Christine L Williams, M.D., M.P.H. 

Medical Director

Dr. Williams, Co-Director of Healthy Start, LLC, is a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, and Director of the Children's Cardiovascular Health Center in the Department of Pediatrics and Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City.  The Children’s Cardiovascular Health Center (CCHC) is a nutrition and preventive cardiology program that provides clinical evaluation and treatment for children and adolescents with lipid disorders, overweight, and the related metabolic syndrome. She is also actively involved in an NIH-funded Nutrition Academic Award grant at Columbia University aimed at enhancing the nutrition component of the medical school curriculum.

Dr. Williams has been a pioneer in developing comprehensive health education programs for pre-school children. She is the founder and co-author of the widely acclaimed the Healthy-Start Preschool Comprehensive Health Education Curriculum, and Animal Trackers an innovative Motor-Skills and Physical Activity Program for 2-5 year olds. Healthy-Start was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health during the past 8 years, studying changes in diet, cholesterol, weight, blood pressure, and nutrition knowledge in children between ages 3 and 8 years of age.

She is active in research in the areas of childhood nutrition, dietary fat and fiber intake in children, pediatric obesity prevention, preventive cardiology, heart health education for preschool and school-age children, and motor skills and physical activity, training seminars for professionals in health and nutrition services. Dr. Williams has published more than 90 scientific articles, book chapters and books, primarily in the field of child nutrition and health. She has been widely quoted in magazine and newspaper articles on issues related to child nutrition and obesity prevention, and has been interviewed on radio and television as well.

Betty Jean (BJ )Carter M.S.  

Program Director 

BJ Carter, Program Director of Healthy Start, LLC, is a skilled professional health educator and researcher who has experience writing, implementing and evaluating health and social issues projects for children and adults. She is also a Director of the Health Consulting Group, a health promotion program and project development company. Typical clients have included: Metropolitan Life and Met Life Foundation, New York Medical College, the American Health Foundation, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Save the Children, Children of Alcoholics, C. Everett Koop Foundation, Avon and Blue Cross Blue Shield of NY. 

A sample of projects, for example, include: an award winning violence prevention program for children, teens and communities for MetLife, a highly recognized smoking, alcohol and drug prevention program for children called Smart Moves, along with a prevention program for girls entitled Smart Girls, and an HIV/AIDS prevention program, Act Smart for elementary, middle school and high school - all for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. 

Her most recent project was the Child Health Initiative, Health Children Healthy Futures, a highly-recognized healthy eating and physical activity program for children age 9-13 and their parents.  The program was designed for Strang Cancer Prevention Center and supported by MetLife Foundation. The project is on going in Atlanta, Los Angeles and New York City. She currently is the Project Director of the Initiative.

She also served as the Managing Editor of two national preventive medicine newsletters, the American Health Foundation Health Letter and the C. Everett Koop Health Letter.

In addition to the numerous training seminars and presentations Ms. Carter conducts each year, she is the co-author/author of numerous articles in the lay press and peer-reviewed, professional journals. 

Ms. Carter, along with Dr. Williams, were on the original authorship team of the American Health Foundation's Know Your Body Program (KYB), a comprehensive school health education program that was supported by NCI and NHLBI. This project evaluated a multidimensional intervention strategy to reduce cardiovascular and cancer risk factors in school-aged children. Most recently, Carter was the principal author of the revised edition of KYB titled, Know Your Body 2000.

Ms. Carter was a primary developer of  the Healthy Start, Healthy Hops and Animal Trackers  programs. She is now working to promote the Healthy Start programs in a variety of preschool programs throughout the country.

Selected additional programs created by Ms. Carter include:

Your Way to Fitness.  Carter, B.J. and Williams, C.L.  Preventive Cardiology Center, New York Medical College, New York; 1990.

Triggering Positive Health Choices (A Series of Six Trigger Films and Print Materials for Young Adolescents).  Carter, B.J.  Metropolitan Life, New York; 1992.

Stay Well Series-B.J Carter, B Metropolitan Life, New York; 1990-1993

Act Smart, BJ Carter, The Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Atlanta and American Red Cross, Washington D.C.; 1994.

Cooling a Hot Situation (A Series of Violence Prevention Trigger Films for Children and Leader's Guide for Children, Adolescents and Communities.)  Carter, B.J. and Johnson, B  Metropolitan Life, New York; 1996.

Smart Girls, Carter, B.J, Johnson, B, , The Boys and Girls Clubs of America 1997.

Know Your Body, 2000 Carter, BJ American Health Foundation, 2000. Carter, B.J.

Healthy Children, Healthy Futures, Prevention Medicine Institute/Strang, 2001-2005

Lisa Hark, PhD, R.D.

