Dr. Mariane De Oliveira is an Adjunct Faculty member teaching Biostatistics to undergraduate students at Boston College and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Boston College School of Social Work. Her research focuses on intergenerational determinants of child and family health, particularly the role of fathers’ preconception health and parenting practices in shaping children’s growth, nutrition, and developmental outcomes. Using large longitudinal cohort studies, including the Fathers & Families Study nested within the Growing Up Today Study, she applies advanced quantitative methods to investigate pathways linking paternal health behaviors across the life course to offspring health. Her work integrates nutritional epidemiology, developmental health, and statistical modeling, with expertise in structural equation modeling, longitudinal cohort analysis, and growth trajectory modeling using R software. She has also contributed extensively to the development and validation of international growth references and nutritional assessment protocols for multiethnic populations, including the MULT growth references for children and adolescents
What is a paper you recently published? What excited you about the question you answered?
One recent paper I published examined whether men’s diet quality patterns before becoming fathers predict the food parenting practices they later adopt in fatherhood. Using longitudinal data, we found that fathers who increased Healthy Eating Index scores across adolescence were more likely to engage in supportive food parenting practices, particularly structure-related practices such as modeling healthy eating, limiting unhealthy foods, and monitoring children’s intake of sweets and snacks. They were also less likely to use coercive control practices, such as using food as a reward or to manage children’s emotions. What excited me most about this research was the opportunity to study fatherhood from a life-course perspective. Much of the literature on child nutrition focuses primarily on mothers or on behaviors occurring only after children are born. Our findings suggest that adolescence may represent a critical preconception window, where men’s own health behaviors can shape not only their future dietary habits, but also the parenting practices they adopt years later as fathers. I also found it exciting because it highlights the importance of including fathers in nutrition and public health research and suggests that promoting healthy behaviors early in life may have intergenerational benefits.
De Oliveira, M.H., Lo, B.K., Lee, M.M. et al. Men’s preconception diet quality patterns predict supportive food parenting practices: evidence from a longitudinal cohort study. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act (2026). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-026-01914-z
How do you explain your current research/job to friends and family?
I usually say that I study how parents’ habits and family environments are related to children’s health, especially children’s dietary intake and growth. A large part of my work focuses on fathers, because they are often understudied in child nutrition research. For example, I study whether dietary patterns that men develop during adolescence are associated with the way they interact with their children around food years later, and how these factors relate to children’s fruit, vegetable, fast-food, and sugar-sweetened beverage intake.
How would you describe your program of research and its significance?
My research program focuses on intergenerational determinants of child and family health, particularly the role of fathers’ preconception health, parenting practices, and family environments in shaping children’s nutrition and growth trajectories. I combine longitudinal cohort data with advanced quantitative methods to study how health behaviors across the life course be associate with parenting and offspring outcomes. The significance of this work is that it expands the traditional focus on mothers by highlighting fathers as important contributors to child health. It also emphasizes that health promotion before parenthood may have benefits that extend across generations.
What inspired you to pursue a career in research? What drives you to continue in this path?
I was always interested in understanding why health inequalities emerge and how early-life experiences shape health across the lifespan. During my training in public health nutrition, I became especially interested in growth, nutritional assessment, and the social and family factors that are associated with health outcomes. What continues to motivate me is the possibility that research can contribute to improving public health policies and family well-being. I also enjoy the process of answering complex questions using data and translating findings into practical implications.
What is a project you’re working on right now that you’re excited about?
Building on previous research showing that fathers who increased Healthy Eating Index scores across adolescence were more likely to engage in supportive, structure-based food parenting practices and less likely to use coercive control practices during fatherhood, I am currently working on a complementary mediation study examining whether these paternal diet quality patterns during adolescence are associated with children’s dietary intake through food parenting practices and family meal frequency. Preliminary findings suggest that fathers in the Increasing Healthy Eating Index pattern were more likely to have children with higher vegetable intake (>1 time/day), partly mediated by structure-based food parenting practices. These findings suggest that health behaviors established long before parenthood may shape not only future parenting practices, but also children’s dietary intake across generations. I am also excited about another related project examining bidirectional associations between fathers’ food parenting practices and children’s dietary intake over time. In this study, we found reciprocal associations between higher paternal structure-based food parenting practices and children’s vegetable intake (>1 time/day) and fast-food intake (<1 time/week), as well as between lower coercive control practices and children’s sugar-sweetened beverage intake (<1 time/week). These findings suggest that fathers may shape children’s dietary intake, while children’s dietary intake may also shape how fathers interact with them around food over time. Together, these studies support a more dynamic and intergenerational perspective on family nutrition and child health.
Given unlimited funding, what would your dream research project be?
With unlimited funding, I would love to develop a large international longitudinal study following individuals from adolescence into parenthood and then following their children across childhood and adolescence. The goal would be to better understand how health behaviors and family environments across generations are associated with children’s growth, dietary intake, and long-term health trajectories. I would be especially interested in collecting detailed information on fathers, since they are still underrepresented in many child health studies. I would also want to combine nutritional, behavioral, social, and biological data to better understand how family dynamics and early-life experiences are linked to child health over time.
Another important aspect of my dream project would be including diverse populations from different socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, and cultural backgrounds. Many existing growth references and family health studies are based on limited populations, so I think it is important to build research that is more globally representative and applicable across different contexts.
How do you envision your research impacting public health policies or practices?
I hope my research contributes to greater recognition of fathers as important contributors to child and family health. I also hope this research supports a more life-course perspective in public health, recognizing that health patterns established early in life may have implications across generations. For researchers hoping to translate their work into policy or practice, I think it is important to communicate findings in a clear and accessible way and to collaborate with communities, healthcare professionals, and policymakers so that research addresses real-world needs.
What is the most important advice you received as an early career researcher?
One of the most important pieces of advice I received as an early career researcher was that research only has real impact if people outside academia can understand and use it. That advice changed the way I think about science and communication. Since then, I have tried to focus not only on conducting rigorous research, but also on translating findings into language that is accessible to families, practitioners, and policymakers. I think this is especially important in public health research, where the goal is ultimately to improve people’s lives and inform real-world decisions.
What is your #1 piece of advice for emerging early career researchers?
My number one piece of advice for emerging early career researchers is to learn how to communicate your research beyond academia. Conducting strong research is essential, but it is equally important to explain why the work matters in a way that is accessible to different audiences, including communities, practitioners, and policymakers.
What’s something you have learnt about your research or yourself that was unexpected?
One unexpected thing I learned through my research was how important fathers are in shaping family health and children’s dietary intake. As I started working more closely with father-focused data, I realized there were many important family dynamics and health patterns that had received much less attention in the literature than I initially expected.
What achievement are you most proud of in your research journey so far? (And why?)
One achievement I am especially proud of is developing a line of research examining how men’s preconception health during adolescence may be related to family health and children’s dietary intake years later, particularly related to parenting practices.
What is a challenge have you faced as an early career researcher?
One challenge I faced as an early career researcher was learning how to work in interdisciplinary teams, where researchers from different fields often approach the same question in very different ways. Over time, I learned the importance of communication, flexibility, and being open to different perspectives. I found that some of the strongest research comes from combining ideas across disciplines, and that clearly communicating research to different audiences is an essential skill.
What skills do you think have been most instrumental in your work?
I think the skills that have been most instrumental in my work are research methods, statistical and analytical skills, and the ability to work across disciplines. Much of my research involves large longitudinal datasets and advanced quantitative methods, so having a strong analytical background has been essential.
