For help reaching an expert on deadline, please contact UB's media relations team at 716-645-6969 or ub-news@buffalo.edu.

Note to members of the news media:

The correct name of the university is “University at Buffalo,” not “University of Buffalo.”

Xiaozhong Wen

Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo

AREAS OF EXPERTISE:

Diet and health in infants and young children, origins of obesity, smoking cessation during pregnancy

Xiaozhong Wen can speak to the media about issues related to obesity in infants and young children, including lifestyle factors during pregnancy, such as maternal diet and smoking. His work focuses on the developmental origins of obesity, including epigenetics.

Wen’s research centers on infant diet and health, toddlers and self-regulation and how maternal behaviors during pregnancy, such as smoking, may affect health risk factors, including obesity, in babies.

His studies have shown that preschoolers whose parents have rules about what their children can and cannot eat have healthier eating habits than those raised without such rules, and that dietary patterns of children vary according to the racial, ethnic and educational backgrounds of their mothers.

His team has recently developed a multi-component behavioral intervention to help pregnant women quit smoking successfully, which could improve birth outcomes and also prevent childhood obesity.