Emily Oster on nutrition, research, and the challenge of identifying healthy habits.

Whether we’re thinking about parenting, pregnancy, or public health, Brown economist Emily Oster [https://watson.brown.edu/people/faculty/oster] likes to challenge conventional wisdom. One of Oster’s most recent papers, posted at the National Bureau of Economic Research, is about a subject that’s full of conventional wisdom: the American diet [https://www.brown.edu/research/projects/oster/sites/brown.edu.research.projects.oster/files/uploads/OsterBehavioralSelection_December2018.pdf]. In it, Oster challenges how doctors and scientists create those studies we read about in the newspapers -- the ones that tell us that kale is good, sugar is bad, and red wine is somehow...both. On this episode of Trending Globally, host Sarah Baldwin spoke with Oster about where she finds inspiration for her research, what it’s like growing up in a family of economists, and how she first decided to focus her attention on science and nutrition. You can read a transcript of this episode here: [https://watson.brown.edu/files/watson/imce/news/podcast/trending-globally/transcripts/E75_Emily%20Oster%20_mixdown.pdf]