DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHIATRY
Center for Weight and Eating Disorders

Tanja V.E. Kral, Ph.D.

Tanja V.E. Kral, Ph.D. is a Research Assistant Professor of Nutrition in Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She received her B.S. from the University of Applied Sciences at Muenster in 1998 and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Nutritional Sciences from The Pennsylvania State University in 2003.

Dr. Kral’s research interests focus on the study of human ingestive behavior in children and adults. In particular, she is interested in identifying individual differences in human eating behaviors and to elucidate factors which may promote increased energy intake and weight gain among obesity-prone individuals.

Dr. Kral has published her work in peer-reviewed scientific journals and book chapters and has presented her research at national scientific meetings. She is currently the principal investigator on a NIH-funded study which examines eating behaviors among young siblings. She also is leading a study investigating the effects of selected environmental factors on young children’s eating.

Dr. Kral can be contacted at: University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, 3535 Market Street, Suite 3031, Philadelphia, PA 19104-3309. Her email address is: tkral@mail.med.upenn.edu.

Recent publications include:

Fisher JO, Kral TVE. Super-size me. Portion size effects on young children’s eating. Physiology & Behavior, 94: 39 – 47, 2008.

Kral TVE, Berkowitz RI, Stunkard AJ, Stallings VA, Brown DD, Faith. Dietary energy density increases during early childhood irrespective of familial predisposition to obesity: Results from a prospective cohort study. International Journal of Obesity, 31:1061-67, 2007.

Kral TVE, Faith MS. Child eating patterns and weight regulation: A developmental behavior genetics framework. Acta Paediatrica Supplement, 96: 29-34, 2007.

Kral TVE. Effects on hunger and satiety, perceived portion size and pleasantness of taste of varying the portion size of foods: a brief review of selected studies. Appetite, 46:103-5, 2005.

Kral TVE, Rolls BJ. Effects of energy density and portion size: their independent and combined effects on energy intake. Physiology & Behavior, 82:131-38, 2004.