Dr. Goldfield is a Senior Scientist at the CHEO Research Institute with the Healthy Active Living & Obesity (HALO) Research Group, and Professor of Pediatrics in the Faculty of Medicine, and cross-appointed to the Schools of Psychology, Human Kinetics, and Population Health at the University of Ottawa. He is also an Adjunct Research Professor at Carleton University and 3 other universities. Dr. Goldfield is also a registered clinical psychologist who provides psychological services to children, adolescents and adults in the community. He began the childhood obesity research program at the CHEO Research Institute in 2003 and is a founding member of HALO. He has held an Endowed Scholar Award from the CHEO Volunteer Association Board, a New Investigator Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and won an Award of Excellence as Outstanding Research Mentor from the CHEO Research Institute. He serves on the editorial board of several peer-reviewed journals in his field. Dr. Goldfield’s main research areas focus on the role that physical activity, screen time, biological and psychosocial factors play in the regulation of eating behaviour, body weight, and mental health among children and youth. In addition to behavioural and psychological approaches, his research program evaluates pharmacological interventions for the treatment and prevention of obesity and related complications. Dr. Goldfield has published over 150 scientific papers, has an h-index of 35, and his published research has been cited more than 4,700 times according to Scopus. Dr. Goldfield has also given over 150 scholarly presentations.
Related News
Research Projects
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Heavy social media use and psychological distress among adolescents: the moderating role of sex, age, and parental support
04/07/2023
The current study is a secondary data analysis of the 2019 Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey (OSDUHS) (46). This representative cross-sectional school-based survey included Ontarians in grades 7–12 from English and French public and Catholic schools (n = 14,142). Two hundred sixty-three schools from 47 public and Catholic school boards participated in this survey. Ethics approval was obtained from the Research Ethics Boards of the Center for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH; 029/2016), York University (e2014-099), and 47 public and Catholic school boards’ research review committees. Participation in the survey required active parental written consent and student assent. The survey was completed anonymously during school time.
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Longitudinal associations between different types of screen use and depression and anxiety symptoms in adolescents
28/04/2023
Higher screen time was longitudinally associated with higher anxiety and depression symptoms at one-year follow-up in adolescents. Time-change associations between screen usage and depressive and anxiety symptoms were observed. Also, associations differed based on sex and screen type, whereby greater increases in screen use predicted greater emotional distress. Findings from this prospective analysis suggest that screen time is an important determinant of anxiety and depressive symptoms among adolescents. Future studies are recommended to help inform programs promoting screen time reduction with a goal to enhance adolescents’ mental health.
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The effects of reducing social media use on body esteem among transitional-aged youth
01/02/2023
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Appearance satisfaction mediates the relationship between recreational screen time and depressive symptoms in adolescents
18/07/2022
Recreational screen time, including activities that involve using a screen for leisure (i.e., computer, videogames, television; U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2018) is a popular and predominantly sedentary pastime. Epidemiological data show that many adolescents exceed the <2-hr daily screen time recommendation based on the Canadian 24-hr Movement Guidelines for Children and Youth (Tremblay et al., 2016) by more than 6 hr each day (Leatherdale & Harvey, 2015). As screen time activities exert increased influence on adolescents' lives, it has spurred researchers to examine the implications of their use. High levels of recreational screen time activities have been associated with a host of physical health issues, such as sleep problems (Cabre-Riera et al., 2019), health risk behaviors, (i.e., illicit drug use; Rücker, Akre, Berchtold,& Suris, 2015) and risk of overweight status and obesity (Fang, Mu, Liu, & He, 2019). Alarmingly, one additional hour of daily screen time has been linked to 172 additional servings of beverages high in sugar and 368 additional servings of ‘unhealthy’ snack foods each year among adolescents (Hicks, Jillcot Pitts, Lazorick, Fang, & Rafferty, 2019).
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Sociodemographic Factors Associated With Objectively Measured Moderate- to Vigorous-intensity Physical Activity in Adults With Type 2 Diabetes: Cross-sectional Results From the Canadian Health Measures Survey (2007 to 2017)
05/07/2022
Sociodemographic factors are strongly associated with levels of MVPA in adults with type 2 diabetes. Sociodemographic information should be routinely collected by clinicians and used to inform more tailored and effective interventions for this patient population.