a lot of extra weight. The study—called Home Plate—offers cooking classes to parents. Dr. Virudachalam says she wants to help prevent obesity so that people can lead healthier lives. When people carry too much weight, it can lead to other problems, such as diabetes and heart disease. Preventing obesity isn’t easy, she says. “Obesity is a complicated disease,” she says. “There isn’t just one reason why children and adults become obese.” People need safe places to exercise. They need stores in their neighborhoods that sell fruits, vegetables, and other healthy foods. And they need the cooking skills to prepare meals at home. Dr. Virudachalam says scientific research has shown that many Americans don’t cook dinner at home regularly. Dr. Virudachalam says that cooking meals at home can be healthier than eating out because you can control what ingredients are in the food. You can cut down the amount of sugar and fat in the recipe. You can include more tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, and other nutritious ingredients. She herself was lucky, Dr. Virudachalam says. Her parents made sure she developed healthy habits. Even though they had to travel an hour Senbagam Virudachalam Investigating home cooking as a recipe for health One of the hardest experiences of Dr. Senbagam Virudachalam’s childhood came when her 15-month-old sister was diagnosed with cancer. Their parents had immigrated to the United States from India. Although they didn’t have relatives nearby to help them, their community and the medical team who treated her sister became like an extended family. They comforted everyone and helped her sister recover. “It was really inspiring to me how caring they were,” says Dr. Virudachalam, who was 5 years old at the time. “So I wanted to be able to help children and families in challenging situations.” She decided to become a pediatrician. Today, she sees her young patients at a clinic run by Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). She also conducts scientific research at CHOP’s PolicyLab and Center for Pediatric Clinical Effectiveness. In her current study, Dr. Virudachalam is trying to find out whether eating home-cooked meals instead of restaurant food promotes health- ier diets and helps prevent toddlers from gaining 28