Bio

Susan Whiting is a distinguished professor of Nutrition. She received her PhD in nutrition from the University of Guelph and had postdoctoral training at the University of British Columbia.  After teaching at Mount Saint Vincent University for 6 years, she moved to the University of Saskatchewan, where she has been working for the past 28 years.

Susan contributes her knowledge and expertise to a wide range of national and international professional associations, expert committees, journals, and initiatives. She currently sits on the steering committee of the Canadian Health Measures Survey, the Scientific Advisory Board of Osteoporosis Canada, and the International Institute for Bone Health. She also serves on editorial boards of international journals such as the British Journal of Nutrition and the Journal of Nutrition. As testament to her service, in 2012 she was awarded the Canadian Nutrition Society’s McHenry Award for Distinguished Service in Nutrition in Canada.

Research

For 40 years, she has conducted research on dietary influences on bone health, effectiveness and use of nutrient supplements, the calcium and vitamin D status of Canadians, and food security in Canada and Ethiopia.

Currently, she is part of the Linking agro-food systems and community equity for food security in Ethiopia IDRC-fundedproject, in which nutrition education is used to improve diet diversity during complementary feeding. She is also part of a team of researchers investigating fluoride toxicity in the country, with the hypothesis that higher calcium intakes will mitigate this problem. A One Health research project explores the use of egg shell as a calcium source in young children.

Closer to home and in collaboration with Drs. Lilian Thorpe and William Dust, she is examining vitamin D use in long-term care homes in Saskatchewan and evaluating the effectiveness of promoting vitamin D supplementation.

Recent Publications

  • Engler-Stringer R, Muhajarine N, Ridalls T, Abonyi S, Vatanparast H, Whiting S, Walker R. (2016) The Good Food Junction: A Community-Based Food Store Intervention to Address Nutritional Health Inequities. JMIR Research Protocols. 5(2):e52
  • Whiting SJ, JP Bonjour, W Kohrt, M Warren, M Kraenzlin. (2016) Food fortification for bone health in adulthood: a scoping review. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Mar 30.
  • Kebede A, N Retta, C Abuye, SJ Whiting, M Kassaw, T Zeru, MW Yohannes, D Zerfu, M Tessema,  MK. Malde. (2016) Minimizing bioavailability of fluoride through addition of calcium-magnesium citrate or a calcium and magnesium-containing vegetable to the diets of growing rats. International Journal of Biochemistry Research & Review. In press.
  • Mulualem D, CJ. Henry, G Berhanu, SJ. Whiting. (2016) Effect of Nutrition Education on Promoting Pulses in Complementary Feeding in Wolayita, Southern Ethiopia. Ecology of Food and Nutrition. Apr 11:1-16.
  • Wakayo T, T Belachew, SJ Whiting.  (2016)  Vitamin D Deficiency is a Risk Factor for Overweight and/or Obesity Among Schoolchildren in Central Ethiopia: A Cross-sectional Study. Nutrients.   Apr 1;8(4).
  • Hosseini Z., Whiting SJ, Vatanparast H.  (2016) Current evidence on the association of the metabolic syndrome and dietary patterns in a global perspective. Nutrition Research Reviews. Accepted.