About Us
Our Mission
The Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health promotes solutions to food insecurity, poor diet quality, and weight bias through research and policy.
Background
The Rudd Center was founded in 2005 by Kelly Brownell, PhD, at Yale University, with a contribution from the Rudd Foundation. After 10 successful years at Yale, the Rudd Center joined the University of Connecticut's Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy (InCHIP) in 2015. The alignment between UConn and the Rudd Center provided a new platform for researchers to elevate their work to improve the food environment and public health. UConn’s commitment to multi-disciplinary scientific collaboration and research on health and wellness provided new and ideal opportunities for the Rudd Center to further its mission.
Why and How We Pursue Our Mission
At the Rudd Center, we believe that everyone, regardless of who they are, where they live, and what they look like, deserves the opportunity to eat healthfully. This is not the reality today. We are committed to interrupting this cycle of inequity by:
- conducting research to inform advocacy and policy
- supporting evidence-based solutions
- challenging the status quo, and
- holding the food industry, media, government, and others that affect the food environment accountable for their actions
The Rudd Center serves as a leader in building broad-based consensus to change diet and activity patterns, while holding industry and government agencies responsible for safeguarding public health. The Center serves as a leading research institution and clearinghouse for resources that add to our understanding of the complex forces affecting how we eat, how we stigmatize people with obesity, and how we can change.
The Rudd Center welcomes your support to help us continue this important work. Every donation helps fund research, outreach, and education.