Dunkin’ into Nutrition
MED’s Caroline Apovian joins the new Dunkin’ Brands Nutrition Advisory Board.
Dunkin’ Brands, the parent company of Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins, has never been known for its nutrition. Caroline M. Apovian, a School of Medicine associate professor of endocrinology, diabetes, and nutrition, wants to help change that.
Apovian and six other health and nutrition experts recently were named to the Dunkin’ Brands Nutrition Advisory Board, which will meet several times a year to advise Dunkin’ Brands on how to provide healthier food and to review the company’s choices. Dunkin’ Brands announced the formation of the board in August.
“I feel that Dunkin’ Donuts is putting in a concerted effort to provide healthier food to the public, and I wanted to be a part of that,” Apovian says. “They seem to be doing what is necessary to make food healthier and more nutritious and to help reverse the obesity epidemic.”
Apovian’s goal on the board is to create “default” healthy products. She wants to make all the company’s offerings healthier, so that even people who know nothing about nutrition, she says, will find healthier choices than are now available when they go into a Dunkin’ Brands store.
Apovian has experience in fighting obesity: she is the director of the Nutrition and Weight Management Center and codirector of the Nutrition and Metabolic Support Service, both at Boston Medical Center, and the director of clinical research at the obesity research center at Boston University Medical Center.
Rebecca McNamara can be reached at ramc@bu.edu.