Kofi Essel
Washington
-D.C.-
United States

Kofi Essel, MD, FAAP is a board-certified community pediatrician and general academic pediatric fellow at Children’s National Health System, in Washington, DC. Before his current fellowship, Dr. Essel earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Emory University with a focus on Human Biology/Anthropology. He later completed his medical degree from the George Washington University (GWU) School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and pediatric residency training in a select community advocacy track at Children’s National.

Dr. Essel serves as a clinical educator, researcher, author, national speaker, and pediatric community advocate. He has over 10 years of experience in nutrition and obesity education. His advocacy work and research revolves around obesity in children and food insecurity. His current research involves collaborating with multiple community organizations while developing innovative ways to maximize the prevention, management, and treatment of families struggling with obesity in underserved areas in Washington, DC. In addition, he most recently was nationally recognized for creation of an innovative curriculum to enhance pediatric trainee skills on obesity management. As well as recently assisting with developing a national toolkit for pediatric providers to better identify and screen food insecurity in their clinical settings. Dr. Essel is completing a Masters in Public Health from GWU in Epidemiology while serving as a hunger advocate at the DC Hunger Solution and the Food Research & Action Center.