Deborah Kennedy is the CEO of Culinary Rehab®, which establishes nutrition and culinary competencies, modular learning opportunities, prescriptive delivery methods and outreach programs for various populations. She received her PhD in Nutrition from Tufts University, Friedman School of Nutrition, Science and Policy. Dr. Kennedy has studied food from an early age – learning to cook at age 4, working as a chef in Canada, obtaining her doctorate in nutrition, authoring three books on children and nutrition, and being a leader in culinary medicine. Her raison d’être is transforming lives through food.
For the past two decades, Dr Kennedy has developed health and wellness programs, research and clinical centers, not-for profits and community outreach programs that focus on nutrition. Her Build Healthy Kids© program reached over 210,000 elementary students a month and was shown to be effective in improving BMI. Dr Kennedy has worked at Tufts University, the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center for Aging, Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, Babies and Children’s Hospital at NY Presbyterian, Cornell University and Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. She has been on the front line of the emerging new field of science- Culinary Medicine where she served as the 1st Chair of Best Practices with the Harvard-CIA led national Teaching Kitchen Collaborative.
Dr Kennedy is certified in value-based medicine and serves on the board of Chefs for Humanity. She is the author of Food-Parenting, Beat Sugar Addiction for Kids, and The Picky Eating Solution, and is working on a Culinary Medicine Textbook. In her role as CEO of Culinary Rehab®, she is currently creating culinary medicine programs and classes for individuals, hospitals, and communities, in addition to building culinary medicine courses for higher education institutions.