodium, and saturated fat: A randomized controlled trial
Authors: Mercedes Mora-Plazas, Isabella Carolyn Aida Higgins, Luis Fernando Gomez, Marissa G. Hall, Maria Fernanda Parra, Maxime Bercholz, Nandita Murukutla, Lindsey Smith Taillie
Published in: PLOS ONE, June 10, 2024 view full text
Impact of the Philadelphia beverage tax on perceived beverage healthfulness, tax awareness and tax opinions.
Authors: Caitlin Lowery, Christina Roberto, Sophia Hua, Sara Bleich, Nandita Mitra, Hannah Lawman, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Shu Wen Ng, Laura Gibson
Published in: Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, March 9, 2024 view full text
Beverage industry TV advertising shifts after a stepwise mandatory food marketing restriction: achievements and challenges with regulating the food marketing environment.
Authors: Fernanda Mediano Stoltze, Teresa Correa, Camila Luz Corvalán Aguilar, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Marcela Reyes, Francesca Renee Dillman Carpentier
Published In: Public Health Nutrition, December 27, 2023 view full text
Understanding Whether Price Tag Messaging Can Amplify the Benefits of Taxes: An Online Experiment.
Authors: Marissa Hall, Phoebe Ruggles, Katherine McNeel, Carmen Prestemon, Cristina Lee, Caitlin Lowery, Aline D'Angelo Campos, Lindsey Smith Taillie
Published In: American Journal Of Preventative Medicine, January 7, 2024 view full text
More than a nuisance: implications of food marketing for public health efforts to curb childhood obesity
Authors: Jennifer Harris, Lindsey Smith Taillie
Published in: Annual Review of Public Health, December 18, 2025
Trends in sugar from package foods and beverages purchased by U.S. households between 2002 and 2020.
Authors: Gabriela Vatavuk-Serrati, Sarah Frank, Shu Wen Ng, Lindsey Smith Taillie
Published In: Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, October 25, 2023 view full text
Impact of taxes and warning labels on red meat purchases in a naturalistic online grocery store: A randomized controlled trial
Authors: Lindsey Smith Taillie, Maxime Bercholz, Carmen Prestemon, Isabella Higgins, Anna H. Grummon, Marissa G. Hall, Lindsay Jaacks
Published in: PLOS Medicine, September 18, 2023
view full text
The widespread presence of non-nutritive sweeteners challenges adherence to beverage guidance for children
Authors: Mariana Fagundes Grilo, Allison Sylvetsky, Lindsey Smith Taillie
Published in: Frontiers in Public Health, August 16, 2023 view full text
Food for thought of food for emotions? An analysis of marketing strategies in television food advertising seen by children in Colombia
Authors: Alicides Velasquez, Maria Fernanda Parra, Mercedes Mora-Plazas, Luis Fernando Gomez, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Francesca R Dillman Carpentier
Published in: Public Health Nutrition, August 10, 2023 view full text
OpEd: Chile's comprehensive food policy offers global lesson in tackling unhealthy foods.
Authors: Francesca Dillman Carpentier, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Teresa Correa
Published in: Health Policy Watch, August 8, 2023 view full text
Cultural and contextual drivers of triple burden of malnutrition among children in India
Authors: Shri Kanth Singh, Alka Chauhan, Santosh Kumar Sharma, Parul Puri, Sarang Pedgaonkar, Laxmi Kant Dwivedi, Lindsey Smith Taillie
Published in: Nutrients, August 6, 2023 view full text
Natural claims on sugary fruit drinks: a randomized experiment with US parents
Authors: Marissa Hall, Ana Paula Richter, Phoebe Ruggles, Cristina Lee, Allison Lazard, Anna Grummon, Isabella Higgins, Emily Duffy, Lindsey Smith Taillie
Published in: American Journal of Preventive Medicine, July 18, 2023 view full text
How pictorial warnings change parents’ purchases of sugar-sweetened beverage for their children: mechanisms of impact
Authors: Marissa Hall, Anna Grummon, Alison Lazard, T. Queen, Isabella Higgins, A. P. Richter, Lindsey Smith Taillie
Published in: International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, June 23, 2023 view full text
Design and approval of the nutritional warnings policy in Peru: Milestones, key stakeholders, and policy drivers for its approval
Authors: Francisco Diez-Canseco, Victoria Cavero, Juan Alvarez Cano, Lorena Saavedra-Garcia, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Francesca R. Dillman Carpentier, J. Jaime Miranda
Published in: PLOS Global Public Health, June 16, 2023 view full text
Restricting child-directed ads is effective, but adding a time-based ban is better: evaluating a multi-phase regulation to protect children from unhealthy food marketing on television
Authors: Francesca R. Dillman Carpentier, Fernanda Mediano Stoltze, Marcela Reyes, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Camila Corvalán, Teresa Correa
Published in: International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, May 26, 2023 view full text
Changes in children’s and adolescents’ dietary intake after the implementation of Chile’s law of food labeling, advertising and sales in schools: a longitudinal study
Authors: Gabriela Fretes, Camila Corvalán, Marcela Reyes, Lindsey Smith Taillie, Christina D. Economos, Norbert L.W. Wilson, Sean B. Cash
Published in: International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, April 4, 2023 view full text