Ashima K. Kant

Professor and Chair, Department of Family, Nutrition, and Exercise Sciences

Biography
Dr. Kant received a PhD in nutrition from the University of Maryland, College Park. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship in nutrition at the Johns Hopkins University, and a cancer prevention fellowship at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health. The focus of Dr. Kant’s research is to understand the role of diet in health promotion with funding from the NIH and the US Department of Agriculture.

Research Interests

Dietary patterns and their association with health

Dr. Kant was in the vanguard of researchers who thought of diet as a multidimensional exposure by examining it as an “overall diet” rather than as single nutrients or food groups. This approach to the study of diet and health associations is now recognized as the “dietary pattern” approach and has become an intensely active area of research. In ongoing research efforts, Dr. Kant developed and examined the relation of hypothesis driven indexes of overall diet quality with the risk of mortality in several large US cohorts of men and women. These studies have used data from national cohorts with longitudinal follow-up (NHANES and NHIS), a large screening cohort (BCDDP), and the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study cohort.  

Contribution of dietary attributes and meal behaviors to positive energy balance

The intent of these studies is to understand the possible contributions of two different types of dietary attributes (meal related and overall diet related) to positive energy balance. Examples of meal related attributes examined included frequency and time of eating. Attributes of overall diet included low-nutrient-density foods, energy density of diets, and water intake. Another approach to asking the question has been to examine secular trends in dietary and meal intake profiles in the US population to understand whether these dietary and meal attributes show parallel the trajectory of body weight in the US population.  

Socio-economic, regional, and geographic disparities in diet quality

These studies attempt to understand the relationship of socioeconomic position (income and education) and ethnic minority membership status with diet quality and nutritional biomarkers. We have also examined secular trends in these associations to shed light on the possible role of diet in persistence of socioeconomic and race/ethnicity and geography related disparities in the health of the US population.

Complete list of publications 

Google Scholar Profile

 Recent publications

Kant AK, Graubard BI. Self-Reported Weekend Temporal Eating Patterns of American Adults Differ From Weekday: National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys: 2015-2020 Prepandemic. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2025 Feb;125(2):188-203.e10. doi: 10.1016/j.jand.2024.07.158. Epub 2024 Jul 18. PubMed PMID: 39032606; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC11747926.

Kant AK, Graubard BI. Clock Time of First Eating Episode and Prospective Risk of All-Cause Mortality in US Adults. J Nutr. 2022 Jan 11;152(1):217-226. doi: 10.1093/jn/nxab327. PubMed PMID: 34718676; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8754512.

O’Connor SG, Reedy J, Graubard BI, Kant AK, Czajkowski SM, Berrigan D. Circadian timing of eating and BMI among adults in the American Time Use Survey. Int J Obes (Lond). 2022 Feb;46(2):287-296. doi: 10.1038/s41366-021-00983-3. Epub 2021 Oct 20. PubMed PMID: 34671108; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8799482.

Rawal S, Duffy VB, Berube L, Hayes JE, Kant AK, Li CM, Graubard BI, Hoffman HJ. Self-Reported Olfactory Dysfunction and Diet Quality: Findings from the 2011-2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Nutrients. 2021 Dec 20;13(12). doi: 10.3390/nu13124561. PubMed PMID: 34960113; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8704378.

Extramural Funding (Completed)

USDA funding

2020-38422-32255 USDA-NIFA Success and Support of Under-Represented Nutrition Students at Queens College

NYR-9700611 USDA-CSREES, National Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program

NYR-00-35200-9067 USDA–CSREES National Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program

NIH funding

R03CA081604 DIETARY UNDERREPORTING IN A NATIONAL NUTRITION SURVEY

R03CA091316 Relation of Diet Quality and Mortality

R01HL072050 Dietary pattern indexes and CVD risk factors

R21DK069413 Trends in food patterns of Americans

R03CA108274 Trends in socioeconomic position and diet relationship

R21HD060217 Trends in ethnic and socioeconomic differentials in diet quality in American children

R03AG046540 Regional dietary patterns and regional disparities in mortality in the US population

Women’s Research Fund: Dietary Patterns and breast cancer risk

Intramural Funding (PSC-CUNY) completed

PSCREG-39-453 Secular trends in food consumption patterns of American children, 1971-2004

TRADA-43-414 Meal characteristics and short-term energy intake regulation in adult Americans

TRADB-47-412 Eating away from home and risk of mortality in the US population

TRADB-49-442 Secular trends in rural urban gradients in diet quality: NHANES III to NHANES -2013-2014