Director of Nutrition Science and Education

Lisa Hark is a renowned medical nutritionist with over 20 years of experience in nutrition counseling and promoting the benefits of healthy eating in children and adults. As on-going Director of the Nutrition Education and Prevention Program at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia, she is a leading nutrition educator of medical students and doctors.

Dr. Hark is the editor-in-chief of several books including Medical Nutrition and Disease: A Case-Based Approach (Blackwell Publishing), which is now in its 3rd edition and used in many medical schools, physician assistant, nursing and dietetic programs in the US and around the world. This year, she edited Cardiovascular Nutrition: Disease Management and Prevention (American Dietetic Association) and is the author of Nutrition For Life published by Dorling Kindersley. Dr. Hark also serves on the editorial board for the Nutrition in Clinical Care Journal, The Nutrition Research Journal, and The Educator's Resource: Nutrition Educators of Health Professionals Newsletter. She has written many articles advocating the importance of nutrition education of health professionals and served as the nutrition editor for numerous web sites.

Dr. Hark speaks nationally and internationally at nutrition and medical conferences, giving presentations on pediatric nutrition, vitamin and mineral supplements, weight management, cardiovascular nutrition, diabetes, cancer prevention, pregnancy and lactation, and many other nutrition-related topics. She is often invited to serve as the keynote speaker at corporations to help employees learn how to eat well, stay healthy and live longer.

Dr. Hark directs the nutrition development and program implementation for Healthy Start and has worked with Dr. Williams and B.J. Carter for the past 10 years on numerous healthy eating and physical activity interventions.

Kerry L. Bozza-George, EdD

Director of Training

Dr. Kerry George, an author and teacher trainer on children’s health education for more than 10 years, uses her own experiences and humor to help teachers feel empowered and take control of their teaching of health education. She is the Director of Training and training development for Healthy Start.

Kerry has been involved in children’s health education since 1992. She has conducted teacher and coordinator training in 18 states and was a member of the CDC’s US Subcommittee for Health Education, and presenter at the “Medicine and You” Conference in Moscow, Russia.  

An award winning writer, Kerry was the Editor of Weekly Reader Pre-K for 6 years. She  is a contributing author for a variety of organizations and publications. Typical clients have included: St. Luke’s Center for Community Health, Strang Cancer Prevention Center, American Health Foundation, General Learning Corporation, ThinkBox, Lifetime Learning Corporation, Weekly Reader Corporation, Atlas Editions, Sun Valley Magazine.  

In an effort to prevent bullying, Kerry provides workshops for elementary and middle school aged girls on a variety of health topics, including friendship skills, communication skills, stress management and self-esteem. She is also a Board member and assistant coach for a local branch of Girls on the Run, a national running program for girls in grades 3-5.

Carolynn J. Lucca 

CEO 

Carolynn Lucca is an executive officer of Healthy Start LLC.  Her responsibilities include strategic planning, collaboration, sales and marketing and general administration. 

Before joining Healthy Start , Carolynn was Vice-President and Client Manager in the Growth and Strategies Group for Bank of America for thirteen years.  As a Client Manager she was instrumental in structuring transactions to support the growth and development of her clients, which included multi-million dollar New York corporations.  She has expertise, knowledge, and understanding of varied industries including: education, multi-media and technology, publishing, distribution, manufacturing, and not-for-profit.   

Ms. Lucca has also worked as an accountant for Deloitte and Touche in Manhattan, where she had experience interacting with numerous major corporate clients.  She currently serves on the Foundation Board for the State University of New York-Farmingdale.  

Rae Pica

Movement Specialist 

Rae Pica has been a children’s movement specialist for 24 years.  A former adjunct instructor with the University of New Hampshire, she is the author of 14 books, including the text Experiences in Movement, the Moving & Learning Series, and Your Active Child, written for the parents of children birth to eight. 

Rae is nationally known for her workshops and keynotes and has shared her expertise with such groups as the Sesame Street Research Department, the Head Start Bureau, Centers for Disease Control, Nickelodeon’s Blue’s Clues, and numerous state health departments throughout the country.  Ms. Pica  served on the task force of the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) that created Active Start: A Statement of Physical Activity Guidelines for Children Birth to Five Years.  She is also the author of “Kids in Action,” a booklet of movement activities parents can do at home with their children, sponsored by Kellogg, NASPE, and the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.

Joan T. Beer

Sales

Joan Beer received a B.S. in Education and from Tufts University, Medford, MA. She taught elementary grades in New York and Westport, Ct. schools and was active in the Westport PTA.

Joan attends health seminars provided by the World Information Transfer Organization at the United Nations, an affiliate of the World Health Organization.  In her present position at Healthy-Start, Joan is Vice President of Sales and Marketing and is an enthusiastic advocate of providing a "healthy start" for young children.