KU Center for the Advancement of Research on Eating Behaviors

Hi! I’m Kelsie Forbush, director of Center for the Advancement of Research on Eating Behaviors at the University of Kansas. We've had a big year, and I'd love to share with you what we've been working on as we work to improve lives through better understanding of eating disorders. 

We became an official research center. CARE is now formally recognized as a research center within the University of Kansas Life Span Institute. This is exciting news because it means more resources and support behind our mission to better understand eating disorders and improve how they are treated. 

We're training more people to help. Thanks to a $715,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health, we are now training people outside of traditional therapy settings to support individuals dealing with eating concerns. We're also studying whether coaching makes a difference for everyone, or whether some people do just as well with other types of support. This research could help ensure that people get the right level of care for their needs. 

Our tools are reaching more people. A screening tool our team developed — which helps identify when stress and eating habits may be a concern — is now being used at other universities. We also published a new tool that helps treatment providers track how their clients are doing over time, spot early warning signs, and make better decisions about when someone is ready to step down from care. 

We hope you enjoy this look at all we’ve been able to do. We are grateful to all who have supported our research — from study participants who give their time to those who donate financial resources. We appreciate those who make it possible to turn research into real help for real people. None of this happens without you. 

With gratitude, 

Kelsie Forbush 
Director of the Center for the Advancement of Research on Eating Behaviors (CARE)

Did you know that serving in the military may increase the likelihood of developing an eating disorder? The combined stress, cultural norms, and body mass index standards are among the risk factors for eating disorders that directly impact service members and veterans. 

“Studies show that eating disorders have increased in the military as much as 44% between 2013 and 2016, suggesting an urgent unmet military health care need,” said Kelsie Forbush, CARE director and the lead researcher on the project. 

However, many eating disorder screening tools do not work effectively in military populations. The military has a larger male population that may not identify with stereotypical eating disorder screenings, which tend to focus on a female perspective. Treatment gaps for veterans and active-duty service members also contribute to unmet healthcare needs for eating disorders.

Researchers at CARE have been working to improve mental health for active military service members with funding from U.S. Department of Defense. Their work has included developing the Brief Assessment of Stress and Eating, or BASE, the first eating disorder screening tool specifically for military personnel and veterans. The study is in its second year and includes contact with more than 2,000 military service members every six months.

"We have an excellent opportunity to help military members with eating disorders through this work,” Forbush said.

Our focus is on helping service members and veterans receive necessary support. By understanding military-specific risks and behaviors, we can improve eating disorder screening and prevention. 

Follow our work supporting military mental health on our website.

Latina women face distinct challenges related to body image and eating disorders. These challenges, shaped by both culture and family, often go overlooked. Not only does this make it harder to screen for eating disorders; it also makes treatment less effective.

Our researchers at CARE have worked to better understand the experiences of Latina women through in-depth interviews about their culture, food, family and self-identity. We identified important themes to help in the development of a culturally grounded program to prevent eating disorders. These themes are: 

 A better understanding of Latina women has informed the creation of BELLA, a mobile health application that has shown promising results in initial testing. We are working on increasing the scale of the program to promote positive body image and reduce the risk of eating disorders among Latina women.

You can read about our initial findings in this article, which describes the experiences reported by Latina women in our study. 

Explore our research and learn more about our current studies.

As the associate director of our center, I have my hands in a little of everything, including being the “boots on the ground” for  overseeing the breadth of ongoing projects we have within the center and providing trainings in diagnostic assessments and eating disorder care. This includes training and supervising coordinators and graduate students for our eating disorder treatment trials. I really enjoy these opportunities for mentorship and training new scientists and clinicians. I’m also particularly excited to be conducting a pilot study on a novel mobile-health intervention I developed for treating binge eating through a circadian lens.  

My graduate training is where I identified a passion for exploring mechanisms that drive eating disorder behaviors, bringing me to my interest in circadian rhythm disruptions and their role in the onset and maintenance of eating disorder behaviors. As a field, we do not currently tackle circadian rhythms in eating disorder treatments, which is where some of my current work comes into play.  

KU CARE research targets eating disorders. Crimson & Blue magazine  

CARE designated as a center at the Life Span Institute. KU Life Span Institute 

College students with eating disorders face a 'treatment desert.’ Lawrence Journal World 

We’re excited to share that we will be the featured center for the Life Span Institute during One Day One KU. This annual giving event brings the entire University of Kansas community together for 24 hours to create an impact greater than any one of us could do alone.

The big day starts at noon April 28 and runs through noon April 29. You also have the option to give now ahead of the campaign and it will count toward the total for CARE. Support will help us train the next generation of eating disorder researchers and clinicians as we work to reach more people, and bring hope to individuals who might otherwise fall through the cracks.

You can learn more about us and our hopes for the future in the video below.

"One of the things I love about KU and Kansans is that we don't avoid hard problems. We don't look away. We lean in. We roll up our sleeves and we get to work."

Kelsie Forbush, CARE director

Did someone forward you this email? You can sign up here to receive it quarterly.

The University of Kansas prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, national origin, age, ancestry, disability, status as a veteran, sexual orientation, marital status, parental status, gender identity, gender expression, and genetic information in the university’s programs and activities. Retaliation is also prohibited by university policy. The following person has been designated to handle inquiries regarding the nondiscrimination policies and procedures and is the Title IX Coordinator for all KU campuses: Associate Vice Chancellor for the Office of Civil Rights and Title IX, civilrights@ku.edu, Room 1082, Dole Human Development Center, 1000 Sunnyside Avenue, Lawrence, KS 66045, 785-864-6414, 711 TTY. Reports can be submitted by contacting the Title IX Coordinator as provided herein or using the Title IX online report form and complaints can be submitted with the Title IX Coordinator or using the Title IX online complaint form.