Department or Service
Department of Pediatric Medicine, Academic Medicine
Specialty
Academic Medicine
Primary Location
Texas Children's Hospital
Contact Information
1102 Bates St.
Room 2034
Houston, TX 77030
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Phone: 832-822-2778
Teresia Margareta O'Connor, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, Section of Academic General Pediatrics - Baylor College of Medicine
Medical School
University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, Doctor of Medicine, 1999
Internship
Baylor College of Medicine, Pediatrics, 2000
Residency
Baylor College of Medicine, Pediatrics, 2002
From Dr. O'Connor
My research focuses on understanding how parents influence their children’s obesity-related behaviors through the framework of parenting styles and parenting practices in order to identifying strategies to best prevent and treat childhood obesity. For example, our recent work (1) helped identify how food related parenting practices used in combination effect low-income preschool children’s fruit and vegetable intake, in order to develop a more comprehensive measure of food parenting; (2) investigated health and nutrition professionals’ perceived effectiveness of parenting practices intended to promote fruit and vegetable intake in children, across 6 countries; and (3) assessed the feasibility of an Obesity “Prevention Plus” intervention (Helping HAND ) for pediatric primary care clinics targeting children 5-8 years old, along with their parent’s behavior-specific parenting practices. I am the PI on an on-going NICHD funded project (1 R21 HD060925) to investigate parenting and neighborhood environmental influences on Hispanic preschool children’s physical activity.
Professional Organizations *
- American Academy of Pediatrics
Fellow - International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity
Member - Academic Pediatric Association
Member - Texas Pediatric Society Obesity Committee
Committee Member
Selected Publications
Frankel, LA., Hughes, SO., O'Connor, TM., Power, TG., Fisher JO., Hazen NL., Parental influences on children’s self-regulation of energy intake: Insights from developmental literature on emotion regulation. Journal ofObesity 2012 327259. Epub. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.ezproxyhost.library.tmc.edu/pmc/articles/PMC3321464/?tool=pubmed
O’Connor, T., Hilmers, A., Watson, K., Baranowski, T., Giardino, A., Feasibility of an Obesity Intervention for Pediatric Primary Care Targeting Parenting and Children: Helping HAND. Child: Care, Health and Development 2011 e-published online ahead of print. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2214.2011.01344.x
O’Connor, T., Watson, K., Hughes, S., Beltran, A., Hingle, M.,Baranowski, J., Campbell, K., Juvinyà Canal, D., Pérez Lizaur, A.B., Zacarías, I.,González, D., Nicklas, T.,Baranowski, T. Health and nutrition professionals’ perceived effectiveness of fruit and vegetable parenting practices across six countries. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 2010.110(7):1065-1071
O’Connor, T., Jago, R., Baranowski,T. Engaging parents to increase youth physical activity: A systematic review. American Journal of Preventive Medicine 2009.37(20) 141-149. PMID: 19589450 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19589450.
O’Connor, T., Yang, S., Nicklas, T. Beverage intake among preschool children and its effect on weight status. Pediatrics, 2006. 118: e1010-e1018. PMID: 17015497 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez.
* Texas Children's Hospital physicians' licenses and credentials are reviewed prior to practicing at any of our facilities. Sections titled From the Doctor, Professional Organizations and Publications were provided by the physician's office and were not verified by Texas Children's Hospital.
