Lindsay Aluquin (’24)

Lindsay Aluquin is currently in her fourth year as a student in the Nutritional Sciences Program at Penn State and is planning to graduate in spring 2024. Lindsay came to Penn State desiring to work with children and during her coursework discovered an interest in exploring behavioral and educational strategies to promote healthy eating. This interest led her to the Center for Childhood Obesity Research (CCOR), where she has learned more about parental feeding practices and how they influence child eating outcomes in children aged three to six years. After graduating, Lindsay plans to gain clinical experience as a community nutritionist before returning to school to be trained as a physician specializing in family medicine.

Lindsay currently works as an undergraduate research assistant in the CCOR with Dr. Jennifer Savage Williams and Dr. Amy Moore. The CCOR primarily focuses on interdisciplinary research investigating childhood obesity prevention programs that can be disseminated to public health and clinical practice audiences. Lindsay’s role includes collecting data in classrooms and virtually about preschool students’ eating habits and teacher-child interactions, preparing materials for data collection, and processing the data once it has been collected. Lindsay is working on her honors thesis with Dr. Savage Williams, which explores the relationship between maternal stress and maternal feeding practices in six-year-old children. She is particularly interested in distinguishing between structure-based feeding practices, like educating children and role-modeling healthy eating, and control-based feeding practices, which include restricting food or pressuring children to eat. She hypothesizes that mothers with high stress will engage in more control-based feeding practices rather than structure-based feeding practices.

Outside of research, Lindsay is the president of the Penn State Filipino Association, alumni chair of the Singing Lions, and an active member of the Presidential Leadership Academy. She also enjoys cooking, yoga, singing, and dancing.

The CSC wishes Lindsay all the best in her future academic pursuits!